
Why Japan Makes Cooler Jeans Than America - lnguyen
http://www.wsj.com/articles/prep-yourself-1452890984
======
Steko
I found this narrative about how pivotal this one moment in the 60's and the
centrality of preppy fashion to be more than a little forced. And some parts
bordered on misleading like:

> _The Japanese helped fetishize vintage Levi’s in the 1990s, just as
> Americans were chopping them off to make jorts. Then, when the clothes they
> wanted became too expensive, the Japanese started making their own selvedge
> denim,_

I picked up 2 pairs of Edwin jeans last month in Japan, they're great but the
company has been making jeans since the 50's and using high quality selvedge
denim since the early 60's.

~~~
wdavidmarxy
Hi I'm the author of Ametora.

From everything I have researched, Edwin appears to have fudged their timeline
quite a bit, claiming to do a lot of things years before there's any proof
that any Japanese makers were doing it. I wrote something here about trying to
reconstruct the exact timeline: [http://www.heddels.com/2015/10/who-made-
japans-first-jeans/](http://www.heddels.com/2015/10/who-made-japans-first-
jeans/)

They may have imported some (low quality) selvedge denim in the 1960s because
a lot of denim was still selvedge (at least on one side of the cuff), but no
one made the slubby, selvedge denim Japan is famous for in any sort of serious
quantity until the late-1980s. No Japanese companies made jeans-grade denim at
all until 1973.

~~~
Steko
Thanks for the reply and very informative link, I hadn't considered that the
Edwin corporation marketing department might just be full of crap!

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cooper12
This reminded me of this story I read on HN which also talks about how Japan
refined American culture:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7580032](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7580032).
Very interesting subject, especially with regards to how we equate foreign
with hip, and how the old becomes new again.

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gkanai
The top result should be accessible without sign in
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=Prep+Yourself&oq=Prep+Yourself&gs_l=news-
cc.3...284.284.0.656.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac.2).

~~~
bigbugbag
Is there an alternative for those who keep google out of their internet ?

~~~
glennsl
Spoof the referrer header, so as to pretend you were sent by Google. I use the
"Referrer Control" extension for Chrome (which probably isn't an option for
you, but I'm sure there are similar extensions for Firefox) with a permanent
rule to spoof the referrer header for wsj.com. Works like a charm.

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cLeEOGPw
Please don't post articles that require sign in.

~~~
dang
This question is settled on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989).

Articles behind paywalls are ok as long as the paywall has a workaround.
Comments helping people read an article are ok. Generic paywall complaints are
off topic.

~~~
colinshark
It's not settled. These links are annoying.

~~~
dang
I didn't say everyone agreed—that's clearly not the case. But we've made the
decision and you can read about our reasoning at that link.

Yes, the paywalls are annoying, but HN would be much poorer without any
articles from those publications, and that's more important. Hence the site
policy is: (1) if there's a standard workaround, then posting them is ok, (2)
flagging them for that reason alone is an abuse of flagging, and (3) comments
generically complaining about this are off topic.

