The Best Japanese Denim

The smartest entry into Japanese selvedge: 14.8oz US-cotton denim woven in Kojima, a clean slim-straight, and fades that punch well above the price. If you want one pair to fall for raw denim, start here.

The brand that started Japanese repro denim in 1979. The SD-103 is the everyman's tight-straight — 15oz selvedge, hard-wearing, and full of the playful heritage (yes, that's a pig mascot) that began it all.

The cult classic. 15.7oz Zimbabwe-cotton selvedge with Momotaro's signature pink selvedge ID and the hand-painted 'Going to Battle' battle-stripe arcuates. Soft from day one, and it fades like a legend.

Mikiharu Tsujita helped launch the Osaka denim movement, and the 0105's soft 13.7oz Zimbabwe-cotton selvedge is his signature — a relaxed wide-straight that breaks in like butter and fades with a gentle vintage glow.

Famous for some of the highest-contrast fades in all of denim. The 3009's 14.5oz unsanforized denim rewards patience with electric blue-and-white wear patterns and razor-clean construction.

PBJ chases the deepest indigo in Japan, and the XX-013 delivers it on a slubby, texture-forward 14oz denim with a modern slim taper. Expect dramatic vertical fades and a moody blue-grey cast.

The repro purists' north star. Warehouse obsesses over vintage minutiae, and the 1001XX nails the late-'40s straight leg with slubby, characterful denim and period-correct hardware.

For the heavyweight crowd: a 21oz Osaka monster with ferocious high-contrast fades and bombproof build. A regular straight that softens into armor you'll wear for a decade.

Built like a tank for people who wear their jeans hard. 21oz of dense indigo selvedge in a slim straight — stiff as a board at first, then molded to you forever. The biker-grade workhorse.

Woven in secrecy in Tokushima on old shuttle looms, Oni's slubby, neppy 'Secret Denim' has a 3D texture like nothing else. The 622-DIZR is the gateway to the cult — irregular, characterful, impossible to fake.