My husband Masaki Kanamori is a metal artist. Recently, we have been thinking about kickstarting a brand to mass-produce some of his designs while continuing to make handcraft art pieces. Several days ago, we visited a friend who works as a landscaper. Her husband is the president of a famous Japanese brand, who started his own business from scratch. He encountered numerous hardships, lots of ups and downs during his entrepreneurial journey before achieving the success he has today. “You can find a manufacturer in India. The labour cost there is cheap. And they have good metal processing technologies,” he told us, giving us some useful advice. “They have a different set of production standards. But you just need to give them clear instructions and ensure good quality control to get good final products. They also have a very small minimum order requirement. Even if you only order 100 pieces, they would still accept the request.” It sounded wonderful. But somehow we didn’t feel excited when leaving our friend’s place. We left deep in our thoughts.

“I don’t want to ask the manufacturers in India to produce our products. It is not like I don’t trust Indian factories. It is just…”

“Of course we need to make our products in Japan,” my husband said, even before I finished my sentences. “The number of small-size manufacturers in Japan is decreasing. We need to protect them even if that means our cost will increase.”

I can still recall the time when I first met Mr Yagi, the fifth-generation owner of the famous Japanese tea-caddy store Kaikado. I asked him whether it is true that young people nowadays are less willing to opt for traditional metal art businesses. “As long as there is business, there will always be people who want to do this,” he said. It sounds very pragmatic. The reality is that dreams and passion cannot generate income. People working in this line of business need to be able to make enough money and sustain themselves first before passing the techniques to the next generation. If there is no business, there is no one that would be willing to continue doing traditional family business. As a result, the metal art techniques are lost, so does the culture behind it. It is a great shame to lose these valuable cultures. We might not be able to bring a lot of business opportunities to the small-sized manufacturers. But we wanted to help them anyways.

In today’s globalised world, Japan still has quite a lot of small and mid-sized companies that refuse to conform to the mainstream manufacturing solution. For instance, popular fashion and fabric brand Sou Sou only manufactures its clothes and clothing materials in Japan. Sou Sou is especially proud of the origins of their fabrics. For instance, Sou Sou purchases Takashima shrinks from Takashima and Ise cotton from Tsu. The former enjoys a long history of more than two hundred years while the latter was created during the Edo period. Now Usui Shokufu is the only manufacturer of Ise cotton.

Photo source: official website of Sou sou

Sou Sou’s brand philosophy is to innovate Japanese culture. Before the company started its plan to innovate Japanese culture, the company’s president Takeshi Wakabayashi did thorough research on Japan’s traditional culture. He discovered that China is now manufacturing the fabrics that Japanese brands are using. “Why we are asking China to manufacture products originating from Japanese culture?” Wakabayashi thought it didn’t make sense. “If traditional fabrics become popular among fashion brands, then their sales volume will go up. Japan’s fabric manufacturing techniques will also be improved. This means that we might have more successors who will pass down traditional cultures in the future.” Bearing such belief, Wakabayashi set a clear business direction for Sou Sou, mandating that the company will only sell products that are completely made in Japan. He also believes that Sou Sou should show its customers the origins of every material they used for making the clothes.

Fashion brand mina perponen’s founder Akira Minagawa is an entrepreneur that I highly admire. Faced with fierce challenges presented by fast fashion brands, he has been looking for various ways to help his brand remain competitive, refusing to make fashion clothing according to the current season. He dedicates his company to making clothes with great details with the hopes that the customers will cherish them and wear them well. Minagawa even set up a clothes repairment department to help customers fix clothes that are worn out. mina perhonen uses original fabrics and textiles. The textiles are made stitch by stitch at some small factories in Japan. Since the fabrics and textiles are all handmade, Minagawa treasures them to the extent that he would even make full use of the rags for decoration, not willing to waste any of them.

Even rebellious French brand Agnès b. couldn’t put up much of a fight against the consumption habit formed by the fast fashion model, which is you buy cheap clothes and then throw them away when you are tired of them. mina perhonen’s clothes are manufactured by small factories in Japan and therefore the pricing couldn’t be lowered down. “We are not going to lower our products’ pricing. When there is cheap pricing, that means some chains of the production process were exploited,” Minagawa said. “I am hoping to provide a reasonable salary for the professional talents still working in those small factories. That’s why I set rather high prices for our products.” The only way to convince consumers to pay for clothes at a higher price is to make those clothes well and tell your customers what you believe in. Simply put, you just need to make efforts to perfect your products and stay true to your own products.

There are a lot of rules to play by in today’s world. Even if you make compromises and conform to the mainstream, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will succeed easily. In this case, why not hold on to the values that you truly believe in?