100 Year Denim Jacket

Name: 100 Year Denim Jacket
Brand: Vollebak
SKU: JKT058RINXSM
Price: 328.00 CAD
Availability: InStock

Woven with high-strength Japanese selvedge denim, and the same aramid fibres as body armour.

$1,095.00 $328

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Model is 6ft 2 / 189cm with a 40 inch / 101cm chest, and wears size Large.

14 oz. Japanese selvedge denim made by Kaihara
Material woven with aramid fibres for extreme strength
Jacket constructed by Blackhorse Lane Ateliers, London

Our 100 Year Denim Jacket is built to outlive you. It’s constructed with a blend of high-strength 14 oz. Japanese selvedge denim and the same ultra-tough aramid fibres as body armour.

To build a denim jacket this strong we’ve worked with world class partners. The denim starts life on low-speed, high-strength shuttle looms of Japan’s most fabled denim manufacturer, Kaihara, before the jacket is hand constructed by Blackhorse Lane Ateliers in London, where every piece is personally signed by the craftsman who built it.

It comes with heavy-duty metal buttons and metal rivets reinforcing stress points. And during lab testing when we recreated a 45kmph fall and drag on concrete the jacket’s material came out unscathed – which makes this one of the toughest denim jackets ever made.

Technical Details

Material made by Kaihara, Japan: 92% cotton, 8% aramid

Made with 14 oz. Japanese selvedge denim

Jacket is rinsed for softness

Highly abrasion resistant

2 chest pockets

Internal zipped pocket

2 back waist adjusters

3 piece shaped sleeves

Metal buttons with Vollebak detailing

Machine wash 30°C

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The 100 Year Denim Jacket is built to outlive you

Made with a blend of high-strength 14 oz. Japanese selvedge denim and the same ultra-tough aramid fibres as body armour, our 100 Year Denim Jacket is built to outlive you. It comes with heavy-duty metal buttons and metal rivets reinforcing stress points. And when we recreated a 45kmph fall and drag on concrete during lab testing, the jacket’s material came out unscathed. It makes this one of the toughest denim jackets ever made.

The 100 Year Denim Jacket is tough enough to survive 45kmph falls

Woven in Japan. Hand built in London

To build a denim jacket this strong we’ve worked with world class partners. The denim starts life on low-speed, high-strength shuttle looms of Japan’s most fabled denim manufacturer, Kaihara, before the jacket is hand constructed by Blackhorse Lane Ateliers in London, where every piece is personally signed by the craftsman who built it.

Engineered with aramid fibres for extreme strength

To create an incredibly strong material we weave aramid fibres directly into the selvedge denim. On a weight for weight basis aramid fibres are 5x stronger than steel, which is why they’re normally used to make body armour and bulletproof vests. 8% of this denim jacket is pure aramid.

Selvedge creates more durable denim

Selvedge denim can only be woven on low-speed looms called shuttle looms. The looms seal the edge of the fabric, creating a distinctive “self edge,” which is where the word selvedge comes from. And most importantly, selvedge creates a tighter weave, making for a more durable denim. In a world of fast fashion and mass manufacturing there aren’t many shuttle looms left. And there’s an even smaller number of skilled artisans capable of operating them. But today Kaihara has 200 looms still in active use.

It has the stamp of master craftsmanship

Weaving denim on shuttle looms is a much slower process than making denim using high speed modern machinery, which means it’s impossible to mass produce denim like this. And that’s what gives selvedge the stamp of master craftsmanship. You can spot selvedge denim by looking for the distinct white edges when you open up the jacket. And if you’re wondering what the thin yellow line is that runs through the white selvedge strip on the jacket – those are the aramid fibres we’ve used to make the jacket even stronger.

Our denim is made in the birthplace of Japanese denim

The Japanese city of Fukuyama has become a mecca for denim obsessives. Surrounded by the Chūgoku mountains on one side, and the Seto Inland Sea on the other, its unique climate has produced exceptional cottons since the Edo period. Today, Fukuyama is home to Kaihara, Japan’s top denim manufacturer. Founded in 1893 it started life making handwoven indigo-dyed bingo kasuri – a traditional fabric painstakingly woven on shuttle looms.

Onk-soushin, the philosophy of old meeting new

Kaihara runs its historical shuttle looms alongside state of the art modern machinery. It’s a philosophy called “onk-soushin” – a way of producing new fabrics by working with old and new techniques at the same time. And it’s this philosophy that allows them to vertically integrate the whole process, from spinning and dyeing the denim, to weaving and finishing it.

Dyed using painstaking rope-dyeing techniques

Kaihara’s denim is known for its unique depth of colour, texture and character. And it’s all thanks to the materials and dyeing processes they use. If you want to make denim quickly or cheaply you don’t do it the way they do. Each jacket is dyed using painstaking rope-dyeing techniques where yarns are suspended from the second floor of the factory before being slowly lowered into vats of indigo dye. Just as slowly as they go in, the yarns are then removed from the dye, allowing the dye to oxidise and stick to the cotton.
Kaihara’s environmental standards

As a manufacturer using natural cotton and indigo dyeing to produce its high-spec denim, Kaihara takes its coexistence with nature seriously, setting its own environmental standards that are far stricter than the Japanese national standard. So all of its waste water is filtered back into drinking water before it leaves the mill.

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Hand built and signed by London’s only denim factory

After our high-strength denim is woven in Japan, we bring it to an artisan denim workshop in London where the jacket is constructed. Blackhorse Lane Ateliers is the only denim factory to have existed in London for the last 50 years. They’re on a mission to make the best handcrafted denim in the world. And they do it all out of a single workshop just 5 miles down the road from our office. And every single 100 Year Denim Jacket is individually signed by the denim maker who crafted it.

The master craftsmen of denim

Using a mix of tailoring innovation and heritage construction Blackhorse Lane Ateliers produces jeans and denim jackets the way they used to be made – to last. Their denim is finished to such a high standard that the company’s founder takes an unusual approach to anyone attempting to buy more than one of his products. He does everything he can to persuade them not to. “We try to make them understand that they don’t need it,” says Bilgehan ‘Han’ Ates.

Every jacket is rinsed for softness

After being cut and sewn each jacket is lightly rinsed in water to soften it up. Some types of denim are stiff when they’re new and need to be broken in. But we’ve done the breaking in for you. There are lots of modern treatments used to make denim feel lived-in off the shelf, but they weaken the denim by over-accelerating the wearing process. Instead, we’ve used a gentle and energy-efficient process that softens the jacket without affecting its strength.

Ultra-durable, vintage detailing

Every element of the jacket is constructed with skilled craftsmanship that’s designed to last, with ultra-durable, vintage detailing. The jacket fastens down the centre with heavy-duty metal buttons. There’s a double pleated construction running alongside the buttons – a detail taken from early trucker jackets. You’ll find the same metal buttons at each cuff, with metal rivets reinforcing stress points. And there are two traditional waist adjusters at the back of the jacket on either side.

Three pockets for phones, wallets and keys

There are two chest pockets which close with flaps and metal buttons. And inside the jacket there’s a third zipped pocket in the lower left hand corner.