Discover the geek inside by exploring denim

The Hub fashion trade show wrapped up last week, having successfully introduced new and varied niche brands to Hong Kong. While the event showcased mostly premium and luxury menswear brands, what stood out most was the large number of denim labels.

It's been 140 years since Levi's gave the world the first five-pocket pair of blue jeans - the fabled 501 - and since then denim has been the fabric of choice for everyone from farmers to miners, the common man to aristocracy and punks, rockers, rappers and hipsters.

In Hong Kong the denim market follows extremes: high-end luxury labels at the top, cheap alternatives at the bottom. In the past two years the casual-wear sector has grown with the entrance of retailers including Gap, H&M and Abercrombie. But the most rapid growth, albeit from a smaller base, has been premium denim from small independent producers, especially from Japan.

Japanese designer Hidehiko Yamane is as close to a cult figure in denim as you can get. He started a slow-burning global trend for Japanese denim when he established Evisu in 1991. Some denim in Japan is particularly sought after because it uses traditional American shuttle looms. In the '50s and '60s, denim manufacturers in the US switched to more industrial projectile looms to keep pace with increasing demand. Most of the old looms were mothballed until small Japanese companies such as Evisu saw the potential and brought the machines to Japan.

The difference between denim made on the old-style loom and the new projectile is obvious. Very simply, old-style looms create denim with clean, tightly bound edges, what's known as selvedge denim, while the new projectile looms have given us denim with more frayed and loose edges which is likely to wear a lot faster.

Yamane, who now designs denim under his new eponymous brand, speaks through his interpreter and general manager Yuji Yosumi. He believes that people today are more interested in details and quality. "Cleaning and washing," says Yosumi, repeating Yamane's mantra that jeans should be about the way the indigo colour is revealed with washing and the way that colour fades over time. Yamane's denim obsession has spread to a lifestyle collection that includes shoes and bags, illustrating the way the fabric has become more widely used in fashion.

Dutch brand Blue Blood also exhibited at The Hub, and Morena Ferrier, the brand's marketing and communications associate, was surprised by the positive response. "Consumers are open to new things; they are looking for something different, something authentic," says Ferrier.