PEOPLE
The people
What holds Leno Weaving together is not the looms or the buildings. It is people. One who kept it alive, one who is taking it on, one who meets its difficulty every day, one who draws the patterns, and one who keeps the specialised looms in tune. Five points of view on how this craft has continued.
Kitayama
Master of the Craftsmen職人集団の棟梁
The parent company went bankrupt; civil rehabilitation followed. Closing the business was a real option. The looms stayed, and so did the people and the customers. Repair the ageing machine, keep weaving. Protecting a craft, this record shows, means not letting it stop.
Shima
The Successor後継者
What is inherited is more than a mill and its looms. It is the judgement to read a yarn and set a machine — and that has to reach the next generation in a form they can use. Speaking for the cloth in our own words, as SHALO, is one step toward it.
Mizumoto
Master Loom Technician熟練の織機調整工
The same settings give different cloth, depending on the yarn and the state of the machine. Pull too hard and the thread breaks; leave it slack and it breaks too. How far to move what cannot be written down as a number — it is learned by hand and eye. That is the hardest part to hand over.
Nishida
Leno weave Developerからみ組織開発
The engineer behind the weave structures of our Leno cloth. Flexible thinking and sure technique turn into a wide range of original patterns.
Kitaguchi
Guardian of the Looms特殊織機の守り手
A textile industry veteran with more than 50 years of experience, he takes sole responsibility for adjusting the specialised looms used in Leno Weaving.