ーWhy did you choose to make original fabrics?

Hasegawa: Hitherto we have mainly special ordered fabrics directly form English textile mills. In the heart of the English textile industry, the city of Huddersfield is home to manufacturers that despite being well established and respected also have a long tradition of accepting small-scale, small-lot special orders that continues to this day. Because of this we have been able to order the rare patterns and weaves made with the quality we demand year after year. However, recently there has been a noticeable decline in quality. For example, the fabrics lacked the desired texture, or there were actual flaws in the material. Furthermore, there have increasingly been cases when we've received obviously mass-produced fabrics which it was hard to believe were English-made products. In the current climate of corporate acquisitions and mergers, capital injection into the textile industry has resulted in measures like the adoption of new state-of-the-art equipment which we can cite as a reason why the beautiful qualities we have come to associate with English textiles are now disappearing.

ーCould you please tell us more about your original fabrics?

Hasegawa: We've had experience purchasing fabrics from the textile-producing region of Bishu here in Japan in the past. And considering the current state of the English textile industry, we decided to try sending our special orders to makers in Bishu, in the hopes of getting the quality fabrics we require. To our surprise, the material we received closely resembled the English fabrics of 20 years ago; in fact they appeared to be of even higher quality. The mills of Bishu still use low-speed looms that have almost entirely vanished in England. Known as, "Schonherr-style looms," they were first popularized more than 60 years ago. Using them to weave a single roll of cloth requires several days, and from the perspective of the current global economy they've been branded obsolete. But when you take the time to use these low-speed looms, the result is material with a level of quality that was found in the English-made textiles of the past. In other words it's as though the vintage quality material produced was actually transported to the present day via time machine. It's craftsmanship like this that has earned "Made-in-Japan" products worldwide recognition.