niime 百科

Encyclopedia of niime

〈Continued from Part 1〉

― Compared to the past, how do you feel things have changed in terms of making things and design?

Ishizuka:What’s a little different about me compared to everyone else now is that I spent a long time working closely with the president, really side by side, making things together. For example, she would look at how I combined lines and colors one-on-one and give very concrete design advice, like, “It would be prettier if this part were a bit smoother.” Through that process, I gradually became more capable myself.

― Almost like an apprentice.

Ishizuka:Now that there are more people, there’s a stronger awareness of creating things together, and each staff member’s individuality is starting to show more clearly in the designs, colors, and finished pieces. But it’s incredibly difficult to convey those intuitive feelings—like, “This feels right.” I think it must have been very hard for the president as well to “pass the baton” creatively. When something comes out that’s different from what you had in mind, aligning that sense of “this is good” becomes difficult. I might not necessarily think it’s good, but the person who made it does.

― Hmm….

Ishizuka: That’s where tamaki niime’s experimental spirit of “why don’t we try it?” comes in. We decide to try something, then actually observe customers’ reactions, and based on that, say, “Okay, let’s improve this part next,” which leads to the next development. So that’s definitely a strength.

― So in the past, you were aligning that process of making things under Ms Tamaki, and now you’re doing that alignment with the staff.

Ishizuka: At the beginning it was one-on-one, but now it’s one-to-many, so I’m sure it’s hard for the president, too. Still, everyone is digesting that and incorporating it into their own way of making things. Creating together has many good aspects, but it also has its challenges.

― I see…

Tamaki: It felt like we lost a single central axis, didn’t it?

Ishizuka: …Yes, that’s true.

Tamaki: When the two of us were working together, you were helping me do exactly what I wanted to do.

Ishizuka: I learned so much—being that close.

Tamaki: Basically, it was my selfishness (laughs). That style of sharing everything meant that it all flowed into Ishizuka, right?

Ishizuka: ‘tamaki niime,’ itself.

Tamaki: You were thoroughly imbued with what ‘tamaki niime’ was, and from there you created things, so you had a solid foundation. But with the next generation, I told them, “Take over from Ishizuka,” and some parts that were passed on, and some weren’t. When I look at what comes out, sometimes I’m like, “What is this supposed to be??”

Ishizuka: (laughs) Yes, exactly. The foundation.

Tamaki: There’s no foundation—no shared understanding of something like “What is beauty?” When everyone just makes what they like, it turns into chaos. Then it’s like, “So… what do we do now?”

Ishizuka: Because we create things based on “tamaki niime,” we have to really internalize what “tamaki niime” actually is. Without that, it’s hard to move on to the next stage of development.

Tamaki: When it turns into individual play, it’s not that that’s wrong—I don’t want to deny it—but getting that foundation across was really difficult.

Ishizuka: It really was difficult. Since we are ‘tamaki niime’ as a brand.

Tamaki: There’s a constant dilemma of wanting people to understand that, but not being able to fully convey it.

Participant Y: I hear there will be time for questions later, but…

― Please, go ahead.

Participant Y: When it comes to the key point of tamaki niime’s design—something like a single guiding line—

Tamaki: A ‘through line’, right?

Participant Y: I know it’s hard to put into words, but I often hear the term one-of-a-kind. Somehow, though, that alone doesn’t feel like the full essence. If you were to explain what tamaki niime’s design is, in one phrase that even a layperson could understand—from both a PR and creator’s perspective—what would it be?

Tamaki: Let’s have our PR person answer (laughs).

Ishizuka: (laughs)

― That’s a tough one (laughs).

Fujimoto: …It’s hard to put into a single phrase.

Ishizuka: A brand that can’t be summed up in one phrase (laughs).

Participant Y: Exactly—that could be the answer itself.

Tamaki: True.

Fujimoto: But I think it comes down to ‘Come and see it for yourself.’ Communicating it is really difficult. It’s so sensory, and people perceive it differently—like softness, for example.

Participant Y: If I may share my own impression: during COVID, I received a Tamask and a roll cake, beautifully boxed with a handwritten note. When I encountered tamaki niime’s design then, the word that came to mind for me was ‘gentle’.

Tamaki: Yes—that’s the right answer!

(Cheers and applause from everyone)

Ishizuka: President, you went around handing them out in the local Hie district, didn’t you?

Tamaki: I did!

Participant: I think it’s fine if it’s different for each person.

Ishizuka: I agree. Absolutely.

Interviewer: That sense of ‘gentleness’ really does feel like it lies at the heart of tamaki niime’s approach to making things.

Ishizuka: Yes…

Tamaki: Like a mother making clothes for her daughter. That kind of thing, right?

Participant Y: Thank you.

Ishizuka: I really think it’s okay for people to take it in differently.

Interviewer: Parental love passed down to a child—that also connects to the idea of one-of- a-kind.

Ishizuka: Honestly, the first thing we want to say is, “Just come visit us once!”

Tamaki: Yeah, it’s like, “Just come once!” (laughs). Maybe that should be our catchphrase.

― It might be interesting to ask lots of people to describe “What is tamaki niime?” in just one phrase.

Tamaki: Everyone would say something different.

― Even if the words differ, the feeling might still connect.

Tamaki: Uh-huh.

Ishizuka: That’s probably why it’s so hard—to put into words.

― Exactly.

Ishizuka: Struggling with that is what makes it interesting.

Interviewer: That struggling part is good.

Ishizuka: In that sense, it’s very human. For everyone—including the president. Emotions and feelings go straight into the work. It’s really fascinating. You might line up colors when you’re not feeling great, then look at them the next morning and think, “Hmm, this isn’t quite right,” and change them as you weave. In regular apparel production, you couldn’t do that. If a certain blue is decided, you just weave with that. But we can say, “We chose this blue, but let’s try a different blue too,” right there on the spot. Feelings really get woven into it—that’s what makes it interesting.

Fujimoto: From my position as someone responsible for communication, beyond the fact that our production system has become more solid over these five years, I’ve also felt a change in the president—she’s been going out into the world much more, actively gathering information. Before and after COVID…

Ishizuka: It’s completely different.

Fujimoto: It might be a big change.

Ishizuka: I think I was influenced too. Around the time when the president started going out more and interacting with more people… how many years ago was it now? I was pregnant with our second child, and he told us, ‘You should live in Nakahata Dormitory,’ which is a company residence. Until then, we’d been living in an apartment in what felt like the ‘big city’ area of Nishiwaki—lots of chain stores and all.

Tamaki: That was before your second child, right? The three of you were living together in a tiny apartment. And I remember thinking, ‘You can’t raise kids in a place like that.’

Ishizuka: As more staff members were getting married and having children, there was this idea that it would be better to live more freely and spaciously. So we moved into the dormitory we’re in now. That’s also when we started communal living with Mutsumi Tamaki.

— That’s deep in the Hie district of Nishiwaki, in Nakahata Town surrounded by mountains, right?

Ishizuka: Yes, deep in Hie—and the temperature is about five degrees Celsius lower there.

Fujimoto: That’s cold.

Ishizuka: It’s really cold. But it’s an amazing place—surrounded by mountains and a river, nothing around, and such clear air. Moving there and living together with other people became a huge turning point for us.

— I see.

Ishizuka: At first, I was anxious about communal living. I mean, families and single people living together—how would that work? But everyone got along so well. Mutsumi loves children, so she helped look after ours. Just knowing that tamaki niime was still there when I came home, and that we weren’t raising our kids alone, was such a huge support.

— Emotionally too, it must have felt lighter…

Ishizuka: When we lived in the apartment, it was our first child, and (Fujimoto) came home late, completely exhausted. I felt really lonely. But then we changed where we lived, had our second child, and I gained a bit more emotional space. My world opened up. Even such small changes in daily life really changed how I felt inside. Because of that, I don’t sink into things as much anymore—I don’t get stuck inside my own head. That’s been a really big shift for me.

— I see…

Ishizuka: The place has eleven rooms total—an 11LDK (laughs)—so we also host interns. Students who want to come study at tamaki niime stay upstairs for short periods. We spend time communicating and living together. Even when I’m sleeping in my room, someone might walk down the hallway—so, honestly, there’s no privacy. But I love being around people, and that’s another reason I don’t get weighed down.

Fujimoto: So many different people have really come through.

Tamaki: What was the maximum number of people?

Ishizuka: Eleven (laughs).

Tamaki: That’s amazing.

Fujimoto: Not just interns hoping to get jobs, but also university students doing training for course credit….

Ishizuka: And then the Hashimoto family asked to rent a room while they renovated their house (laughs).

Fujimoto: They ended up staying about half a year, didn’t they?

Ishizuka: It was supposed to be two months, but it turned into six! Their kids were close in age to ours, which made it fun.

Tamaki: That’s not something you get to experience very often.

Ishizuka: Definitely not. And two years ago, three people from Myanmar joined the company, and suddenly it became very international. The kids would come home and there would be all these different people around. They even learned some Burmese. Nakahata Town has a huge elderly population—there are only about five children—but the whole community kind of watches over everyone. They don’t interfere too much; it’s a really good balance. Like the Tamaki family. Everyone’s a tamaki niime fan—it’s more like the Tamaki household than the Fujimoto household now (laughs).

— The tamaki niime family (laughs).

Ishizuka: Communal life at Nakahata Dormitory became the foundation of how we live now. It keeps us from getting worn down—it stabilizes our hearts. That carries over into how we interact with people at work and how we channel it into making things. Over the past few years, the biggest change for me has been that life and work feel completely integrated. Our involvement with communities outside the company has really grown too, and with all these different places of living, tamaki niime feels like it coexists within us. That’s how we live now.

— tamaki niime has the concept of the Niime Village. Listening to you, it feels like the Fujimoto family’s way of living at Nakahata Dormitory is one expression of that Niime Village. From a PR perspective, how do you see Niime Village?

Fujimoto: I work with many different people, so when I’m asked about Niime Village, I imagine building better environments and creating things together while engaging with local residents and people around tamaki niime. As those relationships expand, more people come to support tamaki niime—and sometimes we support them in return. For me, Niime Village is really about building those kinds of relationships.

Ishizuka: Yeah.

Fujimoto: When people, including our representative, take interest in what we’re doing, there are many levels of involvement. I think it’s something you build through discussion with all kinds of people. I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer, but I believe that by valuing those connections, something meaningful eventually comes into view.

— You seem to play many roles beyond just PR. You give cotton seeds to local children and involve them in growing it—real ‘seed-planting’ activities for the future. That also feels like communicating tamaki niime, not limited to publicity, but as a kind of messenger.

Fujimoto: Actually, today—October 21—we’ve opened our cotton fields so people can come and harvest. ‘Purely made in Japan’ represents tamaki niime’s fully integrated manufacturing approach—making materials in Nishiwaki, Japan—and it expresses the kind of nature-connected craftsmanship we aim for. Beyond touching the products or visiting the Lab, people can enter the fields too. Not just adults, but children and families. In November, about seventy elementary school students came to harvest cotton with us. We’ve been doing this with a nearby nursery school for about four years now….

Ishizuka: That’s quite a long time.

Fujimoto: Every year, from planting seeds to observing growth and harvesting in October. The kids who came at the beginning are now in second or third grade, and they come back to tamaki niime on school field trips. As this keeps building, maybe they’ll return again in junior high….

Ishizuka: For ‘Trial Week’ (laughs).

‘Trial Week’ (Try Yaru) is a Hyogo Prefecture program started in 1998, offering one-week work and welfare experience programs for second-year junior high school students, in cooperation with schools, families, and local communities.

Fujimoto: And then maybe again in high school as part-time workers, or with school events, or even university research visits. If something stays with them over the long term, I believe they’ll come back to tamaki niime. It takes time and effort, but knowing we can do that is incredibly motivating. If we can keep those connections going, we can truly communicate what we’re about—and that’s something I really want to value.

Ishizuka: When you talked about cotton earlier, it reminded me how important it is to know what you’re working with. Living with animals, feeling close to the fact that the materials we use come from their wool—it becomes real as the work takes shape. We can’t use everything as material, but because we know this whole process, we can imagine how it becomes something you wear. That’s incredibly important in making things. When people see how materials become yarn and then products through tamaki niime, I think they start to perceive the world a little differently.

— It’s like saying, ‘Come and see it for yourself.’ For customers too, it’s a place where they can directly experience tamaki niime’s fully integrated craftsmanship, starting from the materials.

Ishizuka: There aren’t many chances to see manufacturing up close, but at tamaki niime, you can always visit and always interact. I hope it can be a place of learning and community—somewhere that clearly communicates our way of living and our worldview. That’s something I’ve always believed in.

Original Japanese text by Seiji Koshikawa.
English translation by Adam & Michiko Whipple.