niime 百科

Encyclopedia of niime

“Health comes first. It’s really important not to let stress build up and not to disrupt your daily routine. When you’re healthy, you can feel good and stay energetic every day.”

These are the words of Mr Hirofumi Nishikaku, a Banshu-ori textile craftsman whom Ms Tamaki openly describes as her mentor. Every morning at 7 a.m., Mr Nishikaku travels from neighboring Kato City to his factory in Nishiwaki City. He finishes his work for the day at 3 p.m. This is his daily routine. On Saturdays, he either weaves fabric or attends one of the two sales events he participates in each month. Sundays are strictly days off.

Nishikaku: I’ve established a daily rhythm, so I don’t let it get disrupted. There’s nothing wrong with my body, so I don’t even go to the hospital. I think people probably get sick when their daily rhythm starts to fall apart.

― So, in your case, it’s not just about being disciplined. Your daily routine is really consistent.

Nishikaku: The basic thing is not to wear yourself out. I’m 78 now, you know.

― “What?! You’re that old? You don’t look it at all. I would have guessed you were in your early seventies. You haven’t changed a bit!

Nishikaku: If you round up, I’m 80! I do want to live a healthy life without getting sick. Basically, I live every day prepared to leave this world whenever my time comes. That’s important, isn’t it?

― Living each day without regrets… Yes, that’s important.

Nishikaku: I’ve already made all the arrangements for the end of my life, too. My wife doesn’t like bringing more things into the house. Although the amount of fabric I make keeps increasing! (laughs) Not everything sells, you know.

― You’re from Takino, in Kato City, just south of Nishiwaki, right?

Nishikaku: My family’s main business was called Nishikaku Cotton Industry. It had been around for over a hundred years, since the Meiji era. When the factory started going downhill, the company also got into real estate. I worked for Nishikaku Cotton Industry until I was 65, so I was a salaried employee. Yes, I earned a monthly salary. That’s why I can live on my employees’ pension now. The company started cutting my salary when I turned 60 because it was struggling to stay in business.

― So you’ve been doing this for 13 years since you turned 65.

Nishikaku: Actually, even when I was working at Nishikaku Cotton Industry, I was running my own separate business within the company, selling my own products directly.

― Oh, really?

Nishikaku: Besides the contract weaving work we did for textile wholesalers, I took the fabrics I made myself to trade shows and sold them directly. I even went to Tokyo. That’s how I met Ms Tamaki, too.

― Where did you get the idea of selling the fabrics you wove yourself?

Nishikaku: I’d had that idea for a long time. After graduating from the textile department at Nishiwaki Technical High School, I worked for a lace company in Kyoto for two and a half years. They had a department that manufactured sewing thread and sold it nationwide. That experience made me realize that businesses wouldn’t survive in the future unless they sold their own products and set their own prices. I realized how powerful direct sales could be. When I came back here, I told everyone about selling directly, but at the time, there was still enough contract weaving work to make a decent living. I returned when I was 22, so that was more than 50 years ago. Back then, there was more work than you could imagine.

― What year were you born?

Nishikaku: 1947. That was Showa 22. At that time, there was work everywhere, like water flowing from a tap, and people were making good money. As long as you did a reasonable amount of work, you could make a living.

― So, you returned in 1969, when you were 22. By then, it was no longer the famous ‘Gachaman boom’ of the 1950s, when people said you could make a fortune just by turning on a loom and weaving fabric. Nishikaku: No, that period had passed, but things were still pretty good. The industry’s golden age lasted about 10 to 15 years from that time. I didn’t know exactly when it would happen, but I knew the Banshu-ori textile industry would eventually decline. After all, we had helped destroy Britain’s textile industry by taking its business away. So I knew that someday, we’d be the ones to lose out. I’d been thinking about that for a long time. That’s why I kept saying we needed to sell our own products. Of course, back then, there was still plenty of work, so it wasn’t an immediate problem.

― I see.

Nishikaku: When I decided to start selling my own products, I told the textile wholesaler who handled our production, ‘I can’t make enough to live on anymore, so I’m going to sell directly.’ I made my intentions perfectly clear. They told me, ‘Sure, go ahead.’ That was about 15 or 16 years ago, perhaps a little longer. By then, there wasn’t much work left. If the contract work had paid enough to feed me, I wouldn’t have needed to do it. And even if you go out and try to sell your own products, you don’t start making money right away. It’s hard work. But because I took that step, I’m where I am today. I didn’t suddenly start from scratch. Everything I do now is an extension of what I’ve built up over the years. The factory business declined, but I built relationships with customers. That’s how it all began.

― When you started selling directly, were there other people doing the same thing?

Nishikaku: I think there were a few. Every factory has its own character and its own way of doing things. You have to find the approach that suits you.

― So, about 16 years ago, you started selling directly. Where did you go to sell your products?

Nishikaku: Trade shows. I used to exhibit in Tokyo about twice a year.

― Weren’t trade shows held more frequently than that?

Nishikaku: Twice a year was enough. Each time, I had to make trial fabrics and bring new products. Once every six months was just right. You need new products for every show. Other exhibitors bring their old products, too. Some people really pay attention. They’ll say, ‘Oh, you had this at the last show, too, didn’t you?’ That means they’ve been looking carefully! (laughs)

― So those people were paying close attention to your products and pointing things out.

Nishikaku: I’m grateful to them. It means they were really looking at what I was making.

― Was it like a trade fair where people gathered to display and sell fabrics?

Nishikaku: Yes. Textile manufacturers from all over Japan who sold their own products, people in the textile business, and businesses from different textile-producing regions all gathered there. Everyone did things differently, so I could learn from the way other people ran their businesses. I learned a lot about sales, too. Those people had been selling directly for much longer than I had, so they had a wealth of information and taught me all kinds of things. I was really grateful for that.

― Which textile-producing regions are we talking about? Nishikaku: Enshu, Nagahama, Kiryu, and other textile-producing regions around Japan. There were also towel manufacturers from Imabari and people from other industries. People from all sorts of textile-related businesses came together to sell to apparel companies. It was an incredible learning experience. It didn’t even matter if I didn’t sell anything there. The conversations themselves gave me extremely valuable information.

― I see. So it was a way to exchange information.

Nishikaku: There’s so much you can’t learn when you stay here. You could say I was going there mainly to gather information! (laughs)

― Exactly. You couldn’t have learned those things if you had stayed within the local textile industry.

Nishikaku: That’s right. If you stay in Nishiwaki, you don’t get much information directly from apparel companies.

― Not firsthand, anyway.

Nishikaku: Exactly. By going out there, I gradually learned what apparel companies wanted. It didn’t matter if I didn’t sell anything on the spot. If you talk openly and casually with people in the apparel business, you start to understand what they’re looking for. Even if one person doesn’t buy your fabric, you can take it somewhere else and find a customer. Making what customers want, not just what you want to make.

― I see.

Nishikaku: Even now, I go to events in Shinkaichi, Kobe. One of the reasons is to gather information. You can’t know what sells or what people want if you just stay in one place. By talking with customers, you find out what they’re looking for. Then you can make products that meet those needs. What I want to make and what customers want to buy are not necessarily the same thing. In the past, I made things mainly for my own satisfaction. But now, if I don’t make things that customers want, they won’t buy them. The products don’t have to be technically complicated. Simple things are fine. They just need to have a slightly different look or feel.

― That’s a profound insight.

Nishikaku: You don’t need anything overly elaborate.

― So simple is good. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Nishikaku: We craftspeople tend to want to make something different from everyone else’s products. We think we need to make something elaborate or unusual. But that’s not necessarily what customers want. They want something with a distinctive character that they can’t find elsewhere. Even a simple fabric can have a different character. Just changing the yarn can completely change its appearance. I’ve come to understand that. Or perhaps I should say, I used to think it was better to add various attachments to my loom and put a lot of effort into the weaving process. But even if you go to all that trouble, a product that won’t sell simply won’t sell.

― So there’s a difference between what you want to create as a craftsperson and what your customers are looking for.

Nishikaku: Yes. You can’t understand that unless you go out and meet your customers. Nowadays, I have people who are fans of my work. They each have their own preferences and buy the fabrics they like. I suggest things that I think a particular customer might like, even though I can’t be sure they’ll buy them.

― Getting out there and meeting people really is…

Nishikaku: Important. You won’t suddenly make a fortune just by going to events. You’re not going to make huge amounts of money overnight. So it’s better to think of it as paying for information. The important thing is to learn about the world around you. You need to understand how ordinary people think, whether they have money or not. Then, if what you can offer happens to match what someone needs, that’s great. That’s why I’m honest with customers. If there’s something I can’t do, I tell them clearly. Sometimes I even say, ‘You should buy that somewhere else.’ I can’t provide absolutely everything a customer wants. If I don’t express my own individuality, my products will get lost among everyone else’s. I need to make products with their own character so that customers will choose to buy them. It’s not easy, though.

― So what customers want isn’t necessarily something elaborate. It’s something with its own character, even if it’s simple.

Nishikaku: Exactly. You can tell when a fabric was made by a particular person. You can recognize Tamaki’s fabrics as Tamaki’s work, too. I want people to look at something I’ve made and say, ‘Oh, this is a Nishikaku! I really like his fabrics.’ Whether that translates into money is a separate matter. The important thing is to build a following. If I had to put it in the strongest possible terms, it’s almost like having devoted believers. That’s how I see it, in a way. I think Tamaki is similar, too. It may sound strange to put it that way, but that’s how it feels. People started telling me, ‘I’m a fan of Nishikaku’s work.’ I’d never even thought about that kind of thing before. When customers started saying it, I thought, ‘Oh, I see!’

― That must be the result of everything you’ve built up over the years.

Nishikaku: It’s only recently that people have started saying that to me. I hadn’t really been putting myself out there or sharing my work very much.

― How do you promote your work? Nishikaku: I post on Instagram.

― Instagram! That’s great!

Nishikaku: When I go to events, customers tell me to post on Instagram so they can see where I’ll be. They say, ‘If you’re going to Shinkaichi tomorrow and I can find out on Instagram, I can plan to come and see you.’ People ask me, ‘Does someone else manage your Instagram for you?’ I tell them, ‘No, I do it myself! I don’t really know how to do everything, but I just give it a try! (laughs)

― That’s wonderful!

Nishikaku: I can manage somehow, so that’s good enough. My son tells me I make mistakes in my writing, though.

― But as long as people know when and where they can find you…

Nishikaku: Exactly. That’s all it takes for customers to come. They see my Instagram and think, ‘Oh, he’s there! I’ll go and see him.’ I also go to events in Kakogawa.

― Oh, really?

Nishikaku: Yes. I go to Shikata in Kakogawa on the second and third Saturdays of the month. There’s a café there with a gallery called Tsuyukusa. They let me use the gallery space, so I take my products there and sell them. Kakogawa is close by, isn’t it? You can get there along one straight road. People tell me, ‘I can’t quite make the trip all the way to Nishiwaki, but I can come here,’ and then they come to see me. I’m not exactly sure how the connection came about, but I got to know the manager of the place, and they said I could come and sell my work there.

― It really is a case of ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ isn’t it?

Nishikaku: That’s right. I’ve been doing this for years, and I think perhaps they agreed to let me use the space because they’d come to understand what kind of person I am.

― When it comes to making things, a person’s individuality and character are reflected in their work…

Nishikaku: Yes. I’m not particularly greedy, either. I’m not constantly thinking about money. The people who let me use their space sometimes worry about me. I tell them, ‘Even if I come here and make no sales at all—even if I sell absolutely nothing—it doesn’t bother me.’ I know my abilities are limited. But ever since I started posting on Instagram, people have begun coming specifically to see me.

― So it really has made a difference?

Nishikaku: It has. You really do have to put yourself out there.

― That’s important.

Nishikaku: People who live around Kakogawa or Takasago can come without making a big plan out of it. But if they’re coming all the way to Nishiwaki, they have to make a special trip.

― From the city, it must take about an hour each way.

Nishikaku: Once it takes more than an hour, people start to feel they have to make a real commitment to the trip.

― And how have the customers been responding?

Nishikaku: Quite a few of Tamaki’s customers come to see me, too. And they buy quite a bit.

― Really?

Nishikaku: They’re younger than I am, too! (laughs)

― Well, of course they are! (laughs)

A craftsman who follows his own path. I was captivated by Mr Nishikaku’s natural, unassuming way of speaking in the Banshu dialect, delivered with an effortless, almost nonchalant charm.

His words reveal not only his extensive experience, technical expertise, and pride as a Banshuori craftsman, but also his ability to anticipate the direction of the times and his genuine curiosity and humility in learning from other textile-producing regions.

Mr Nishikaku has never been afraid to step away from the crowd. At the same time, he has never forced himself to do things that go against his nature. Instead, he has followed his own convictions throughout his life. His words are simple, yet filled with profound wisdom.

In the next installment, Mr Nishikaku will tell us about his fateful encounter with Tamaki and share stories from the early days of Banshu-ori. Don’t miss the second part, which preserves the precious history of this textile-producing region through the oral recollections of one of its craftsmen.

Original Japanese text by Seiji Koshikawa.
English translation by Adam & Michiko Whipple.