The name of this iconic Japanese brand comes from the word ONI (Devil) and from the first thing many of us said the first time we touched its famous “secret denim”: “This denim is slubby like the devil”.
To speak of ONI is to speak of Masao Oishi, a touchstone in Japanese denim since he was very young. He was the first to import Levi’s from America while working in his father’s company in the late 1950s. Later, in the ‘60s, he was part of Canton Jeans, the first Japanese jeans brand.
All this experience served Oishi-San to become a great expert in fits and fabrics, acquiring a great deal of knowledge about shuttle looms and indigo. Decades later, Oishi-San founded ONI and, ever since, denimheads from around the world are fascinated by the incredibly slubby textures, irregular weave and low tension and excellent finishes, thus forging the myth of its founder and the mystery of how he succeeds in weaving such unique fabrics.
The legend is alive to this day. In recent years Oishi-San has devoted himself to experimenting with widely varying grammages, rough textures, different indigo dyeing techniques and novelty cuts while always maintaining a very limited production and wielding his experience in denim which now goes back more than 60 years.
It is a source of pride for us to be one of the few retailers of Oni Denim worldwide...
