J-BAR-J 301XX W32 x L29 90s Japanese Selvedge Jeans

Used vintage Japanese selvedge jeans in great condition. Type 1944. This particular model is from around 1998.

J-BAR-J was built on a five-dollar pair of jeans. Its founder, Mr Torisawa, found a Levi’s 501XX at a flea market on an Indian reservation in the hills outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, paid five dollars for it, and never got over indigo. Everything the label made afterwards was built on the wartime 501XX.

The denim is rope-dyed Zimbabwe cotton, spun to a custom No. 7 count and woven at deliberately low tension – which is what gives it the dry, boardy hand of a real XX rather than the softness of a modern reproduction. It is a thick cloth, so it takes longer to fade than most, and pays that back in sharp vertical fading. The hardware is Scovill throughout, and the patch is goat leather, which is why it darkens to this particular brown as it is washed.

• Mid to high-rise straight leg
• Front button fly with black-coated donut buttons
• Laurel-pattern waist button (Scovill)
• Painted arcuate stitching
• Rayon red tab
• V-stitch reinforcement
• Concealed bronze rivets (Scovill)
• Olive cotton pocket bags
• Goat leather patch, stamped Lot 301XX / MADE IN JAPAN
• Ecru selvedge with a red line, outseam pressed open
• Centre belt loop set slightly off, as on the originals
• Original chain-stitched hem

Condition note: a few small pale scuff marks sit just above the hems on both legs. Nothing torn, no repairs.

Size (actual measurement): W 32 × L 29

J-BAR-J was a niche Japanese denim brand active from the late 1990s into the early 2000s, run out of Chiba Prefecture by Mr Torisawa and sold through the mail-order shop YES J-BAR-J. It never made much, and the pieces turn up rarely, which is most of why collectors of early Japanese reproduction denim look for them. The brand and its construction are documented in MADE IN JAPAN: Nippon no Jeans (World Mook 150, April 1998).