“In 1965, the first Japanese jeans, produced by Big John in Kojima, hit stores with smashing success. Soon more Japanese jeans makers joined the fray, and the floundering Okayama textile industry emerged from the shallows with fresh wind in its newly loomed, indigo sails.”

“You may be wondering why anyone would go out of their way to make a delicacy engineered to look so underwhelming? The answer, deliciously enough, is rebellion.”

“As we watched the sunset at last over the shimmering waves of Ushimado, we lost all sense of time and place. Were we travelers along the beautiful Setouchi Sea? Or Mediterranean island hoppers watching the sun sink into the Aegean? Either way—there in that moment, we felt perfectly at home.”