Kurashiki or Kojima for cool Japan Denim?

Well, I can’t let go of Japan (and Japan is pretty much my only destination this year so far, aside from a short trip to Rome). So, let’s re-visit Japan, and one of the areas I like a lot, Western Japan. As usual, my earlier trip this year led me to Kansai International Airport. I did one quarter of the Shikoku Pilgrimage, then added a few days for a new to me place, and then, finally, to meet friends in Kyoto.

As you may know, I love textiles, so it comes naturally that I wanted to see where a lot of Japan’s quality denim is manufactured, the Chūgoku (also San-in Sanyo) region of Japan’s Honshu Island, in the prefecture of Okayama, to be precise.

The small town of Kojima is unequivocally known as Japan’s Capital of Denim. It is here where the first Made in Japan jeans was produced in 1965 by a brand known as “Big John”. The town sits on reclaimed land on the coast of the Seto Inland sea, a convenient hop from Shikoku, Okayama or the “Art Islands”, and can very easily be visited by train.

Kurashiki, on the other hand, is a small town with a superbly preserved small Edo period merchant’s quarters, lined with canals, and has the proximity, but none of the jeans-producing heritage of Kojima and Okayama.

And last not least, Okayama, prefectural capital and transport hub on the Sanyo Shinkansen, often overlooked but actually a pleasant stopover and destination on its own if you love Japanese gardens.

Where to buy quality Japanese Denim

Of course, you can buy quality Japanese jeans anywhere in Japan, and in particular, in the big cities. The denim I am talking about is Made in Japan garments where jeans are made from selvedge denim, on narrower looms, with a clean self-finished edge. Made from sustainably grown cotton, although the latter is a somewhat tall order. Japanese quality jeans are usually made from cotton imports from the US, Zimbabwe or Egypt, spun in Japan, then dyed with indigo (indigo producing Tokushima prefecture is just a hop away) and woven on vintage American looms.

The Ueno/Nippori and Shibuya areas of Tokyo have several denim shops. There are at least two (Momotaro and Japan Blue, same company now) of the famous brands with standalone shops in central Kyoto, and Osaka has several shops strewn all over the city.

I am not talking about mass-market jeans here, although you can sometimes get selvedge jeans at the cheaper retailers like Uniqlo, and midrange brands like Edwin usually have a selvedge jeans range at lower prices than the classic artisan brands. Famous brands known for their jeans are Momotaro (my introduction to Japanese denim, thanks to their friendly Kyoto shop), Japan Blue, Big John (oldest brand) and the “Osaka Five” Pioneers of the 1980s and 90’s (Denime, Evisu, Fullcount, Studio D’Artisan and Warehouse).

And, last not least, I am no fashionista. I like well-made classic things and repair my clothes. Therefore, I am drawn to real craftmanship, but I have a maximum of two pairs of jeans on rotation, which are currently cheap Mavi jeans and a pair from a German ethical manufacturer called Hessnatur, and I wear until they fall apart then reclaim the fabric and move on to the next pair.

So, let’s look at some denim!

Okayama

Le’s start with Okayama. It’s the regions transport hub and cannot be avoided. I think Okayama is really underrated, most people blaze through it on their way from Osaka/Himeji to Hiroshima. But if you like gardens, you got to stop at least half a day in Okayama.

I’ve visited twice now. It’s a big city, easy to manoeuvre – but I have yet to see a lot of beauty outside the pretty Koraku-en and the neighbouring castle (a replica, but photogenic). However, it’s a big enough city to support all the big stores, and you can shop at Hands, Loft, Muji or bookstores to your heart’s content without becoming overwhelmed. With two major shopping areas in the city, one surrounding the train station, and one around Kyu-Saigoku Kaido, a shotengai starting at the Symphony Hall close to Koraku-en, Okayama is an easy and pleasant shopping destination, too.

How to get to Okayama

Getting to Okayama is very easy. Every Shinkansen on the Sanyo Line of Japan Rail (JR) West stops there. It takes just a little over 3 hours on the fastest Shinkansen from Tokyo, about an hour from Osaka. There is an airport, if you must fly, called Momotaro Airport (love it for the name).

What to See in Okayama

As I mentioned before, Okayama is a relaxed easily manageable city with a straight road from the station to Korakuen and it’s star attraction is Korakuen, one of the “Nihon Sanmeien” (日本三名園) – Japans “famous three gardens”. Korakuen was laid during the early to mid Edo Period by the ruling Daimyo of the Ikeda Clan opposite his castle. I’ve been twice now and while it lacks the refined spaces of Kyoto gardens, it’s large, holds some beautiful vistas and is a prime example of a landscaped strolling garden.

The castle didn’t survive the Second World War, like most of Okayama. So, Okayama is… a bit featureless, not a lot of old buildings left, but the gardens survived, and the castle was rebuilt from reinforced concrete in the 1960’s and actually, you wouldn’t notice until you enter that this castle is a rebuild.

Korakuen is large and quite picturesque in any season – we visited in May once when everything was green, but also in March, even a bit early for cherry blossoms, Korakuen was wonderful to stroll around in.

Okayama is the base of another nice day trip of the Kibi Plain between Bizen-Ichinomiya and Soja, full of ancient shrines, burial mounds and picturesque countryside. You can rent simple bicycles at Bizen-Ichinomiya and drop them off at Soja for the 17-km off road ride along quiet country lanes.

Where to Stay in Okayama

Kurashiki’s Bikan Quarter is by far the more atmospheric place to stay, but if you have a late arrival/early departure and wish to stay in a large modern hotel, then it may be better to stay in Okayama.

In that case, stick close to the station for convenience and take the beautiful old tram to Korakuen. Of course, there’s a Dormy Inn – 200m from the station, usual boxy building standard interior, but indoor and outdoor onsen, priced from around 50 Euro per room.

Mitsui Garden Hotel is another contender for mid-priced but stylish – and equally close to the station.

Even cheaper, and about 100m from the Station, Hotel Livemax offers very decent private rooms from 25 Euro – yes, Lifemax is a fairly basic chain, but clean, functional -and cheap. I’d stay there for a quiet night and not much else.

I’ve yet to find any cosy, rustic guesthouses in Okayama close to the town centre. But, if you’re willing to stay a little outside the centre, Torii-Kuguru Guesthouse &. Lounge is a charming guesthouse in an old building on the West side of Okayama, about 1km from the station and 2.5km from Koraku-en, but you can rent a bicycle for your sightseeing, and with private rooms from 25 Euro, it’s great value for money. .

Kojima

Let’s get to Kojima. Perhaps the least visited of the three towns unless you are a denim enthusiast. I had wanted to come here for a long time, but being into textiles is too much a niche interest to drag my nearest and dearest here. This summer, when returning from Shikoku, I seized my chance, visited Takamatsu on the way (another garden), and then stopped in Kojima for the morning before transferring onto Shinkansen in Okayama for my return to Osaka.

Kojima is well set up for the casual stopover tourists. Plenty coin lockers in its spacious station, a small tourist information, multilingual signs, bus schedules and availability of taxis. Beyond the denim area, it is a rather featureless small town – perhaps the one with the most denim shops per capita.

How to get to Kojima

Kojima is very well served by trains on JR West on the Setoohashi Line between Okayama and Takamatsu. Both Express and local trains stop in Kojima, and trains are frequent (every 30minutes or so during the day). It is about 1km walk from the station to the “Jeans Street” and 2.5km to a second, smaller area of the Betty Smith Jeans Village – which I did not visit.

What to See in Kojima

Kojima lives and breathes denim in its fairly limited small town centre – with featureless buildings surrounding it. It’s basically a very spread-out small town with about 15-20.000 people famous as the “birthplace” of Japan-made denim garments. I visited Kojima earlier this year, just to learn about Japanese denim production.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really a production facility you can visit, or a museum dedicated to the history of Kojima Denim, unless you count the small Betty Smith Jeans Museum which is quite far from Jeans Street. So, with limited time, I just visited Jeans Street.

I arrived on a Friday morning, just when all the shops opened, and found Jeans Street, actually a smallish area of 200x400metres with one “main” street, very quiet and empty. A lot of shops were closed. With my time limited (I had to be in Osaka by afternoon), that suited me well, so I visited the ones that were open. Often, they were tiny, with offerings geared towards men’s and unisex jeans. Not so many accessories.

I saw a few small gems, old store houses turned into shops. Mostly classic jeans and jeans jackets. Of course, you get some of the industry stalwarts like Big John, Japan Blue and Momotaro who are Kojima-based but none of the trendier labels (Oni is Okayama-based, Evisu, Samurai and Studio d’Artisan are Osaka-based). I got the impression it was the Kojima-based brands and lots of tiny indie labels – an interesting mixture that made for some great browsing.

Sadly, both at Japan Blue and Momotaro, the service wasn’t anywhere as good as I remembered it from their other shops, but both shops were large, modern, nice to look at and had a wide range of jeans, but by far not the entire range.

The largest shop by any means was the Big John flagship store. Many different styles, lower price points, and, finally, women’s ranges and accessories, too. And fabric! I t was the store I visited last, so I had already bought some fabric, otherwise I would have found something I liked here.

And, other than admiring some well-made denim, that’s all I found to do in Kojima. There were also very few cafes to take a break – one where you can actually sit down is Mutsubo-an , about 50m from BigJohn. Or, failing that, there’s an always-dependable Komeda’s Coffee close to the station.

Where to Stay in Kojima

To be honest, I see no particular reason to stay in Kojima. With shops opening roughly 10-18.00, and Okayama just a short hop away, I would rather stay in Okayama, Kurashiki, or… somewhere on the Seto Coast.

There is a very cool looking design-ey Japanese style guesthouse in Jeans Street called Denim Lodge Nest, with rooms for around 80 Euro per night. A short walk away, you’ll find Denim House BON, which you can rent as a whole, a wonderful restored old house that can only be rented as a whole, for about 200Euro per night.

And on the coast, look at beautiful modern Ryokan Kazemachi-Shiomachi, a restored old inn with five rooms, but somewhat higher prices.

Kurashiki

I feel like I am saving the best for last already! When I visited Japan for the second time, in 2005, barely any foreigners knew about Kurashiki. I cannot even remember how I heard of it, but since we were doing the Golden Route, like so many first-timers (it was my then boyfriends first japan trip), I though that Kurashiki and its Bikan Quarter would be perfect of our first (reasonably priced) ryokan stay.

So, while I knew little about Japanese selvedge denim then, I was charmed by the Bikan Quarter. Especially after the day trippers had left and we sat by the canal after dinner, in stillness, before retreating to our elegant room. When I returned in 2025 with my mum, the Bikan Quarter felt busier, with more shops, but also an abundance of cafes. We walked along the canal, which though busy, still felt charming. I’d seen plenty other old merchants quarters in the meantime, but Kurashiki’s tree-lined canal really makes Bikan Quarter one of the most charming ones. There are lots of smaller museums and some authentic shops selling denim and ceramics from nearby Bizen regions.

For a place this touristy, the tat count was low, there wasn’t a Starbucks in sight, rather, most cafes were independent, and shops were focused on local crafts.

How to get to Kurashiki

Kurashiki is served by very regular JR local trains on the Sanyo/Hakubi Line, with very frequent trains, taking only 20-30minutes from Okayama. Since it’s on the Sanyo main line, you can easily access Kurashiki from the South, for example, Onomichi, by regular train.

Don’t be put off by the drab view when you exit the station and head for the Bikan Quarter, about 1km away as you walk straight ahead.

What to See in Kurashiki

When you alight at Kurashiki and exit into the very drab Station Concourse, you wonder what on earth are you doing here, but take a bus or walk a kilometre to the historic Bikan Quarter, where all the town’s attractions are concentrated in a very small, easily walkable area.

I probably wouldn’t lose much sweat over what to see. Walk or take a bus to one end of the Bikan Quarter, and walk along the canal, take in the view. Walk the back streets. It’s a small area. Pick a museum you like – whether it be the Ohara Museum of Art, a curious-looking Grecian Temple style building bringing French Art to Japan, or eclectic Kibibi Museum (featuring Japanese Art), a Folk Craft Museum, and a number of restored residences and gardens. What Kojima has in denim stores, Kurashiki has in museums – with plenty of denim stores to boot, too.

Of course, the variety of denim shops couldn’t hold a candle to Kojima, but there are a handful of nice jeans shops: Denim Laboratory, which sells Japan Blue and Momotaro brands, with a great selection of the (lower priced) classics rather than the fancier versions I’d seen in Kyoto.

There is also “Kurashiki Denim Street”, not a street but a larger shop in a few beautifully restored traditional white.and-grey store houses. This one was more touristy and had more womenswear, and some relatively small and quirkier local brands like Aoki Denim, Edge of Line, Kojima Genes, Wakura… and indigo-dyed ice cream.

Heart Made Base is another serious contender, selling Graph Zero Jeans, another smaller Kojima brand.

In a smaller back street, you’ll find Kurara Kurashiki Denim and Kurashiki Jeans Sohonten, focused on lower-priced accessories, but still made with locally made denim.

In addition to decent denim from larger and indie labels, you can shop for artisanal Bizen Ceramics in several small shops here, too.

Where to Stay

I had my first “proper ryokan” experience in Kurashiki, back in 2005, and I would still say that Kurashiki is a great place for a traditional ryokan stay, especially during the week, where you can stay in a traditional, centuries-old ryokan for relatively competitive prices, especially during the week.

I stayed at Ryori Ryokan Tsurugata, had a large room with private garden, an elaborate dinner in the room, the full works. Expect to pay from 350 Euro for two people per night including dinner and breakfast. they also run a restaurant, and the food really was excellent. Meat-free meals are available on request.

The second classic Ryokan, Ryokan Kurashiki, is somewhat younger at just 60 years old, but more luxurious, with larger rooms. It’s also significantly more expensive, starting at around 250 Euro per person per night including breakfast and dinner.

And then, let’s get back to my usual budget. You won’t get a canal view in lovely Bikan Quarter for 50 Euro, but it will buy you a very nice room and shared onsen experience at Dormy Inn right by the Bikan Quarter. I don’t do many hotel chains but Dormy Inn is dependable, mid-range, and all Dormy Inn’s have a natural spring onsen. Another great midrange option is Ivy Square – a modern three-star hotel in a historic building right in the Bikan Quarter- rooms start at 60 Euro. By fat the cheapest budget accommodation in the historic quarter is Hostel Cuore – expect to pay from 40 Euro for a private room.

Which town is best?

If you have limited time, then Kurashiki wins, hands down. Beautiful town, tough beware crowds on weekends and holidays. There are plenty of small jeans boutiques to browse, try on quality denim for both men and women, and have a wonderful day out.

Since you have to go through Okayama anyway, I recommend making time for Okayama’s Kouraku-en.

And if you did not find the jeans of your dreams in Kurashiki or Kojima, there’s a branch of Momotaro Jeans close to the station and several other denim stores in town, and Okayama is altogether great for shopping, manageable and easy to navigate.

What I bought

I have plenty clothes from ten years ago that I fit in again, so I bought very little. I am also a fan of Momotaro Jeans, ever since walking into their Kyoto store, so I freely admit to a Momotaro bias here.

My first purchase was the Momotaro Sashiko work jacket a year ago, a lightweight, versatile jacket in indigo blue, made from a softer fabric than denim. I paid around 24.000JPY (150 Euro) in a shop called Denim Laboratory by JPN Blue.

Second buy, I headed straight to the Momotaro Shop in Kyoto during my language school trip in 2026, and bought their #100 Standard Straight Jeans, which I saw worn by one of the shop assistants. A classic. I paid 30.000 JPY 8165 Euro) Both purchases were tax-free and significantly cheaper than buying in Europe.

Lastly, when visiting Kojima, I had enough jeans, but I wanted something… a dress or apron dress. I admit, there were dresses but very few. I ended up with a shirt on sale in a shop called Muu-san for 8800 JPY (48 Euro) and two pieces of selvedge denim, 1m for 2200JPY (12 Euro) at High Rock and another two metres from a sales bin for 1000JPY (6 Euro) at Dania Japan.

And, unrelated to jeans, I purchased some ceramics, too – since I still have not made it to Bizen yet. It’s a small Bizen Yunomi (tea cup that I use for coffee) in one of Kurashiki’s Bizenware shops as well.

Further Reading

Since this post is about comparing Kojima, Okayama and Kurashiki as destinations for jeans history and jeans shopping, I left out a fair bit of history, which you can read about in some of the following posts.

Nippon.com: Japanese JEans Turns Sixty – article from 2025

Japan Denim Blog: How Denim is Made blog post from 2026

The Small Print

I visited Kurashiki and Okayama in 2025 and 2025, and Kojima in June 2026 after completing a section of the Shikoku Pilgrimage. All trips were entirely self-funded.

Nothing you see here was sponsored, and I did not receive compensation, discounts, or special treatment in exchange for writing it. All my own honest and unbiased opinion. This post does contain affiliate links to accommodation I stayed at as well as some good accommodation in the area which I researched and would consider staying at. If you book a hotel using my affiliate links, I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please refer to my blog’s Terms and Conditions for further information.

This post (well, my entire blog, except this) is free from generative Artificial Intelligence. 

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