{"title":"BRANDS","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:11px; letter-spacing:0.14em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.35); margin:0 0 14px;\"\u003eBrands\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:26px; font-weight:500; line-height:1.25; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 16px; font-family:inherit;\"\u003eObjects made by people who have spent years on one thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:14px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.55); margin:0;\"\u003eEvery brand here is built around a single craft, a single material, or a single obsession. We go to the source.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"maeda-kobo","title":"Maeda Kobo","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eMaeda Kobo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eJapanese tea boxes · Kawane-Honcho, Shizuoka\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eThe Japanese tea box was engineered for a specific problem: keeping tea leaves fresh across months at sea. When Japan began exporting tea in the 1800s, the boxes had to protect their contents from ocean moisture and insects through long Pacific voyages. The solution — a tightly fitted wooden box with foil lining — proved so effective that the form has barely changed in two centuries. Today people use them for rice, coffee beans, clothing, camera equipment, and anything else that benefits from consistent humidity control. Cared for properly, a tea box will outlast most things in a household by generations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eMaeda Kobo makes these boxes in Kawane-Honcho, Shizuoka — once a center of tea box manufacturing, where workshops closed one after another as cardboard and plastic took over. In 2000, Kieko Sonoda retired from a career in local government and took over the last remaining workshop, a company with a 75-year history that had reached the end of its line. She restarted production with a team now in their thirties and forties. Lumber is dried for at least two months before cutting. Wood shavings go to local egg farmers; offcuts are taken by residents for wood-burning stoves. Nothing is wasted.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669316579457,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/japanese-wooden-storage-box-by-maeda-kobo.jpg?v=1778635017"},{"product_id":"ritofu","title":"Ritofu","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eRitofu\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eHand-painted Kyo-yuzen · Kyoto\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eKyo-yuzen is a Kyoto dyeing tradition characterized by multi-color gradations and fine detail applied over silk. Of all Kyo-yuzen produced today, hand-painted work accounts for only around ten percent — the rest is screen-printed or stenciled. Sairin, the dyeing house behind Ritofu, has practiced hand-painted Kyo-yuzen for generations; their work has been worn by members of the Japanese Imperial Family. The company uses a wide brush rather than the narrow brush standard in the field, allowing color to penetrate deeper into the silk fiber and producing a depth that surface application cannot replicate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eRitofu is Sairin's original brand, created to bring these techniques out of the formal kimono context and into everyday use — full kimono alongside clutch bags, pouches, and accessories made from the same dyed silk. Tomoko Fujii, who took over as president in 2020 from her father Hiroshi Fujii, one of the master dyers of his generation, describes the logic plainly: the techniques and aesthetic sensibility that went into formal kimono are not less valuable when applied to something smaller. For people outside Japan, the smaller objects offer a way in.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669332406401,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/kimono-bag-by-ritofu.jpg?v=1778635155"},{"product_id":"sanuki-kagari-temari","title":"Sanuki Kagari Temari","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eSanuki Kagari Temari\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eHand-sewn textile spheres · Kagawa\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eSanuki Kagari Temari are hand-sewn textile spheres made in Kagawa Prefecture. Cotton threads dyed with plants and trees — madder, indigo, sappanwood, chestnut — are wound and stitched over a core of rice husks, following a technique practiced in the region since the Edo period, when Kagawa, then known as Sanuki, was one of Japan's principal cotton-producing areas. The sphere is formed entirely by hand, without measuring instruments. The pattern is then built up using a stitching method specific to this tradition, passing thread from line to line across a surface divided into sections. Training begins with five years of faithful reproduction before any personal expression is introduced; full mastery takes more than a decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eThe craft nearly disappeared. It has been brought back by Eiko Araki, representative of the Sanuki Kagari Temari Preservation Society, who encountered temari in her thirties through a local folk craft collection and stopped engraving metal entirely at forty to pursue it. The Society currently has around 120 active makers. Araki is careful not to frame the work as a museum exercise — she wants temari to be seen as something alive, not only preserved.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669332701313,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/sanuki-kagari-temari.jpg?v=1778634964"},{"product_id":"kawachiya","title":"Kawachiya","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eKawachiya\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eHand gold-edged stationery · Shimbashi, Tokyo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eKawachiya was founded in 1971 in Shimbashi, Tokyo, one block from the advertising agencies and publishers that made the area a center of Japan's postwar print industry. For decades the company built its reputation on commission work — however demanding the client, the quality would not move. When print media began its decline in the 2000s, president Ryosuke Kunisawa turned those accumulated skills toward something entirely their own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eThe technique at the center of their original brand is tenkin — gold foil applied by hand to the cut edges of a notebook. Only two print shops in Japan have preserved the knowledge to do it at all; Kawachiya is the only one that applies the foil entirely by hand. When the brand debuted at a major stationery exhibition in 2017, the process drew a crowd, and led to commissions from luxury brands and foreign royal households. The Morris series extends the work further: William Morris patterns interpreted through UV resin and gold foil, producing a surface depth that printing or embossing alone cannot replicate.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669333389441,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/william-morris-notebook-by-kawachiya.jpg?v=1778635224"},{"product_id":"makita-shoten","title":"Makita Shoten","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eMakita Shoten\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eJacquard-woven umbrellas · Yamanashi\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eMost umbrella fabric is printed. Makita Shoten's is woven — thread by thread, on Jacquard looms, using yarn dyed with water drawn from Mt. Fuji. The difference is visible at a glance. Printed fabric produces its pattern on the surface; woven fabric builds it into the structure, so color and form emerge from the interlacing of threads rather than anything applied afterward. Each umbrella takes three to four months to produce. Makita Shoten is the only manufacturer in the world to handle every stage — from weaving to final assembly — entirely in-house.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eThe company was founded 150 years ago in Yamanashi Prefecture as a silk wholesaler. For most of its history it operated as a subcontractor, weaving fabric on commission for other brands. After 2008, the sixth-generation director Yoichi Makita shifted course: develop original products, and build something that did not depend on the priorities of others. The technical challenge that defines the current work is a continuous pattern that crosses the triangular panels of an umbrella canopy without interruption at the seams — a calculation that must be made against the final three-dimensional form of the assembled object. No other manufacturer produces this at full scale.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669334241409,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/japanese-umbrella-by-makita-shoten.jpg?v=1778635267"},{"product_id":"zenemon-sakakura","title":"Hagiyaki Zenemon Sakakura","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eZenemon Sakakura\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eHagiyaki potter · Nagato, Yamaguchi\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eHagiyaki is a ceramic tradition of Yamaguchi Prefecture, long valued for its undecorated, softly textured surface. The clay body is slightly porous. As a piece is used over months and years, fine crazing develops in the glaze — and tea, sake, or water seeps gradually into these fissures, shifting the color from within. The object that comes out of the kiln is not yet finished; it finishes itself in the hands of whoever uses it. Zenemon Sakakura relighted a kiln that had gone cold in his grandfather's generation, and what he makes from this tradition looks nothing like what most people expect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eHis best-known works are ceramic fish — anatomically precise, surface-detailed, built in a style entirely at odds with Hagiyaki's rustic reputation. Alongside these, he makes cups and tableware glazed with material derived from the red shale of the Akama inkstone, a traditional craft material of Yamaguchi Prefecture, which produces a deep matte black surface. He is interested in what happens when an ordinary act — drinking coffee, water, sake — is done with a cup that carries this kind of weight. Not ceremony. Just attention.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669334438017,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/hagi-ware-by-Zenemon-Sakakura.jpg?v=1778635347"},{"product_id":"naoko-hata-ceramics","title":"Naoko Hata Ceramics","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eNaoko Hata\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eCeramic artist · Suzuka, Mie\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eNaoko Hata describes herself, without irony, as a glaze maniac. She works from a studio in Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, and has developed over a thousand glaze recipes — each one tested, recorded, and filed. Shift the composition by a milligram, and the fired surface changes: color, texture, the way light sits on it. The result cannot be seen until the kiln is opened. This combination of precision and uncertainty is what drew her to glazes as a student, and what has kept her researching them since.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eMost potters outsource their plaster molds. Hata makes her own — shaving, re-pouring, and refining each prototype four or more times before a form feels right. She studied ceramics at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and spent her early years assisting at a studio in Yokkaichi, a city with a three-century ceramic tradition. The forms she arrives at are quiet. The glazes are the point: vivid, particular, and built to change how an ordinary table looks and how a morning coffee feels.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669334470785,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/naoko-hata-ceramics.jpg?v=1778635388"},{"product_id":"yamato","title":"Yamato","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eYamato Corporation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eLeather room sabots · Matsuyama, Ehime\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eYamato Corporation has made sandals — and only sandals — since 1963. The plant in Matsuyama is run by a small team, most of them veterans with decades on the floor. Reela, their leather room sabot line, was not planned. It came out of an invitation to an interior design exhibition in 2016, where outdoor sandals felt out of place. Rather than make ordinary slippers, the team asked what they could produce using their existing knowledge that no one else was doing. Genuine leather room shoes, it turned out, were surprisingly rare.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eEach pair is built on a wooden last — a form traditional to shoe production, rarely used in sandal making. After the leather is shaped around it, the piece rests for several days before removal. Natural cowhide, tanned in Japan, must be cut one piece at a time; a single production run yields only a few dozen pairs, and each takes approximately a week to complete. The result is used not only in private homes but in luxury hotels and high-end ryokan as a hospitality item for guests.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669334503553,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/yamato-reela-slippers.jpg?v=1778726807"},{"product_id":"aji-project","title":"Aji Project","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eAji Project\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eAji stone · Takamatsu, Kagawa\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eAji Stone is a granite found only in the northeastern part of Takamatsu City — the single place in the world where it is quarried. It ranks 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, equivalent to quartz and nearly twice as hard as marble. Its fine grain allows for precise craftsmanship; its low moisture content makes it exceptionally resistant to weathering. Only a small percentage of what is quarried is usable. Every step from extraction to finishing requires careful inspection, and it takes at least four years of training to work the stone with any skill.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eThe number of artisans working with Aji Stone is declining. Where some 500 stoneworking companies once operated in the region, around 200 remain — and where companies once employed up to twenty workers, many now operate with one. Chikara Ninomiya, President of Aoshima Co., Ltd., launched Aji Project to bring the stone back into daily life and to restore the economics that sustain the people who shape it. Processing fees had gone unchanged for over thirty years; one of his first actions was to correct that. The aim is straightforward: as the work finds its audience — in Japan and beyond — the craft finds a reason to continue.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669342171265,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/japanese-luxury-aji-stone-bookends-by-aji-project.jpg?v=1778635448"},{"product_id":"hiroshi-taruta","title":"Hiroshi Taruta","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eHiroshi Taruta\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eReticulated porcelain (Hotarute) · Seto, Aichi\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eHotarute is a porcelain technique with roots in Ming Dynasty China. The potter throws a vessel, then carves openings into the unfired body — removing material until the wall is pierced through. Transparent glaze fills the openings; when fired, it pools and sets, transmitting light where the clay has been removed. In the dark, the effect resembles fireflies suspended in the wall. Most practitioners use round perforations. Taruta uses lines — larger openings, greater structural risk, and a narrower margin for error at every stage. He chose this not despite the difficulty, but because of the quality of light it produces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eTaruta grew up in Nagoya and trained at Seto Pottery High School before apprenticing under ceramic artist Masanori Hatano in 2007. A remark from his teacher — that there is something to be said for taking one thing as far as it will go — took years to land. It did so during ten months traveling through Europe in 2015, where his work was received not as having a European quality, as people in Japan sometimes described it, but as distinctly Japanese. He returned knowing that hotarute, pursued completely, could become something no one else had made. His piece Yuragi received the Excellence Award at the 1st Japanese Culture Grand Prix in 2021. He works from his studio in Seto, Aichi Prefecture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669342597249,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/porcelain-guinomi-by-hiroshi-taruta.jpg?v=1778726577"},{"product_id":"creezan","title":"Creezan","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eCreezan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eWhite leather bags · Toyooka, Hyogo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eToyooka, Hyogo Prefecture has been the center of bag production in Japan for over a thousand years. Creezan was founded here in 2015 by Cony Co., Ltd. — a manufacturer with four decades of experience producing bags for major domestic and international brands. The premise was simple: to make a white bag worth owning for a long time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eWhite leather is unforgiving, so the process is built around that fact. Sewing machines are covered to prevent oil splatter. Craftspeople work in gloves. Metal fittings are wiped before assembly. The leather itself — Italian shrink leather, adopted in 2020 — is thick yet soft, with a treated surface that resists both water and dirt. Hardware is original and engraved with the brand name; zippers are YKK Excella, chosen for the quality of their movement. The result is a bag that requires little beyond basic care, and is designed to stay white through years of use.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40669342630017,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/japanese-white-leather-bag-by-creezan.jpg?v=1778634884"},{"product_id":"takakura-kogei","title":"Takakura Kogei","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eTakakura Kogei\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003eNambu broom · Kunohe, Iwate\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eThe Nambu Broom begins not in a workshop, but in a field. Takakura Kogei grows broomcorn from seed in Kunohe Village, Iwate Prefecture — a cool, mountainous region where a cold northeasterly wind slows the plant's growth each summer, naturally curling the bristle tips into the form the broom is known for. No pesticides are used. Each stalk is harvested by hand, boiled, dried, and sorted into fifteen categories by the degree of curl before weaving begins.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eThe curled tips are what make the broom work: they reach into the fibres of tatami and carpet, pulling out fine dust that a vacuum leaves behind. The characteristic was discovered by accident — the founder, Tokusaburo Takakura, bundled the \"flawed\" curled stalks that straight-bristle standards would have discarded and gave them to relatives. The response was immediate. Today, his son Kiyokatsu leads the company, overseeing everything from cultivation to sales. A Nambu Broom takes a full year to make from seed to finished object, and is built to last more than twenty.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40673057472641,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/japanese-broom-by-takakura-kogei.jpg?v=1778634634"},{"product_id":"ame-norihiko-kamei","title":"\"Ame\" Norihiko Kamei","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size:28px; font-weight:500; letter-spacing:0.04em; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin:0 0 8px;\"\u003eAME\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:13px; letter-spacing:0.12em; text-transform:uppercase; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin:0 0 32px;\"\u003ePreserved flower · Kita-Kamakura\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 16px;\"\u003eNorihiko Kamei came to flowers through the tea ceremony — and through wagashi, the small confections served at tea gatherings. Precise in form, seasonal by nature, gone within moments of being made. The impermanence was the point. His graduation work at Tokyo Zokei University used confections from the historic Toraya wagashi house as raw material, and the direction he would spend the next decades pursuing was already visible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp style=\"font-size:16px; line-height:1.9; color:rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin:0 0 40px;\"\u003eThe series at the foundation of AME is HANAYAMA — small, dense arrangements of multicolored flowers that read as a single living landscape. After exhibiting the work in fresh flowers in Amsterdam in 2019, Kamei moved to preserved flowers: the only way to share the work across borders, and let it last. From this came the KESHIKIFU line — volcanic pumice stones from Kagoshima planted with preserved botanicals, each paired with a fragrance blended to match the landscape it carries — and the UKIISHI series, in which moss and leaves arranged on stone conceal a small bud vase for a single stem. Each piece is a landscape compressed into something that fits in two hands.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40677502910593,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/preserved-flower-by-ame-norihiko-kamei.jpg?v=1778635085"},{"product_id":"koma","title":"Koma","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size: 28px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin: 0 0 8px;\"\u003eKOMA\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin: 0 0 32px;\"\u003ewooden wORKs · Ogikubo, Tokyo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eKOMA is a furniture atelier based in Ogikubo, Tokyo, led by Shigeki Matsuoka — recognized in 2020 as a \"Contemporary Master Craftsman,\" the highest honor the Japanese government awards to working artisans — alongside Toshihiro Kamei, who designs and makes the watch cases. Kamei's background was in metal engraving. In 2019, drawn to the small and precise, he launched Bespoke Case: a line of watch cases made from rare wood species. The idea was simple. \"There are beautiful watches,\" he said. \"But there are no beautiful cases for them.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eKOMA's view is that Japanese craft is admired from the outside, but the conditions for the people making it are not sustainable. Their response is to develop what they call the craftsperson's ability to produce — not just to make well, but to bring something to market, build an audience, and sustain a practice on their own terms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.55); font-style: italic; display: block; padding: 16px 0 16px 20px; border-left: 2px solid rgba(2,9,18,0.15); margin: 0 0 24px;\"\u003e\"I'm too busy to think about goals.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.08em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin-top: 12px; display: block;\"\u003e— Toshihiro Kamei, Bespoke Case \/ KOMA\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40698965164161,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/japanese-wood-stool-by-koma.png?v=1778634803"},{"product_id":"muto","title":"Muto","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size: 28px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin: 0 0 8px;\"\u003eMuto\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin: 0 0 32px;\"\u003eUltra-fine silk cashmere · Nishikatsu, Yamanashi\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eThere is a thread so fine it cannot be woven in its bare state. At one-third the diameter of a human hair, muto's silk cashmere thread must first be wound with a secondary fibre just to survive the tension of the loom. The preparation alone takes six months. Once weaving begins, production is limited to four stoles per day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.55); font-style: italic; display: block; padding: 16px 0 16px 20px; border-left: 2px solid rgba(2,9,18,0.15); margin: 0 0 24px;\"\u003e\"It's extremely fine and delicate. In its bare state, it cannot be woven.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.08em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin-top: 12px; display: block;\"\u003e— Nobuaki Muto, muto\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 40px;\"\u003eFounded in 1967 in Yamanashi Prefecture, muto spent a generation making silk bedding before pivoting to stoles — driven by an encounter with a Loro Piana cashmere. The finishing step remains particular to this place: the woven cloth is passed through subterranean snowmelt water from Mount Fuji, giving the fabric its luster. Their stoles have been shown at Première Vision in Paris, in its curated section for makers of exceptional quality.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40702159159425,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/image_1_1.png?v=1780390512"},{"product_id":"storio","title":"Storio","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size: 28px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin: 0 0 8px;\"\u003eSTORIO\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin: 0 0 32px;\"\u003eBent-wood objects · Ojiya, Niigata\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eBent-wood technique begins with a contradiction: wood is rigid, and then, under heat and moisture and sustained force, it is not. The form it takes at that moment — a curve, a loop, an arch — it keeps permanently, without joints, without glue. The technique has existed in Japan for centuries, most visibly in the magewappa lunch boxes made by coopers in Akita. STORIO, based in Ojiya, Niigata, applies the same logic to objects designed for the contemporary desk and home.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eEach piece is machined to 0.1 mm — a tolerance uncommon in woodworking — which allows the wood to be taken closer to its limits than most makers attempt. The result is objects that are thinner, lighter, and more flexible than most people expect from solid wood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eThe beech used in STORIO's work comes from the heavy-snow mountains of Uonuma City — forests once managed for firewood, then left unmanaged as demand declined, until the trees grew heavy enough to cause landslides. STORIO joined a reforestation initiative with Niigata University and local furniture makers to restore these satoyama forests. Their objects are one outcome of that work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40734466506881,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/2019_41_TANZAKULAnp_2_d71f1bfe-7de9-45fd-95d9-0f3e3c14c003.png?v=1778667508"},{"product_id":"ke-shiki","title":"Ke-shiki","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size: 28px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin: 0 0 8px;\"\u003eKe-shiki\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin: 0 0 32px;\"\u003eWoodcraft atelier · Niigata City, Niigata\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eKe-shiki is a woodcraft atelier based in Niigata City. Their work begins with a specific problem — a roaster who wanted a canister worth displaying, a table that deserved a tray that functioned as well as it looked — and arrives at objects that answer it precisely, without excess.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eThe materials are chosen for what they do: ash for its humidity control and light-blocking properties; cherry for the warmth of its grain. Traditional techniques — kanzashi joinery in ebony, mageki bentwood for the rim — appear not as decoration but as structural solutions that happen to be beautiful. Finishes are applied where they serve a purpose and withheld where they do not: a glass-resin coat on surfaces that meet daily use, bare wood on interiors where natural absorption is part of the design.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eThe result is objects that become more familiar with use — that hold a scent, develop a patina, and settle into a space as if they were always there.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40734466998401,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/82a5c70b9b7a4aa109722824abbf93c5_294a82e8-9f07-4859-b381-aa5b80da4314.jpg?v=1778755372"},{"product_id":"chikaraishi","title":"Chikaraishi","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size: 28px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin: 0 0 8px;\"\u003eChikaraishi\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin: 0 0 32px;\"\u003eKiriko cut glass · Tokyo\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eKiriko is a form of cut glass developed in Edo-period Japan, in which patterns are ground and polished into the surface by hand. The technique demands precision at every stage: the angle of the cut, the depth, the sequence — each decision affects how light moves through the finished piece. Noriko Chikaraishi came to Kiriko not through a craft lineage but through a moment of encounter. \"I couldn't believe something this beautiful could be made by human hands.\" Her earlier career as a designer left her with a refined sense of color and layered gradation — qualities that now define her work and set it apart within the tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eHer pieces carry traditional auspicious patterns — kiku-tsunagi, hakkaku-kagome — alongside cuts of her own invention: fluid, motion-based forms that read differently depending on the angle of light and the turn of the hand. The layered colors shift as the glass moves. This quality — color that behaves rather than simply appears — is central to what makes her work worth returning to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.55); font-style: italic; display: block; padding: 16px 0 16px 20px; border-left: 2px solid rgba(2,9,18,0.15); margin: 0 0 24px;\"\u003e\"Kiriko glass is the culmination of techniques passed down through generations. Encountering such handcrafted beauty amid a busy daily life brings a sense of cultural richness and calm — a quiet, unhurried moment in the middle of everything.\"\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.08em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin-top: 12px; display: block;\"\u003e— Noriko Chikaraishi, artist\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40734468309121,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/IMG_1468-1.jpg?v=1778663372"},{"product_id":"white-rose","title":"White Rose","description":"\u003cp style=\"font-size: 28px; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.04em; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.85); margin: 0 0 8px;\"\u003eWhite Rose\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0.12em; text-transform: uppercase; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.4); margin: 0 0 32px;\"\u003eUmbrella maker · Tokyo · Est. Edo Period\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eWhite Rose is a Tokyo-based umbrella maker with a history stretching back to the Edo period — and the company that invented the transparent vinyl umbrella. That invention was not a simplification. It required developing a film that could hold its clarity, resist tearing under wind load, and remain functional through years of daily use. The polyolefin multilayer film White Rose uses today is thicker, clearer, and more durable than the PVC found in most vinyl umbrellas — a transparency that reads as considered rather than disposable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.9; color: rgba(2,9,18,0.75); margin: 0 0 16px;\"\u003eTheir umbrellas are engineered around the conditions in which umbrellas actually fail. A patented valve structure — a series of openings in the canopy that allow trapped wind to escape from the inside out — prevents inversion in strong gusts without compromising waterproofing. Shafts are white birch; handles, camellia wood: materials chosen for density, grain, and the way they feel after years of use. The result is an umbrella designed to be kept rather than replaced.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"By Emotion International","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40734469062785,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0560\/3573\/7729\/files\/white-rose-japanese-vinyl-umbrella.jpg?v=1778822132"}],"url":"https:\/\/byemotion-intl.com\/collections\/brands.oembed?page=2","provider":"By Emotion International","version":"1.0","type":"link"}