No87

Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No . 87.Yesterday we have an auction in Kyoto, and I(Ichiro) took my elder daughter Shoko there for the first time. Recently she passed her entrance exam, and she is on her spring holidays before starting the study of Chinese and English. She seems to have been interested in our business, and enjoyed the go-go atmosphere of auction yesterday. We wish she will master two foreign languages, and become an independent person. We don't know whether she will join our business or not, but anyway we want to teach her how to earn and stand by herself. At the auction we couldn't buy enough volume of kimono, we went an huge antique sale in Kyoto ( titled 'Kyoto Big Antique Festival') after attending the auction. It is held in huge event hall for three days, and more than 120 antique sellers are gathering and selling their items, including Western antiques. Approx a fourth is kimono and vintage fabric sellers. Almost all kimono sellers are acquaintance, and they said the first day of the event recorded good sales ( it will end today). We couldn't buy something special there, but we enjoyed seeing lots of fabulous Japanese antique goods. Many things which attracted me strongly had the prices more than 100,000 yen ( nearly 1000USD ), and we could find some supreme items, which were put more than million yen. I was especially attracted by netsuke, inrou and other urushi items. I was strikingly astonished to see the incredible details of them. We are going to rent one more room beside our office, and hire a few more staffs. We would like to offer more kimono and fabrics, and besides them we would like to add other antique goods. And in future we are very happy if we can offer very valuable urushi and other items at our site as well..
When I wrote about the kasuri history in previous news letter, I was wondering where did the Japanese cotton go. As I wrote, after middle of the the Meiji period(1868-1912), almost all cotton threads were imported from USA or India. So kasuri and other cotton fabrics from after mid Meiji period(1868-1912) were made of US born cotton threads. But in the Edo period(1603-1867) cotton were cultivated widely all over Japan(except Hokkaido and Tohoku), and people hand spun the cotton and dyed with natural ai, and made their ordinary clothes. My question remained -- Where did Japanese cotton go?The documents says Japanese cotton 'wamen' threads were too short for machine-weave and couldn't be used for textiles after the Meiji priod(1868-1912). Farmers quit to cultivate cotton as agriculture, and only a few farmers have been kept to cultivate only for their futon padding or cloth. Japanese cotton 'wamen' was nearly dying. But I found a man in Chiba prefecture were trying to grow old Japanese cotton seeds, and many people agree to cooperate on the sruvive of 'wamen' and begin to grow the seeds in their fields. He is trying to grow 30 kinds of original Japanese seeds and trying to preserve the species. He says each Japanese cotton 'wamen' seeds have various belongings suited to each climates of their original regions. To cultivate 'wamen' cost way expensive compared to import cotton from foreign countries, but considering the environment issues we should cultivate and use 'wamen' more by ourselves. I am impressed with his affirmation.His name is Takeshi Tabata, and he!re is his page.I thought this page is informative and interesting(Sorry the website is in Japanese only).http://homepage2.nifty.com/wamen-nouen/
Today I also get interested in sericultural industry of Japan. Japanese cotton almost die, now how about Japanese silk? Sericultural industry must have been the major exporting industry in olden times. But we rarely hear about silk-raising farmers, nor have no friends whoare raising silk.I found the figures which are not interesting, which is worse than I expected.* Year-on-year reduction rate of silk production - 17% * Number of silk-raising farmers is reducing dramatically. From 57,320 (1988) to 2,360 ( 2002 ). * Each countries' silk yield of 2001 - China 400,000ton( first ranking ), Japan 1,030ton ( 8th ranking)* Approx 75% of domestic silk consumption is imported.Our country import lots of primary commodities, and most primary commodities industries have disappeared. Sericultural industry also may have the same destiny as cotton. I may have to write in future as below - 'In mid Heisei period( 1989- 20** ) domestic secicultural industry disappeared completely, and after that time all kimono have been made by imported silk.' Thank you again for reading to the end. When I look after the current situation of handicraft, I always renew my awareness about the value of vintage and antique items.
*We are adding children's kimono, uniqe patterned haori and colorful bolts in about 4 hours. We will be very happy if you could take a look at these new arrivals.
Thank you very much. domo arigato gozaimasu
**We are sending Ichiroya News Letter - the information of new arrivals and bargains. If you would like to join our mailing list, please visit here:http://www.ichiroya.com/~webichiroya/mail/join.htm
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