No63

Dear Customer & FriendsHello from Japan. This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.63. It is still hot, but autumn is coming certainly. In this season symbolic words are 'susuki'(pampas grass),'suzumushi'(Japanese bell crickets) and 'Otsukimi'(moon viewing). The moon is thought be the most beautiful at a day in this season, and the day is called 'Chushu-no-meigetu'. It is 15th August in Chinese calendar. This year, Chuusyuu-no-meigetsu is 28th September, the day after tomorrow. From olden times people offer their harvest to the moon on this day. Now we offer 'Tsukimidango'(dumpling offered to the moon) instead of harvest, and enjoy the moon viewing. http://www.watanabegumi.co.jp/jpculture/tukimi/tukimi.html
Last week CNN delivered the news about the digital printed kimono, and some customers let us know about it. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/09/17/hightechkimonos.ap/index.htmlRecent advances in technology, ink jet printer is becoming to be able to print not only on the paper, but also on the textile. Digital data is becoming to be able to be printed out just same as the full color photos even on the textile. Its technology was invented by a company in Holland, and now some Japanese and other countries's company are selling ink jet digital print machine. What a wonderful technology, if we can easily printed out the digital data from PC directly to various textile! If we have fabulous vintage kimono with rare yuzen dyed pattern, only we scan the pattern and modify it as we like, we can print out on the brand new chirimen silk bolt as much as we want! I heard that its technology is rapidly advancing, but still remains some problems for bulk production. One problem is the texture of the printing, and another is speed of dyeing. As far as I checked, most rapid ink jet machine can print 60m/hour. Now most industrial printing are done by various kinds of screen technique, and still more efficient and low cost compared with ink jet printing. If the printing speed become more than 100m/hour, authority say ink jet technique will be dramatically popular among printing industry.
Advantages of the ink jet printing are 1) It doesn't need screen stencil, so it shortens the printing schedule if print small amount of textile. 2) It will cut the stencil cost. So the cost of small amount of printing will be reduced.3) It can print very finely with full colors (like photo print).
Limitations are 1)Ink is only sprayed, so the inks penetrates textile poorly.2)Production speed is slower than screen printing.3)Some textile can not be printed.
CNN seems to be impressed, because this cutting-edge technology is used also in most traditional industry 'Kimono Dyeing Industry'. But most cutting edge of this advance of this technology are in the laddie's fashion wear ( Western cloth). I had worked for Daimaru department store, and I knew that the term of the laddie's cloth are becoming shorter and shorter, and all ladies fashion maker are trying to shorten the lead time. Once ladies dress maker only make four seasons wears - spring, summer, autumn and winter. But now people never buy the spring season wear in the middle or later spring. If retailers are selling next season's cloth earlier, people also won't buy them. Now ladies dress maker must deliver terminal gap season's fashion. Terms when the items are sold at the set prices are becoming shorter and shorter, and it is also becoming very difficult to guess which items will have success. So the maker's strategy become like below,
1) Introduce season items with small volume.2) Check the sales at the beguiling term, and expect the sales of its season as precisely as they can.3) They make the rest volume according to their expectation. Shorter the lead time, more the sales volume.
So if the maker make small amount of the textile with ink jet printing, and later make addition with screen printed textile, they can cut the cost of screens.Of course if they use ink jet printing, they can deliver their new items very near the top season.
Ink jet printing textiles are becoming ordinarily, and already you and we may be wear it without knowing. Regarding our business, in future we may offer ink jet print textile with other printed or screened textiles for brand new casual kimono. Anyway in future we would like to offer more brand new textiles which are made in Japan, both traditionally hand made one and industrial machine dyed one.
Today we are going to list two vintage Bunraku puppets! We got them at famous Kyoto auction a few days ago. As some customers may know, Bunraku is the Japanese traditional puppet play, which is declared a World Heritage site. Here is a site about Bunraku in English, which has extremely rich contents. You can find the puppets here same as we have listed. http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/bunraku/english/index.htmYou can enjoy the Bunraku, if you come to Osaka. Bunraku theater is near from our office ( approx 60 minutes by train ). And we must confess we (Ichiro & Yuka) have never seen Bunraku in the theater. Near future when we go, we will write about it precisely.
We will also list supreme Embroidery chirimen uchikake from Meiji period.It has fabulous embroidery all over it. We will list also some fukusa, ranru cotton, sakiori vest and others. Items are must buy for customers of delicate taste!After I deliver this news letter, I will list them one by one. Please check today's new arrival later.http://www.ichiroya.com/item/search.php?md=0927Thank you again for reading to the end! We would like to list many charming items also this week.
Ichiro & Yuka WadaKimono Flea Market "ICHIROYA"http://www.ichiroya.com
e-mail: info@ichiroya.comaddress: Asia-shoji Bldg.301 1841-1 Nishi 1 chome Wakamatsu cho Tondabayashi city Osaka 584-0025 JAPANTEL&FAX ****( international number ) - 81-721-23-5446