Posted on The Asahi Shimbun on September 10, 2013
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/culture/AJ201309100013
The Nagare “furoshiki” has won design awards in the United States,
Germany and Japan. (Mamoru Nagaya)
KIRYU, Gunma Prefecture–A super water-resistant “furoshiki,” or traditional Japanese cloth used to wrap things, is proving to be a hit with the folks who hand out good design awards.
The Nagare furoshiki is manufactured and sold by textile dyeing company Asakura Senpu Co. The furoshiki has such high water-repellant qualities that it can be used to even carry liquids.
The Nagare recently won the Red Dot Design Award in Germany. It has also won good design awards in Japan and the United States.
Company officials hope the high appraisal of their product in three major markets will help push domestic and overseas sales.
The Red Dot Design Award was established in 1955 and is internationally recognized.
The citation for the Nagare said the traditional wrapping material had an extremely water-repellant quality.
Asakura Senpu developed its own technology to come up with the Nagare and began selling the furoshiki in 2006. In developing the product, Asakura Senpu was trying to move away from being only a subcontractor for other companies.
In November 2011, the Nagare received the good design award presented in the name of the director-general of the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency. In December 2011, the furoshiki won a design award in the United States.
Before the earthquake and tsunami disaster in 2011, sales averaged 100 a month. They then spiked to more than 10 times that figure. In the last fiscal year, the company sold a record 16,000 furoshiki.
The Nagare is available at about 20 outlets around Japan, mostly in the Kanto and Tohoku regions. The company plans to expand its sales network to western Japan. It has also begun offering the Nagare on TV shopping channels. Leading department stores have inquired about selling the product.
While most customers have been in their 50s to 70s, there has been a sharp increase in those in their 30s and 40s who do not normally use furoshiki.
Because the water-repellant quality led many first-time users of furoshiki to purchase the item, the company has distributed pamphlets that show how to wrap bottles, books, lunch boxes and other items.
The most popular version measures 96 centimeters square, which is slightly larger than ordinary furoshiki. Some customers have used that furoshiki as a shawl or bag. For that reason, company officials are thinking about expanding the product line with even larger furoshiki.
They are also thinking about exporting the Nagare in line with the government’s efforts to promote the overseas sales of traditional Japanese products as part of its “Cool Japan” strategy.
The company has initially targeted China through its participation in a trade fair in Shanghai. It will also look at moving into Western markets since the Nagare has now won design awards in Europe and the United States.
By MAMORU NAGAYA/ Staff Writer
Source: The Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/culture/AJ201309100013