Levi's Heads to Japan for a High-End New Collection

Like many relationships, the one between Japan and Levi's began unremarkably enough. Just a bunch of American G.I.s off-loading their old Levi's 501s in the Japanese marketplace. It was right after WWII and supplies were scarce, so what better item to trade for than a durable piece of workwear? But then, just as it happened in America, the 501 soaked into Japan's cultural bloodstream. It became more than just workwear. It became something that spoke to a younger generation looking to break free from the traditional confines of their parents' way of dressing.

What followed was an explosion of interest in classic Americana. And at the center of it was the 501, a jean that would come to occupy a special place in Japanese fashion over the coming decades. In some cases, too special of a place. By the 1970s, prices for vintage Levi's in Japan skyrocketed, opening up a new market for domestic denim production. Starting in the late 1970s, and ramping up through the '80s and early '90s, a cottage industry of highly-skilled manufacturers blossomed—mainly in Okayama and Hiroshima—that produced high-quality selvedge denim on old 1940s-era shuttle looms imported from America. Soon denim heads all over the world took notice; the best selvedge denim was coming from Japan.

The new Blue Tab collection includes standout pieces like this indigo-hued take on the fishtail parka.

"The Japanese have such skill when it comes to denim," says Paul O'Neill, design director of Levi's Collections and the man behind a new high-end Levi's collection made entirely from Japanese fabric called Blue Tab. "They've got a great understanding of how to create beautiful fabrics, and an amazing capability when it comes to washing and construction."

Part of this expertise comes from a culture steeped in aesthetics and craftsmanship. But it also comes from a truly deep knowledge of all things 501. Tokyo, after all, is where denim obsessives like Yutaka Fujihara, who runs the famous BerBer Jin vintage shop in Harajuku (and who literally wrote the book on the Levi's 501), routinely trade in 501s dating back to the 1910s, '20s, and '30s. It's that hands-on hands-on knowledge of early 20th century craftsmanship that has given Japanese denim artisans an ability to translate the beauty and texture of vintage denim into a truly incredible modern equivalent.

Blue Tab isn't just about those archival pieces, though. It's about fusing the brand's past with contemporary style. "Blue Tab is kind of like where Levi's history meets today," says O'Neill. "You can see the DNA of Levi's, but it's starting to change. It's taken our history, but it's added modernity." Ultimately, Blue Tab represents a blurring of aesthetics between Japan and Levi's that has created something entirely new and very much of the moment. It's no longer simply about mixing Japanese craftsmanship with Levi's classics. It's about forging an entirely new chapter in this long-running relationship, a chapter in which these two old friends capitalize on what has become, after all this time, a common language.

This language plays out in a lineup that fuses both Japanese modernity and classic Levi's Americana. It isn't simply one or the other, it's both. Pieces like the Fishtail Parka, the Type I Trucker, and the slouchy three-pocket denim blazer look just as at home on the streets of Harajuku as they do on the dusty roads of Joshua Tree. It's a perfect collision of two styles that takes into account Paul O'Neill's 15 years at the helm of Levi's Vintage Clothing, as well as his countless trips to Japan sourcing fabrics and visiting factories. "I soaked up a little bit of the aesthetic and approach to design," he says of his time in the country. "It's definitely inspired my design language."

A closer look at the washed-down Scout jacket.

Seeing the collection up close, the attention to detail is impressive. Especially in the finishing, which is all done by hand at the SAAB factory in Hiratsuka Kanagawa, about an hour and a half's drive outside of central Tokyo. It's here that each Blue Tab piece is put through an array of washes and treatments to give it a lived-in look and feel that helps amplify the collection's soft, slouchiness. Employing methods like laser etching, stone washing, and hand-sanding, crisp new selvedge denim is transformed into trusted old distressed favorites. A highly detailed, hands-on approach that makes SAAB more of a time factory than anything.

To make a great pair of old jeans, though, you need to start with great denim. And Levi's accomplished this by collaborating with the famed Kaihara Denim Mill in Hiroshima for its own proprietary Japanese selvedge denim fabric, a first for the company. It's a truly beautiful fabric, with a rich inky indigo that eventually fades into a soft, powdery blue. For O'Neill, working with Kaihara on this new denim was a real career highlight—and yet another way to introduce the beauty of something old into something new.

The collection offers an array of styles that blend workwear with an elevated mentality.

"When you look at the old vintage fabrics, you see all of these irregularities," he says of the prized texture of vintage denim. "Just little naps and slubs in the fabric. We're trying to create these types of irregularities and inconsistencies to revive that beauty in the denim."

The real star of the show, of course, is the Blue Tab 501, an incarnation of the iconic blue jean with an '80s-inspired fit and a slight taper to the leg, and that comes in the Kaihara-made proprietary denim. For O'Neill, it's a professional high water mark since: his first time getting to actually design the classic jean. "I've been working with the 501 for 15 years," he says about his time recreating archival 501s for Levi's Vintage Clothing. "But I've only ever been reproducing them. This is the first time where I've taken a 501 and made changes and updates to it to create a new version."

Maybe, in time, denim obsessives will find them trading in vintage versions and taking note of the different degrees of wear on that special denim. O'Neill, for his part, would surely approve. As he says, "I always love a product that reveals itself to you as you get to know it."