Why Japanese Mills Make Better Selvedge Denim
American denim mills were built to serve brands ordering by the truckload. Japanese mills, competing for a market too small for that model, built their business around smaller designer brands, and quality became the way they competed.
Fewer clothes. Fewer decisions.
Todd Shelton’s Original 13 has been made from Kuroki selvedge denim at our New Jersey factory since 2012, the longest-running product in the collection.
Quick summary
Japanese mills, working in a smaller domestic market, couldn’t survive on the same large-order model as American mills, so many built their business around artisanal and specialty labels instead, with low minimums and in stock programs. Because that customer base was paying for quality rather than volume, the mills competed on it: better cotton, closer attention in dyeing, tighter control through finishing. The result is an industry where the highest-quality selvedge denim comes disproportionately from mills that were never built to serve the biggest brands in the first place.
American mills chose to chase big brands
The United States has one large-scale denim mill remaining, Mount Vernon Mills, which serves major industrial and uniform customers like Wrangler and Carhartt. In 2026, Mount Vernon announced it was adding selvedge production using the historic White Oak shuttle looms, but its own materials describe the move as heritage production layered onto an existing large-scale business, not a shift toward serving smaller, independent brands.
Before 2008, Todd Shelton spent two years trying to establish a relationship with Cone Mills, which no longer produces denim in the USA. The mill’s standard terms: meet the 10,000-yard minimum, or buy from its over-runs when stock happened to be available. We sampled the denim and placed a small order. By the time we returned for more, that denim was no longer in stock. We asked if the mill would set aside a few core denims for smaller labels to order against consistently. The mill did not respond.
Small designer labels sourcing American selvedge today generally have three options: buy over-runs when available, buy liquidated deadstock, or commit to more denim than the brand actually needs. None of the three supports a small brand’s ability to plan or grow.
Japanese mills were forced to serve smaller brands
Japanese and European denim mills operate with lower minimums, some as low as 500 yards, and many maintain in-stock fabric available to order against directly. This isn’t a difference in national character, it’s a difference in who each industry’s mills were built to serve. American mills grew up serving large, margin-driven brands. Japanese mills, particularly in Okayama, grew up alongside smaller specialty labels that needed and could pay for higher-quality, lower-volume fabric. The customer each system was built around shaped the product each system now makes.
The Japanese Selvedge Mills
A handful of family-run operations, most within a short drive of each other in Okayama and Hiroshima, supply the bulk of the world’s selvedge denim.
Kuroki: Ibara, Okayama. Founded in 1950 by Tamotsu Kuroki as a general cotton textile mill; moved into denim around 1960 and began rope-dyeing in 1965. Kuroki handles dyeing, weaving, and finishing in-house. Denim from Kuroki is used by Todd Shelton and 3sixteen, among others.
Kaihara: Fukuyama, Hiroshima. Traces to 1893 as an indigo kasuri producer; became Kaihara Textile Mills in 1951. Kaihara developed one of Japan’s first rope-dyeing machines in 1970 and produces roughly half of all denim made in Japan, close to 42 million meters a year, supplying brands from Levi’s and Uniqlo to Tellason.
Kurabo: Kurashiki, Okayama, headquartered in Osaka. Founded in 1888 as a spinning company. Kurabo wove KD-8, the first denim fabric produced entirely in Japan, for Big John between 1969 and 1972, the start of Japan’s domestic denim industry.
Nihon Menpu: Ibara, Okayama. Founded in 1917 by Jiroichi Kawai as a weaver of bitchu kokura textiles; moved into denim in the mid-1980s. Nihon Menpu does its own indigo dyeing in-house and supplies Left Field NYC, Studio D’Artisan, and J.Crew’s Wallace & Barnes line.
Collect Mills: Kojima, Okayama. Founded in 1992 by Hisao Manabe, who later launched Momotaro under the same parent company, Japan Blue Group. Collect also supplies Shockoe Atelier.
Shinya Mills: Ibara, Okayama. Weaves on vintage Toyoda shuttle looms and supplies Iron Heart, Fullcount, and Big John.
See a list of the Best Selvedge Denim Brands
