Momoko:I remember growing up, my parents’ next door neighbours, they were actually kimono merchants. When I was about... I think I was in middle school, they decided to stop selling kimonos and started selling school uniforms; I guess that was where the demand was. And just seeing that happen to traditional kimonos, you know, kimonos are traditional Japanese outfits—it was just so sad.
My name is Momoko Kanaoka, I’m the Product Designer and Production Manager here at Kiriko.
When I browse through the list of fabric, I already know—I have a vision, like, “Oh yeah, this is gonna make a great dopp kit, or great shirt.” So I tend to choose fabric first, and then come up with the design later.
Momoko:Kiriko is a brand that was born out of an idea to repurpose Japanese vintage materials or goods. What the owner also wants to focus on, is to spread the word about mottainai spirit.
"Mottainai" literally means... it’s like feeling sad, you know, even though you still have something still valuable—just because you have a small hole or tear, you don’t want to throw it away. That’s the kind of feeling that people develop between themselves and the object.
Momoko:We don’t want to waste anything, so we don’t want to waste the patterns we see on our textiles items. So we tend to re-use for example, katazome; it’s a type of material, like a Japanese version of stencil.
Some of those have cranes, or some of them have turtles. Those patterns can definitely be used for other products such as stationery, greeting cards. Also we used those patterns to do the stenciling on the windows of our storefront. All the images that come on Japanese textiles they can be used on so many different products.
Momoko:So these boro dopp kits are made of these used, vintage Japanese boro blankets. And boro just means old—vintage. Unlike mass-produced goods, customers can actually experience the story or history behind the materials. So these are, to me these are way more valuable than our mass produced versions.
Through these dopp kits, our customers can experience history or the story behind the vintage japanese materials we get from Japan.
This is where mottainai spirit comes back again. So we focus on mottainai spirit, and so, the owner of Kiriko wants to push that practice and spread the word about it. And so hopefully people will try to do what we do, and we won’t have a lot of waste. So, that’s Kiriko’s philosophy.