Edwin History
Edwin was founded in Japan in 1947 by K.K. Tsunemi. Today, the company is owned by his son and since 2003 the European market has been in the hands of
the
Swiss based company, Edwin Europe AG. Edwin started producing Jeans in 1961 and has become famous all over the world for creating new washing processes
and techniques and also for developing exclusive fabrics that no one has ever seen before.
For example, In the mid-1970’s Edwin was the first to introduce a new type of washing, "Old Wash", where the fabric was rubbed by hand scraping.
This initiated the worn out look that is still popular today.
Throughout the 1980’s, because of Edwin’s high standard dyeing technology, we came up with a number of different finishings for jeans. Edwin was the first to
introduce the Stone Wash process, at a time when Americans were only used to buying jeans either raw or rinsed.
Edwin had also introduced a new type of fabric, "Ring Spun Denim", which is still being used by most jeans manufacturers for high end products even today as it is
much more durable than open end fabrics.
And then there was the unique "Fit" as well, designed by repeating many fit tests and improvements to achieve the perfect fit. So it was no surprise that the styles
"Newton Slim" and "London Slim" took Europe and America by storm, creating a stone wash boom and establishing Edwin’s worldwide reputation
as a high quality jeans maker.
In the Nineties, Edwin created a new product line called "New Vintage" by employing various elements of the old weaving process from jeans like "BF" that they
used to make in the 1960’s using 16 oz heavy weight denim with "Rainbow Selvage" and combining it with a new aging process known as cat-whisker.
This made vintage jeans extremely popular in Japan and under the label "Tokyo Red Selvage" and had a massive impact on the
European and American jeans markets.
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