VOL.1_241 CO. | Kojima, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture
0 STOCK TOKYO's new project, the "2100 Vintage Denim," is a denim meant to be passed down for 100 years, and it is made at 241 CO., a sewing factory overlooking the Seto Inland Sea.
The Kojima district in Okayama Prefecture is known as the "sacred land of denim," where Japan's first jeans were made. Its craftsmanship and meticulous finishing are highly regarded worldwide, and 241 CO. has been responsible for sewing for many renowned global brands for 30 years.
The Kojima region is a rare area in the denim industry where all processes, from upstream to midstream and downstream, are integrated. From upstream raw materials (spinning, dyeing, weaving) to midstream (cutting, sewing) and downstream (processing, washing, distressing), everything is a celebrated creation. It is very rare to find an industry with all these processes within a single prefecture, both domestically and internationally.
The close collaboration between the factory and processing plants enables the production of high-quality, stable products, and artisans inherit these traditional techniques as a community, applying them to jeans manufacturing.
Among them, a distinctive feature of the 241 factory is its in-house laboratory functionality, which ensures world-class quality and stability. All processes, from pattern making to fabric inspection, cutting, and sewing, are managed consistently.
Grateful for Japan's world-renowned technology and enduring traditions, we are collaborating with the people of Kojima to create a garment that is so meticulously detailed it feels like a luxury to wear.
This includes the meticulous attention given to each thread. We carefully select cotton threads from hundreds of types, adjusting the count and color according to the sewing parts, and considering how the indigo will fade over decades to ensure it blends beautifully with the passage of time.
For the fabric, with the aim of creating a product that can be cherished for generations to come, we have developed a fabric with overwhelming durability and a thickness of over 15 ounces. At the same time, by weaving it on old-style shuttle looms at a slow pace of 5 meters per hour with low tension, we have achieved suppleness. For the warp threads, instead of the commonly used dark navy that is almost black, we have opted for a slightly bluer indigo-dyed thread, which is adjusted to develop vertical fading as it is worn.
※Eiichi Fujii, President and CEO, full of vitality.
After numerous processes and the skilled hands of many artisans, the 0 STOCK TOKYO denim is finally unveiled.
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241 CO., Ltd.
711-0906
2-1576-93 Shimo-no-cho, Kojima, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture