When Did Denim Stores Start Looking Like Apple Stores?

When I think raw-denim store, I think wood. Like, tree wood. Stone floors, shelving overstuffed with leather jackets and flannel shirts, retro-style accoutrement, a dash of kitsch. A vintage vibe at the very least. Mid-20th century, at most.

I do not think about Apple stores.

And yet, Momotaro's new Fukuoka flagship store looks a lot more like the latter. And it certainly is intentional.

Dare to compare this sampling of denim retailers in Osaka, one of Japan's big denim hubs, which looks a lot more like grandpa's closet (if it was stuffed with Japanese-made swag). Wood. Stone. Overstuffed. Kitsch. Classic.

And then scope the new Momotaro store. The antithesis.

Momotaro is one of the OG "denim dude" brands. It turned 20 in 2026, which is about 15 years after its signature battle-striped jeans first came to represent the zenith of adherence to the raw-denim lifestyle. Momotaro's jeans represented the subculture's upper crust, being both scarce and pricey enough to only be sought out by true heads.

In the midst of the modern-day denim revival, Momotaro is sitting pretty, as old rivals like Evisu and new peers like 3sixteen recenter their raw jeans in a freshly competitive landscape (the raw denim was always crowded but the space is seeing newfound hype).

And so, Momotaro is making moves. At this summer's Paris Fashion Week, it hosted a well-attended pop-up, and its social feeds have been revamped to appear more international, cleaner even, than its Japanese denim peers. A few years ago, it issued an English-language press release announcing a rebrand intended to "Carry Forward to the Next Generation" of denim.

Goodbye kitschy wooden storefront, hello crisp new Momotaro boutique, built by a firm known for Tiffany and Louis Vuitton stores. Sleek stone furnishings, metal-framed lighting, and clean lines make it feel a lot more like a place to buy a phone than a place to try unwashed indigo pants. (Which are hiding away in a cabinet) But maybe it's like this: this is the raw denim of the future and so it must look a lot like the future. Dress for the title you want, so long as that outfit includes stiff indigo trousers.

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