Betty Smith Jeans Museum & Village

The Betty Smith Jeans Museum & Village is the flagship attraction of Kojima, the district in southern Kurashiki that proudly calls itself the birthplace of Japanese denim. Opened in 2003 by the Betty Smith jeans company, it was the first jeans museum in Japan and is registered with the Japanese Association of Museums, drawing tens of thousands of denim enthusiasts each year to a corner of the country that turns raw indigo cloth into some of the world's most coveted jeans.

The museum spreads across a small 'village' of buildings. Its exhibition halls tell two intertwined stories: the origins of jeans in nineteenth-century America, where hard-wearing riveted work trousers were born, and the rise of Japanese domestic jeans in postwar Kojima, a town that pivoted from cotton weaving and school uniforms to denim in the 1960s. Display panels, vintage garments, replicas of jeans made more than a century ago, and antique sewing machines and industrial equipment trace how the craft crossed the Pacific and was refined to a famously exacting standard here.

What sets Betty Smith apart from a conventional museum is that it is attached to a working operation. Visitors can watch craftspeople using traditional cutting and sewing techniques, understanding firsthand why Kojima denim commands such respect for its selvedge weaving, dyeing and finishing. The site includes a hands-on workshop where guests can order custom jeans or personalize a pair by choosing rivets, buttons and stitching, turning a museum visit into a wearable souvenir. An adjacent outlet shop sells factory-direct jeans and denim goods, often at appealing prices.

A notable point of pride is Kojima's status as the heart of the wider 'Japan denim' phenomenon, anchored by the nearby Kojima Jeans Street where dozens of brands cluster. Betty Smith itself operates what it bills as one of Japan's oldest jeans factories, and the museum frames the town's craft not as nostalgia but as a living, globally admired industry.

The visiting experience is relaxed and hands-on, ideal for anyone interested in fashion, craft or manufacturing, and welcoming to families thanks to the interactive elements. Plan on about an hour, more if you take a workshop. The facilities are modern and largely accessible, with on-site parking, and because general admission is free it is easy to combine with other Kojima denim stops.

Opening hours are 9:30 to 17:00, closed only over the year-end and New Year holidays, and entrance to the museum is free, though workshops and custom orders carry their own fees. Any season works, as the exhibits are indoors.

Getting there requires venturing beyond central Kurashiki to the Kojima area near the Seto Inland Sea. From JR Okayama or Kurashiki, transfer to the JR Seto-Ohashi Line and ride to JR Kojima Station, from which the museum is about a 10-minute taxi ride; local Shimoden buses toward the Kojima jeans district also serve the area. By car it is roughly 13 minutes from the Seto-Chuo Expressway Kojima IC, with free parking in front of the museum and outlet store.