No99-2

Dear Customers & Friends
Hello from Japan! This is Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No. 99.Yesterday we had a set-in of Tsuyu(rainy season) here in Osaka. Rainy season will continue about a month, and 'hotaru'(lightning bug) season will come in this period, and after the rainy season hot summer will come. Did you see the fabulous 'hotaru-gari'(hunting for fireflies) picture of our recent listed kurotomesode? If you don't have seen yet, please check the page. We think this picture is one of supreme sample of Japanese feeling of the season. If someone have this picture in her kimono now, we must admire her taste. We look forward to see lots of lights of hotaru flying, and it had to be way fun in olden times when there were not many entertainment like modern days.http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list3.php?no=78507
By the way, we sometimes imagine how our business will become in future. If our daughter accedes our business, will vintage kimono and kimono textiles still remain during her life? As already you know, NEW kimono market is shrinking every year, and it causes the shrinking of the volume of USED kimono. In addition some portion of modern kimono product are made in China, and imported, and vaulable kimono textiles are becoming less and less. The length of life of silk is said to be a hundred years, and vintage kimono and fabrics are cut and consumed as handicraft material. So the vintage kimono also is reducing. The downsizing of our market seems not to be avoided. Not only kimono but also every kinds of product are displaced by imported product. The population of domestic production is reducing dramatically, and domestic producing population is also reducing constantly. This situation must be the similar to all advanced nations, and there seems not to be easy solutions.
My dream is selling Japanese product(brand new one) to the world on the internet. For textiles, really valuable textiles become too expensive for oridnarily use. Modern hand-dyed, hand-woven Kurume kasuri cost approx ten thousand USD, and only very small amount are produced every year with government assistance. Traditional techniques are becoming too difficult to be handed down orally. Kurume kasuri is the symbolic representation, but some traditional products are in the similar situation to Kurume kasuri. Domestic market is becoming too small for some kinds of items. Japanese population is only one hundred million. But if we can sell to the world on the internet, market size becomes bigger dramatically. Now is the internet age, and we can find easily potential customers in the world on the internet.
We think the most important thing is marketing. I have seen some craft products, which were exported in Meiji priod(1868-1912). They are well designed for Western customers, and made with artisan spirits. They had to sell and earn money for Japan, who hurried to be a modern country. In order to sell Japanese product to the world, we must study marketing more and scheme suggestion of usage. If we change the design, we may be able to sell hand woven tsumugi silk for the textile of western clothes. As we wrote in previous newsletter, Japanese denim become very popular among USA jeans makers now. Not only handicraft, but also machine-made goods(which need some kind of skills) must be able to sell more, if we study marketing more seriously.
It's my dream to help the survival of productive center with selling them on the internet. We are always thinking about it, and we wish to offer them in unique way in some days.
Today we have listed a supreme haori, urushi bowl, men's yukata and obi, cotton, obijime obiage set and bolt. We are very happy if you could check them.http://www.ichiroya.com/item/search.php?pg=0&md=0613
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