Story behind simple summer dress - Aizu-Momen (cotton cloth) -2

So I introduce an interesting company that made the Aizu-Momen summer dress I talked about on the last post.  Yamma Industry (Japanese: ヤンマ産業） is a small (not sure about its scale but at least it seems so) company located in Kichijoji area in Tokyo that manufactures clothes and other fabric stuff like bags, aprons, etc.  I found on their Facebook page they are making blouses, skirts, dresses, and other kinds of clothes using cotton cloth produced in Ise and Matsuzaka in Mie prefecture, as well as Aizu-Momen.

The most remarkable feature of Yamma is, it is run by a designer and the elderly who live near the company, and all their products are made to order.  Their website explains that when clothes are made, the designer first washes and cuts out the cloth, and then, mainly the old ladies who help the company bring the cut cloth back their home and sew it with their sawing machine to finish the product.  The finished products come back to Yamma, and are sold with 1 to 3-year warranty.

The designer says on the website that not all the elderly who saw the products are professional dressmakers, but she thinks it is not necessary to categorize them into pros and amateurs because the old women are those who have been making and repairing clothes of their children, seriously thinking about how the kids can wear the clothes for long time.  So she says it can be said that they are the professionals of sawing, as mothers of Japan.  Meanwhile, Yamma intricately inspects the products before selling them, and guarantees free repair for some period so the customers feel at ease about the products sewn by them.

I though I like this system for many reasons.  First of all, it creates employment of the elderly, which is simply meaningful in our rapidly aging society.  And I can imagine it might encourage them mentally because those who help the company by the sewing could feel they still have power to contribute the economy and society of this country.  From the viewpoint of the customers, or if I buy some product from them after reading how Yamma is making it, I would feel the warmth of those ladies when touching the clothes even though I won't actually see their face.  I don't know any other shops who provides such warm products.

This is the tag attached to Akko's summer dress.  With the explanation of the product and the company, it says: "This product is made of the cloth that you can use for as much as several hundred years (!) if you take time to take care of it."  These words remind me of what it is like to treasure something.

  

Story behind simple summer dress - Aizu-Momen (cotton cloth) -1

My friend Akko showed me her bland-new summer dress.  It is simple and beautiful, and has its unique story that I thought I need to share.

She is from Fukushima prefecture - I guess some of you outside Japan may remember as the name of the place where there was sad disaster in 2011.  When I heard her dress is made of Aizu-Momen, or cotton cloth that has been traditionally made in Aizu area in Fukushima, I was glad to know this local industry keeps on going after the earthquake!

Aizu-Momen has 400 years of its history.  According to the website of Harayama Orimono Kojo (原山織物工場), this history started when the then governor recommended cultivation of cotton for the purpose of industrial development.   Aizu-Momen has excellent moisture retention, air permeability, and water absorption, and I guess this is why daily wear made of Aizu-Momen has been loved there for so many years.  You can see the elaborate surface of
exquisitely dyed cloth.

And now, people today still loves it and are trying to making lovely products with it, and Akko's dress is one of those things.  The website of Entete shows other examples, including formal dress, pendants, toy bears, etc., as well as how Aizu-Momen is manufactured by traditional manufacturing process.

There is another interesting story behind this dress, and it is about its manufacturer Yamma Industry.  This company, located in Tokyo, has its own, very unique system of making their product.  I will write about it on the next post.

Book cover made of fusuma cloth

Camellia is one of my favorite flower and is often used as a motif in Japanese traditional patterns.  This is why I fell in love with this book cover at first sight.

But what is more interesting is the material.  This book cover is made of cloth that was originally for fusuma, or slidable partitions used in Japanese traditional houses.  (The pictures on the fusuma article in Wikipedia will help you understand what it is like.)

You can find this kind of products at Network Gallery Nawrap (in Japanese, ねっとわーくぎゃらりー・ならっぷ）, which is an antenna shop run by Maruyama Sen'i Corporation in Nara prefecture.  According to Nawrap's website (Japanese only), the company was established as former Maruyama Shouten in 1930 and had been specialized in manufacture of mosquito net.  But it ceased mosquito net production due to decrease in demand of it and started, as new company Maruyama Sen'i Sangyo（丸山繊維株式会社）, to make lawn, or finely woven cloth for use in farms to cover and protect crops, and other kinds of cloth.

And now, the company says it set up the Nawrap shop because the people in the company have been more and more eager to create various new products with Nara mosquito net by using the manufacturing techniques it developed in their history, so ordinary people can feel the comfortable and gentle touch of Nara's traditional mosquito net in their daily life.

 I asked Narap about the fusuma cloth product by email, and then Mr. Maruyama, the president of the company, replied that the company does not engage in manufacture of fusuma cloth, but in Nara, fusuma cloth has been manufactured since the late 1960s.  (I really appreciate his kind response to my email!)  That's why the company can produce goods using fusuma cloth like this, as well as mosquito net.

Ibushi-gawara production in Awaji Island

While driving Awaji Island all the way, I realized why I felt something different at some moments.  Most of the houses there have light-grayish kawaras (rooftop tiles) called Ibushi-gawara.  In many areas in Japan, kawaras you would see are black like crows, with some exceptions like red kawaras in Okinawa.

(*Supplementary note: After writing this I realized it's not true! I was born and raised in Hokuriku area where most kawaras are deep black, so I have believed that kawaras are black. But I see various colors of kawaras in my current area in Kansai, like red, light gray, deep gray, blue and green... and kawaras in these different colors are mixed in the town.  So now I guess the reason why I felt different at that time is because I didn't see such kawaras in various colors other than light-gray kawaras in Awaji.) 

Tatsumi, an Ibushi-gawara manufacturer in Awaji, allowed us to look around its factory and gallery.  You see the above picture of part of the company building (or rather it looks like a house), with their beautiful Ibushi-gawaras on its top and those piled up on the ground.

Mr Okitsu, the president of Tatsumi, explained for us the company has been making rooftop decorations in the shape of oni,, which is called "oni-gawara".  Oni is an imaginary demon that appears in many old Japanese tales, but is sometimes described as good existence too.  I guess when the oni-gawara is placed on the roof, it is considered to be a talisman.  Here is one of their biggest oni-gawara.  

It is said production of Ibushi-gawara is a traditional industry in Awaji.  It is said kawaras originally came down from China about 1400 years ago, and production was started here in Awaji a little while after that.

According to Mr Okitsu, the craftsmen of oni-gawara, who are called "oni-shi", make such a big oni-gawara using a mold, but usually they do not use a mold to make kawaras but make them with their hand.  They shape cray used as the material of kawaras into such a complicated and delicate decoration.  The shaped material is baked in a large furnace at about 1000 degrees for 24 hours.  The time taken to finish one product depends on the size and other factors.  In the case of a big one as the oni-gawara in the picture, they say it takes three months. 

When we were looking around the factory, a few craftmen were working.  One of them were making not kawaras but coasters using the same material.  In addition to kawaras, they also make small items like those coasters, flower bases, and even metalophones! (Actually the metalophone is not for sale but just a trial piece.)

I asked Mr Okitsu why they are making such products besides kawaras, and he smiled and said "Of course our main job is making kawaras, we can't make money with these tiny goods.  But sometimes people like you visit us, and we thought they would be happy if they can get some souvenirs here!  And we want them to get more interested in kawaras."

There were as much as several hundreds of kawara factories in Awaji, but the number has reduced to several dozen because of decrease in demand for kawara.  Those small goods and prototypes are Tatsumi's trial and effort to leave their traditional culture of Awaji to posterity.

I got a chopstick rest in the shape of miniture scale kawara before leaving the gallery.

Here's the link of Tatsumi's website (Japanese only, but you can see lots of beautiful products of them!): http://www.tatsumi-oni.co.jp/