Evisu was born in Osaka, Japan in 1991 although the research and planning necessary to reproduce the perfect pair of vintage jeans had been going on for several years prior to this. The founder Hidehiko Yamane, was trained as a tailor but his love for vintage jeans and his disappointment with the mass-produced versions led him firstly, to the vintage clothing import business and then, revolutionarily, to start putting together the elements required to reproduce vintage style jeans.

This required the gathering together of all the various bits of machinery, none of which had been produced for at least 40 years, which are required to make authentic vintage jeans. Although initially Evisu was more a labour of love than a commercial venture, Evisu jeans captured the imagination of the detail-obsessed, Japanese fashion crowd, spurring a revival of interest in vintage denim which has now spread around the world.