No96

Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan. This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.96.
* Attention, please*Regarding the credit card payment, from next Monday(May 30), the charge by credit card payment is proceeded only by yen basis. It is just like you are traveling in Japan and shop at one of the store here. If you received the credit card payment website for the payment, the website will be invalide after May 30.(The new website of credit card settlemen in yen basis will be available from the end of May.Thank you very much for you patience and consideration.(We can accept Visa/MasterCard/American Express and Diners)
Yesterday I attended an auction in Osaka, and after the auction I went to an event, which is titled 'Fu-Sui-Do-no-Shitsurai-Ten'. It is difficult to be translated to English. Each words means 'Wind-Water-Clay Furnished Fair'.Lots of kind of modern artisans are participating, and we can enjoy fantastic hand work with traditional and natural materials.Hand woven textiles, hand painted silk fabric, persimmon tannin dyed fabric, natural ai dyed cotton, hand carved wooden chair, natural material accessory, hand woven basket, wood building materials of old house and so on. The ambience of the hall is also well designed, and in the hall we feel as if we are suddenly in the another world of the town.There is the page of the event. They are only Japanese pages, but we are very happy if you could feel the atmosphere of the event.
http://www2.daimaru.co.jp/daimaru/shop/umeda/hp/pc/event3_new.jsp?HP_NO=13118
http://www.daimaru.co.jp/umeda/report/fusuido/report.html
It is held in Daimaru department store in Umeda (Osaka), which I worked for nearly 20 years. This is one of the famous annualevent, and this time maybe the 7th. It is planned by a director, Mr. Toshihiro Imai. He looks just as a hsien or mountain hermitand very famous for his study about traditional lives of people in the monsoon Asia. There is a photo of him.
http://www.ruralnet.or.jp/ouen/meibo/014.html
I was a representative of Daimaru department store's side, when this event was held at first (maybe in 2000). It was very exciting and hard experience. At that time I didn't have deep knowledge about textiles, and I couldn't understand enough what Mr. Imai said. He always makes a main work in the front part of the hall. At that time he collaborated with a ceramic artist in Iga, and he ordered a huge flower bowl. He said something about it, 'It was the symbol of something and so on', but I forgot. Anyway we ploughed it in the grand of bamboo grove in Iga district, and took photos for ads. We had to wait more then 6 hours only to wait the the water became clear. In the hall we put it on the floor, and we had to bring lots of clay in and reconstructed it just same as the photo.All artisans had particular obsessiveness about their items, display and everything. I had to adjust their hopes, and they were especially tough work for us.We used lots of bamboo, driftwood, building materials of old house,straw-rope, Japanese paper and natural wood for the display equipment. It also was completely different from ordinary events, so the representative of interior also had to try lots of new things and sweat a lots.But anyway we got an absolute smash at the first one, and the event became annual. I got to know many first class artisans through this work.
Yesterday I got to know Mr Tagaki, who is the famous jeans designer. His wife is selling her skirts at that event, which are made of cotton. Some of her skirts are made of lots of kind of denim, and they look as if they are old ranru cotton. Mr. Tagaki was the first designer of very famous Japanese jeans 'STUDIO D'ARTISAN', and recently he had been making unique jeans in Paris. Recently I heard that Japanese denim textile become very popular among high-end jeans maker in USA, and was wondering why it is. Mr. Tagaki explained me that Japanese denim is different from USA made denim. In United States denim is made with very modernized machine heterogeneously. They are big company and sell huge amount of denim with heterogeneous quality. And Mr. Tagaki said their technique of jointing of threads are not good, and must have uneven points in it. Japanese denim makers are using old type weaving machines, and they are trying to make particular denim which has good texture and characters.When he was selling his jeans in Paris, some jeans makers in USA came to him, and were astonished to see his beautiful textured denim. He was asked, and he told them the Japanese denim factories. He said after that time jeans maker in United States became to use Japanese denim for their high-end jeans.
I was very impressed with his story. Because I couldn't imagine there was a dramatic difference in machine woven textile like denim. But he says its texture is completely different even though they are machine woven one. I have never checked the difference he said, but I must check it near future!
By the way I started a blog several days ago, as some customers already noticed.
http://kimonoichiroya.blogspot.com/
I hope to write everyday as possible as I can. I may not be able to have enough time to write long stories in English everyday, so we will upload various photos,which I took by a cellphone. We want to convey the atmosphere of our office, kimono market and our real lives in Japan through our blog.And if you have a blog in 'Blogger', most major blog service by Google, we can communicate more deeply through the blogs. Making a blog in Blogger is very easy and free. You can make your own blog only in a few minutes.
http://www.blogger.com/start
Thank you for reading to the end! Today we have listed some child kimono, ranru, hi, urushi table, kakejiku and bolt. We are very happy if you could check the new arrival page.
http://www.ichiroya.com/item/search.php?md=0523
Have a nice Sunday!
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