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Evisu
From Virtual Japan
Revision as of 17:29, 30 December 2006
Evisu is a brand of Japanese clothing specializing in denim.
Evisu is mainly known for designing, producing, and marketing high quality denim products alongside other popular branded products. The brand has gained notability worldwide due to the quality of each product. All Evisu jeans are made of vintage selvedge denim. The significance of this particular denim is it's only made in old style shuttle loops rather than projectile loops. These shuttle looms have not been made for over 40 years so each loom is an antique. The entire process of making denim used for Evisu products involves equipments and techniques used in the 1950's creating a traditional quality of modern day wear. After being made, each piece is stamped with the seal of Evisu approval, a hand painted seagull logo. The production of every product is labor intensive and the equipment is rare so the prices of the jeans are often expensive.
Evisu offers several different styles to fit a consumers needs ranging from women's, men's, and a newly added children's line. The jeans can be described as varied with a wide fit and slim fit introduced alongside the new skinny fit now in its second season.
History
Trained as a tailor Hidehiko Yamane's love for high quality clothes led him to establishing what started out as Evisu. This stands for the Japanese Buddhist god of money, or prosperity. The name was selected for the company as money and fishing are some of Yamane's favorite things to do. Yamane started out importing clothes, but to his astonishment he soon realized that quality denim, the original, was impossible to find on the market. This eventually led him to designing and manufacturing vintage-style jeans. After gathering up the equipment, his efforts soon sparked an interest in vintage denim in Japan which ultimately spread around the world.
In the early 1990's Evisu released their first tailoring line. In 1994 Yamane teamed up with a distributor named Peter Caplowe causing increased production and worldwide distribution to some of the most notorious department stores. In 1999 he introduced his first female line called Evisu Donna. Despite the rapid growth Evisu still remains devoted to quality and authenticity.
Accounting Controversy
On March 17, 2006 the owner of Evisu jeans faced charges for 160 million yen in tax evasion. Hidehiko Yamane, the owner of the company, has been reported to prosecutors along with his company and two other firms. The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau accuses Yamane and the two firms of concealing over 500 million yen of income, and evading some 160 million yen in taxes over three years. Sources have said Yamane formed a contract with a foreign firm for it to manufacture and sell the Evisu brand jeans, and received over 200 million yen in return, but failed to declare the income. None of the government's charges have been proven at this time.