Rainbow Country

Rainbow Country is undoubtedly the most confidential brand I have in store. Little is known about its origins. And yet, many leather jacket aficionados know that their jackets are of exceptional quality. Search niche forums or Instagram, and you'll find various articles describing it as one of the top 3 leather jacket brands in the world and, quite possibly, one of the most sought after when it comes to reproduction of vintage leather jackets (1930s-1940s). I was lucky enough, thanks to my contacts, to go down the branches to reach the trunk of the tree and exchange with the owner of Rainbow Country:

"Rainbow Country was founded in 1998, in Chiba prefecture and used to work with many specialty Japanese brands to sew leather jackets to the highest levels. Back in the days, I was working for a very famous Japanese heritage company as a Specialty Planner for leather garments. I was able to study deeply the leather work, and traveled to the best tanneries in England, Italy, New Zealand and USA. Five years later, I stopped working for this heritage brand and was hired by the former company (it wasn't named Rainbow Country back then).

When hired, they basically gave me the reins of the leather department, and I named the company Rainbow Country, for one simple reason: I want my customers to feel like kids watching a Rainbow; only happy and satisfied.  I then went to the famous horsehide tanner Shinki Hikaku in Hyogo prefecture every year and went to the finishing factory in Tokyo every week to study and check every aspect of leather tanning. 

Since then I have made many styles of leather jackets in our own factory, using only Japanese leather, Japanese bespoke parts, Japanese cotton thread, etc. We usually study old American military, motorcycle, and sports jackets. They have very interesting details and they are both challenging and fun to reproduce. In terms of leather, we usually work with horsehide, it has a lot of potential for making old style leather jackets. 

Because of that, I named this leather brand "California Mfg. Co."  which feels like an old American style company. In other words, Rainbow Country is the company name, while California Mfg. Co. is the brand name. But everybody knows us under the name Rainbow Country🌈."