Revealed: How The Flat Head Jeans Are Made

Details of The Flat Head Jeans

Kobayashi-san doesn’t leave anything to chance when he designs his jeans, and there’s a purpose for even the tiniest detail:

• The belt loops are very firmly rolled, which allows enough space for a belt while preventing the threads to become loose.
• The iron buttons are branded with Flat Head’s logo, and they’ll fade along with the rest of the jeans.
• Due to secret dyeing method, you can achieve intense fades form your Flat Head jeans.
• The yoke is stitched with #6 threads for durability.
• The jeans also featured iron copper plated hidden rivets and a narrow bartacking stitch.

Exemplifying all of this is the 4002, one of the most recent Flat Head cuts. The fit and the details are in fact the result of Kobayashi-san and his team listening to their fans. The 4002 is made from a 13.5 oz. black selvedge, but with the Flat Head touch; the warp is rope-dyed, which keeps the core white and allows for a fading similar to indigo dyed denim.

The cut is slim with a pronounced taper from the knees down. The jeans also feature a paper patch and zip fly. In many ways, the 4002 is similar to the popular 3002.

Other Brands Could Learn from The Flat Head

The use of vintage machines combined with modern equipment is a necessity in the production process. Demand is high and there is no time for a patron work. The Koyima family factories that The Flat Head rely on give the jeans that characteristic feeling of craftsmanship.

None of them wear big beards or tattoos, but I ensure you they know what they’re doing.

We keep witnessing the proliferation of many new raw denim brands around the globe, all of them with their a particular approach and proposal to create the path towards the (sometimes unattainable) holy denim grail. Some of them are worth a try, but others could learn a lot from the way that The Flat Head make their jeans, or at least from the mentality behind the brand. A humble, consequent, assertive, and unpompous way.

You can shop TFH jeans and garments Rivet and Hide among others.

Photography courtesy of Kyle Brooks and Steff Kobayashi. Thank you to EU TFH distributor Daniel Cizmek from DC4 for helping us with information for this article happen.