1st Entry in La Dolec Vita, Japanese jeans: Present and Future

According to CScout in Japan, Tokyo’s twice yearly Japan Fashion Week (JFW) takes place from 1st September to 7th September, which is actually interesting for not so typical reasons. Instead, we give you a look at a rather technical exhibition on the denim industry in Japan, “Japan Blue,” held in conjunction with fashion week.

As you, internet reader of things Japanese are probably aware of, the country is a well-known producer of coveted, artisan jeans. The Japan Jeans Association would also like you to know that they are hard at working making your urban uniform more environmentally friendly.
Textile manufacturer Nisshinbo displayed denim fabric that incorporates discarded banana stocks (Left) while Nihonmenpu exhibited items naturally dyed with mulberry (Centre) and lavender (Right).

There was also a section highlighting the work of manufacturers to eliminate harmful waste produced during the washing and dying process. Apparently creating an average pair of jeans takes 200 liters of water, and since an average of 45 million pairs of jeans are created annually in Japan, that means 9 million tons of water are used and then discharged into rivers and oceans. Howa Co. is working on a procedure called ozone de-colorization (or more commonly, air washing) that takes advantage of the oxidizing effects of ozone (O3), produced from air, to break down and remove color from dyes with out needing water.
From the above photo, you can obvious see that the result is pretty good.

While the exhibition was limited to JFW guests, there was an additional denim display, the Denim no Mimi Project, for the public at main venue in Tokyo Midtown. Denim no mimi (denim’s ear) is the Japanese word for selvedge, the unused edge of denim woven on large looms. This project, a collaboration between Kaihara, a textile corporation, and Edwin, uses selvedge and other waste materials to create artistic installations.

More manageable waste products are available at the new Edwin Denim Galaxy that opened in April in Arakawa-ku.

Japan Fashion Week Official Webstie: http://www.jfw.jp/en/index.html


Finally, this is our first entry that we post in La Dolce Vita. We promise you guys we will try our best to give you the lastest news in the trends all round the world. We really hope that you can BE IN VOGUE and BE WITH US! =)