Jeans have been around since the late 19th century, but for most of the time they've been around, up until at least the mid 1950s, jeans were workwear. Entirely the domain of farmers, miners, dock workers and cowboys.

Following screen wear by a couple of young Hollywood icons, a new idea took hold - jeans could be style. When young mods first got hold of American denim in the early 60s - a relatively unusual sight in the UK at the time - it only fed their insatiable appetite for everything new and sharp. The finicky process of buying a pair of raw 501s and shrinking them in the bath became a ritual in itself.

Decades on, we're all used to the ubiquity of denim. Generally mass produced, lightweight, and lacking the finished edge (selvedge) that was so essential on earlier made pairs. At Jump the Gun we wanted to get as close as possible to that feeling of encountering brand new imported denim for the first time. Where do you get the best American denim? Japan of course.

Our jeans are all made by TCB - the Two Cats Brand. Based in Okayama, Japan, TCB is a tiny ateliers with just over a dozen employees. Making small batch denim, both raw and sanforised, in various vintage fits.

The New Cats Drive jean is a cowboy jean through and through. By no means wide, but just wide enough to fit over boots. Featuring a high rise, double bar-tacked wide set pockets (for wear in the saddle), heavy leather patch, copper rivets on the front pockets and crotch. Made from a heavyweight left hand slub denim. What is slub denim? Slub is a term for fabric where the loom tension for the warp and weft of the cloth is deliberately set as slightly uneven, resulting in a heavily textured denim which tends to produce long, continuous fade lines as it ages.

• Regular tapered fit
• High rise
• Sanforised slub denim - runs true to size
• Button fly, with vintage style donut buttons
• Copper rivets
• Matching jacket available, for the full denim tux