Formerly a wholesaler for Tango Chirimen textiles, kuska fabric has rebranded and relaunched. They craft various looms in-house according to their needs, broadening their unique product development horizons from apparel to surfboards by weaving leather materials. Instead of overlaying designs on the fabric, they incorporate designs into the materials themselves, crafting one-of-a-kind, three-dimensional textures and glossy textiles from spontaneous irregularities. We interviewed the company's representative, Yasuhiko Kusunoki, at their local workshop in Tango, an area known as "Kyoto by the Sea."
PROFILE
Yasuhiko Kusunoki
Originally from Yosano, Kyoto Prefecture, Yasuhiko Kusunoki returned to his hometown from Tokyo at age 30 to take over his family’s Tango Chirimen weaving business. In 2010, he launched the company brand, "kuska fabric," developing handwoven products across fields including apparel, bags, and furniture. Their flagship store is housed in the Imperial Hotel, and their products are also available in stores with royal warrants on London's Savile Row, the heartland of men's suits. They operate a web media site, "THE TANGO," to share regional information.
The Irregular Charm Born from Handwork
Tell us about your business and its beginnings.
My grandfather, Kaichiro Kusunoki, founded the workshop that manufactures and sells Tango Chirimen textiles, a local industry for kimono weaving that dates back roughly 300 years, as "Kuska Textiles" in 1936. Before I was born, the textile industry was still growing steadily. After leaving my hometown in junior high, I stayed in Tokyo post-high school, working in construction before I returned to Tango just shy of 30. On my visit, facing a family business on the brink of closure, I realized I had to do something to prevent the decay of the Tango region, where I was born and raised, and decided to take over. I returned in 2008, learned from specialized books and training, and started our own brand in 2010.I questioned the mass production and consumption that characterized mechanical manufacturing, shifting our manufacturing direction to craftsmanship of unique, one-of-a-kind creations. To develop our own handwoven products, I personally built handweaving looms. My previous work in construction provided manufacturing know-how. I combined antique wooden hand weaving parts from nearby areas with jacquard weaving machines to assemble hybrid hand weaving looms myself, discarding all mass production-oriented machines from our own factory.
Furthermore, we streamlined the traditional kimono distribution to Kyoto wholesalers, opting for direct sales and branding of Tango Chirimen, which is often perceived as a subcontractor.
Having gleaned market insights from working in Tokyo, I found that you can't turn a good product into a business without recognition. My Tokyo experience aids manufacturing with market consciousness.
The fashion industry is often seen as a symbol of mass production and consumption. What are your thoughts?
Since we aren't a large corporation, when considering generating our own originality that mass production can’t offer, I decided to focus on the beauty created by handwork, producing one-of-a-kind items. Seeing the intricate handwoven art at Living National Treasure Takeshi Kitamura's solo exhibition mesmerized me with the beauty that handwork yielded. While machine-woven Tango Chirimen is characterized by uniformity, enabling mass production of 2D textiles, handwoven Tango Chirimen incorporates air for a three-dimensional weave, resulting in irregularities. Unlike machine-woven textiles, these uncontrollable, accidental textures yield a three-dimensional fabric, creating expressions through the play of light and shadow. Such beauty truly emerges from skilled craftsmanship.
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