KOJIMA, Japan (AP) — Denim, that All-American fabric, is all about being Japanese in the town of Kojima, where the main road is named Jeans Street, with real pairs of pants flapping like flags overhead.
Some would call this spot in southwestern seaside Okayama Prefecture a mecca of jeans, where fans from around the world make pilgrimage. The soda vending machines at the train station are plastered with the image of jeans. The roads are painted blue, with the lines at the edges pink and white, the trademark of Kojima jeans’ seams.
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The Momotaro Jeans shop is pictured in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shop clarks work at Momotaro Jeans shop in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shop clerk Yuta Akagi displays the jeans at Momotaro Jeans shop in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shop clerk Yuta Akagi displays the jeans at Momotaro Jeans shop in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Japan Blue Co. President and Chief Operating Officer Masataka Suzuki shows some of the jeans products from Momotaro Jeans at headquarters in Kojima, southwestern Japan. Taken Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
This shows a closeup of the vintage looms that weave the denim in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
Pairs of jeans flap over Jeans Street in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
A seamstress works on denim trousers at Momotaro Jeans using a vintage sewing machine in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
A weaver operates a handloom at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Naomi Takebayashi, a seamstress at Momotaro Jeans, hand-stiches a pair of jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Naomi Takebayashi, a seamstress at Momotaro Jeans, sewing a pair of jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Naomi Takebayashi, a seamstress at Momotaro Jeans, works on pairs of jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Dyeing craftsman Yoshiharu Okamoto shows how he dyes the threads in indigo for denim at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
A dyer at Momotaro Jeans shows dyed yarn in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Yoshiharu Okamoto, a dyer at Momotaro Jeans, demonstrates dyeing yarn in indigo for making denim in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Weaver Shigeru Uchida and his colleague inspect vintage loom machines at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Shigeru Uchida, a weaver at Momotaro Jean, examines a vintage loom machine in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Weaving craftsman Shigeru Uchida examines the evenness of the fabric being woven by the old power looms at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
Shigeru Uchida, a weaver at Momotaro Jeans, holds a wooden shuttle next to a vintage loom machine in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
With some 40 jeans manufacturers and stores, including denim-themed cafes, the area draws about 100,000 visitors a year, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.
Japanese jeans tend to be high-end, dark and durable. Although a tiny part of the global jeans market, they have carved out a niche with a reputation for craftsmanship. Kojima gave birth to popular brands like Big John, with roots dating to the 1940s, and now supplies international fashion brands, including Gucci.
“The Japanese industry has established a way of looking at denim from a much more connoisseurship and collecting approach” than a mass marketing one, says Emma McClendon, assistant professor of fashion studies at St. John’s University in New York.
In Kojima, you might be in for a disappointment if you expect the glamour of a fashion center. Jeans Street is quaint and uncrowded. Each company in the region is relatively small, hiring about 100 people.
What you will find are people taking pride in “monozukuri,” or “making things,” connoting a devoted, laborious attention to detail. It’s an ethic entrenched throughout Japan, from big carmakers to the local tofu store.
“More like making a kimono” is the way Yoshiharu Okamoto, a dyeing craftsman at Kojima-based manufacturer Momotaro Jeans, puts it.
His hands and nails are tinged blue from dipping threads of Zimbabwean cotton into a big pail of dye.
He knows by smell and feel the right state of the indigo, which he compares to a living thing. He swears it’s a 365-days-a-year job, as the dye has to be checked and mixed every day.
“It’s not that easy to get this special color,” Okamoto told The Associated Press during a recent tour of the production facilities. “It’s my life.”
The dark indigo hue of Made-in-Japan denim, much of it hailing from Kojima, is so distinctive it has earned the name “Japan blue,” also known as “tokuno blue,” which translates to “especially concentrated blue.”
Jeans made here aren’t cheap, ranging in price from a relatively affordable 33,000 yen ($230) per pair to those made by top craftsmen, which go for 200,000 yen ($1,400) or more.
Thomas Stege Bojer, founder of Denimhunters, an online site devoted to denim, says Japanese brands use “raw denim” that ages well and lasts a long time. He echoed the “ slow clothing” movement that has arisen in reaction to cheaper, mass-produced clothes.
“We just make too many clothes. The cycle is too fast, I think, and we need to slow down,” Bojer said from his home near Copenhagen, Denmark, where the walls are decorated with jeans.
As McClendon, the fashion professor, put it, the Japanese industry is "shifting the conversation around jeans to be about heritage elements, about educating consumers on historical details as a form of quality.”
Momotaro Jeans, for instance, come with a lifetime warranty: Tears and other problems get fixed for free, within reason. Japan Blue Co., which runs Momotaro, a brand that debuted in 2006, said annual sales totaled about 1.6 billion yen ($11 million) for the latest year. About 40% of sales come from outside Japan.
Like craftsman Okamoto, Shigeru Uchida, a loom specialist, and Naomi Takebayashi, who works at a sewing machine, believe they have special skills they must guard and hand to the next generation. They spoke while leading a group of younger sewers.
The two say they have a special relationship with their machines. They listen to the machines' sounds to make daily adjustments.
The clattering power looms are vintage Toyodas, from the weaving company that preceded automaker Toyota. Spare parts are hard to find. There is one loom operated by hand, used for products that the company says boast a unique texture.
Masataka Suzuki, president and chief operating officer at Japan Blue, says the industrial history of the region is a source of strength, centered around sewing heavy fabrics, including military clothes and obi sashes for kimonos, as well as the cotton and indigo-dyeing native to the area.
That’s why the jeans are for life, Suzuki said, fading and creasing, depending on how they’re worn and how the wearer lives.
“We want to create a product that is a testament to a person’s life,” he said.
Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://x.com/yurikageyama
The Momotaro Jeans shop is pictured in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shop clarks work at Momotaro Jeans shop in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shop clerk Yuta Akagi displays the jeans at Momotaro Jeans shop in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Shop clerk Yuta Akagi displays the jeans at Momotaro Jeans shop in Tokyo, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Japan Blue Co. President and Chief Operating Officer Masataka Suzuki shows some of the jeans products from Momotaro Jeans at headquarters in Kojima, southwestern Japan. Taken Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
This shows a closeup of the vintage looms that weave the denim in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
Pairs of jeans flap over Jeans Street in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
A seamstress works on denim trousers at Momotaro Jeans using a vintage sewing machine in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
A weaver operates a handloom at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Naomi Takebayashi, a seamstress at Momotaro Jeans, hand-stiches a pair of jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Naomi Takebayashi, a seamstress at Momotaro Jeans, sewing a pair of jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Naomi Takebayashi, a seamstress at Momotaro Jeans, works on pairs of jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Dyeing craftsman Yoshiharu Okamoto shows how he dyes the threads in indigo for denim at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
A dyer at Momotaro Jeans shows dyed yarn in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Yoshiharu Okamoto, a dyer at Momotaro Jeans, demonstrates dyeing yarn in indigo for making denim in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Weaver Shigeru Uchida and his colleague inspect vintage loom machines at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Shigeru Uchida, a weaver at Momotaro Jean, examines a vintage loom machine in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, western Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Weaving craftsman Shigeru Uchida examines the evenness of the fabric being woven by the old power looms at Momotaro Jeans in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Yuri Kageyama)
Shigeru Uchida, a weaver at Momotaro Jeans, holds a wooden shuttle next to a vintage loom machine in Kojima, Okayama prefecture, Japan, on Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Ayaka McGill)
Iran fired missiles at Israel and Arab states Monday and the war expanded to include militias Tehran backs in the Middle East with an attack by Hezbollah on Israel, which struck back against the group in Lebanon and with the United States pounded targets in Iran.
As the American and Israeli airstrikes kept hitting the country, top Iranian security official Ali Larijani said on X: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
Trump, who a day earlier had encouraged Iranians to “take over” their government, signaled Sunday that he was open to dialogue with Iran’s new leadership.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister suggested earlier that military units were acting independently from any central government control after being pressed about attacks on Gulf Arab nations that have served as intermediaries for Tehran in the past.
More than 200 people have been killed since the start of the strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders, Iranian leaders have said.
Here is the latest:
Germany will not actively participate in military action against Iran but will consider defending its soldiers stationed on multinational military bases in Jordan and Iraq if they get attacked, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Monday morning.
“The federal government has no intention of participating” in the conflict, Wadephul told Deutschlandfunk public radio. "We also do not have the necessary military resources.”
Multinational bases where German troops are stations in Irbil in northern Iraq and Al-Azraq in Jordan were targeted on the weekend, the German military said.
The soldiers on site were not injured and are safe, the German news agency dpa reported.
Strikes killed three people in the western city of Sanandaj early Monday, Iran’s state-run news agency said.
IRNA said the strikes hit two residential sites without providing further details.
Several U.S. warplanes crashed Monday in Kuwait, the country’s Defense Ministry said, with all the pilots safely bailing out.
The ministry did not elaborate on what caused the crashes but it came during an intense period of Iranian fire targeting the country.
The Kuwaiti Defense Ministry said the pilots were taken to a hospital for checkups and their condition was stable.
The U.S. military’s Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Turkey has temporarily closed its border with Iran to crossings by Iranians visiting for short trips, the Trade Ministry said, following public concerns that the tensions could trigger migration flows.
A ministry statement said that in a mutual agreement reached with Iran, Turkey is allowing its citizens and third country nationals to enter from Iran but short trips by Iranians have been temporarily suspended.
Meanwhile, commercial freight crossings between Turkey and Iran are continuing “in a controlled manner,” the ministry said.
Israel said crossings to Gaza, where much-needed humanitarian aid passes, will remain closed while the war with Iran continues.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body that oversees aid into Gaza and the crossings, said that the crossings could not be operated safely due to the threat of missiles.
Israelis have been instructed to remain close to bomb shelters and places that are not within a certain distance to a bomb shelter are closed.
COGAT claimed that Gaza has sufficient stockpiles of food for an “extended period” though some organizations, including the World Central Kitchen which operates soup kitchens across Gaza, have warned that they are running out of supplies.
“We need food deliveries every single day to feed hungry families who are not part of this war,” chef Jose Andres, the founder of World Central Kitchen, wrote on X.
Like some other U.S. embassies in the Middle East, the outpost in Kuwait is a large, walled compound consisting of multiple buildings and recreational facilities.
It is located near other embassies and residential areas to the south of central Kuwait City.
The ruling emir’s Bayan Palace is not far away.
In December 1983, a truck packed with explosives heavily damaged parts of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait when it drove through a gate and detonated.
The bombing was part of a series of attacks later blamed on Iranian-backed militant groups.
Fire and smoke rose from inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Kuwait after an Iranian attack on the small Mideast nation on Monday.
Video obtained by The Associated Press showed the smoke with an alarm wailing.
The United States had earlier issued an urgent warning to Americans there to take cover and remain indoors.
It said: “Do not come to the Embassy,” without elaborating.
Qatar Airways said its flights remain suspended, with its next update planned for Tuesday morning.
Iranian state media published footage showing damage at the Gandhi Hospital in Tehran.
Associated Press journalists heard several loud explosions Monday morning in Irbil, the capital city of Iraq’s semiautonomous region of Kurdistan.
The World Health Organization called for the sparing of civilians and health care facilities in the Middle East amid a regional conflict triggered by Israeli-US strikes on Iran over the weekend.
“The protection of civilians and health care must be absolute,” Hanan Balkhy, regional dietitian at WHO wrote on social media.
“All parties must … ensure medical facilities remain protected.”
Lebanon’s government is holding an emergency meeting after Hezbollah’s attack on Israel triggered Israeli airstrikes in different parts of the country.
The meeting started Monday morning and is being attended by the army chief, Gen. Rudolph Haikal.
The state-run National News Agency reported that the Cabinet will discuss the volatile situation and the measures it plans to take.
A witness said he saw smoke over a Kuwait neighborhood home to the U.S. Embassy as Americans had been urged to stay away.
Ayman Moawad, an Egyptian worker living near the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, told The Associated Press that he saw smoke over the area.
However, he didn’t know if it was specifically the embassy hit in an ongoing Iranian attack targeting the small Mideast nation.
The U.S. earlier issued an urgent warning to Americans there to take cover and remain indoors.
It said: “Do not come to the Embassy,” without elaborating.
Strikes across Iran continued into Monday, with one apparently taking Iranian state television off air.
Witnesses said an attack in northern Tehran’s Niavaran neighborhood struck one of the transmitters used for Iranian state TV.
Since then, its satellite signals have dropped.
State media had said hospitals and residential areas had been hit in strikes by the Americans and Israelis.
Iran has not offered any details on its materiel losses.
The United Arab Emirates is shutting the country’s main stock exchanges for the start of the trading week as the regional war intensifies.
The country’s Capital Market Authority said the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Dubai Financial Market would be closed Monday and Tuesday.
It says it will closely monitor the regional situation and take any further steps as necessary.
Another market, the Nasdaq Dubai, also said it was halting trading both days.
Dubai is the Gulf’s main business hub, though the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi is also an important regional financial center and home to some of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds.
The benchmark index for the Saudi Exchange, the region’s largest stock market, fell 2.2% on Sunday.
As Kuwait faced an ongoing attack, the U.S. issued an urgent warning to Americans there to take cover and remain indoors.
It said: “Do not come to the Embassy,” without elaborating.
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon after Hezbollah attacked it have killed at least 31 people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Monday.
The Hezbollah attack and the Israeli retaliatory strikes expand the ongoing war gripping the Mideast after the U.S. and Israel launched an airstrike campaign targeting Iran.
The Health Ministry said that the strikes also wounded 149 people.
It said about two-thirds of those killed were in southern Lebanon.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides said a Shaheed-type drone caused “minor material damage” to military installations inside the U.K.’s RAF Akrotiri air base on the island’s southern coast.
Christodoulides said in a brief national address that the drone struck just past midnight Monday.
He said all relevant authorities have been put on alert and that he has called a meeting of the country’s national security council to take stock of the situation.
He added that he’s in contact with other European leaders.
“I want to be clear: our homeland is not participating in any way, nor is its intention to take part in any military operation,” Christodoulides said in his address.
He said Cyprus remains focused on the humanitarian role that it plays in the region and that it seeks to be “part of the solution and not the problem,” adding that his primary concern remains the safety and security of the country and its people.
Overnight, airstrikes were reported across Iran.
Elsewhere, explosions were heard in Dubai on Monday.
In Bahrain, the Interior Ministry said sirens sounded across the country as it urged residents to “head to the nearest safe place.”
And in Kuwait, authorities said debris fell on its Ahmadi oil refinery, slightly injuring two workers there.
The state-run KUNA news agency said earlier that Kuwait’s forces had thwarted a drone attack early Monday.
A top Iranian security official on Monday said: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
Ali Larijani made the statement on X, responding to a report from Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network.
The comment comes as an American and Israeli airstrike campaign continues to target Iran.
Iran and its militia allies have expanded their attacks over the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are planning to hold a press conference Monday morning about the military operation against Iran.
The Pentagon announced the 8 a.m. EST media briefing on social media Sunday night.
On Tuesday, Hegseth and Caine will join U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in briefing the full membership of Congress on the strikes, the White House said.
Rubio also was slated to brief Hill leadership Monday.
In a statement Monday, President Joseph Aoun said Hezbollah’s rocket launches from Lebanon “target all the efforts and endeavors exerted by the Lebanese state to keep Lebanon away from the dangerous military confrontations taking place in the region.”
He added that while Israeli strikes on Lebanon are condemned, “persisting in using Lebanon once again as a platform for proxy wars in which we have no involvement will expose our country to risks once more.”
Smoke rises up after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This image provided by U.S. Central Command shows a F/A-18E Super Hornet makes an arrested landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) after a mission in support of Operation Epic Fury, on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (U.S. Navy via AP)
People watch from a rooftop as a plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A black plume of smoke rises from a warehouse at the industrial area of Sharjah City in the United Arab Emirates following reports of Iranian strikes in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, March 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
