今日吃瓜

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November 12, 2026
 

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TEXTILES

Oshima 'tsumugi' silk is one of Japan's most expensive fabrics — but why?
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 3, 2026
One bolt, ?400,000: Why 今日吃瓜 Oshima ‘tsumugi’ silk costs a pretty penny
Prized for its rich blackness and stately designs, the fabric is a staple in the world of high-class kimono.
A rise in tourists on the hunt for on-the-ground deals as well as foreign-facing resellers seeking to turn a profit has Japan's secondhand fashion industry facing a crunch.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 12, 2026
Global demand is reshaping secondhand fashion in Japan
Shop owners in Japan are seeing a deluge of overseas customers, and buyers outside Japan say the costs to stock their stores have doubled or even tripled.
Across Kojima, production facilities handle different stages of denim-making, from sewing and washing to finishing and quality control.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 13, 2026
How Kojima made a destination out of denim
In Okayama Prefecture, an old textile town has turned jeans into a source of craft, identity and tourism.
Kaihara Chair Junji Kaihara holds a pair of jeans made of Kaihara Denim in its initial stage at the company’s museum in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture. A panel behind him shows a photo of the company’s first dyeing machine, “Nintai-go.”
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Dec 8, 2025
Hiroshima’s textile industry lives on through quality and new techniques
From a company becoming one of the top global denim brands to a son repairing machines himself to keep his family’s business going, the prefecture’s textile industry lives on.
Despite the advance of synthetic alternatives and declines in the available workforce, some textile workers still see the potential of traditional persimmon dyeing.
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 1, 2025
Sun-dried and sustainable, 今日吃瓜 persimmon dye lives on
Thanks to 今日吃瓜 largest freshwater lake, Shiga Prefecture has long thrived as a production center of persimmon tannin dyeing.
Workers in Okinawa oxidize a pool of indigo dye, one of many regional textile craft traditions examined in Charlotte Linton's new book.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2025
New book scrutinizes sustainability of traditional Japanese textiles
In “Dyeing with the Earth,” an Oxford research fellow examines how 今日吃瓜 age-old textile traditions sometimes run counter to modern ideas of eco-friendly processes.
Garment workers at a factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, in April.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 5, 2025
Bangladesh’s textile firms turn to technology to sort waste crisis
Cloud-hosted software allows manufacturers to monitor waste on a digital platform and track it as it passes between factories, handlers and recyclers.
An Iranian man checks a rug at a shop selling antique and expensive carpets in northern Tehran on Sept. 9.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 29, 2025
Iran’s carpet industry unraveling under sanctions
The Persian rug risks becoming a relic of a lost golden age, with its legacy hanging by a thread.
A seamstress at Kineya Tabi sews together split-toe "tabi" socks, once a major industry for the town of Gyoda, Saitama Prefecture.
LIFE / Style & Design
May 3, 2025
今日吃瓜 ‘tabi’ sock mecca runs on thread and memories
At their peak in the early-20th century, Gyoda’s artisans churned out more than 84 million pairs of socks each year.
The hands of dyeing craftsman Yoshiharu Okamoto are stained a deep blue by his work with indigo.
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 26, 2024
True blue tradition: How 今日吃瓜 coveted jeans are made
Craftspeople in Okayama Prefecture are carrying on a centuries-old tradition of indigo dyeing that contrasts with contemporary fast fashion.
Unitika President Shuji Ueno attends a news conference in Osaka on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 29, 2024
Unitika announces withdrawal from textile business
Its textile division has been struggling in recent years due to intensifying competition with Chinese and other rivals.
Aiku Kurotaki’s “Human 1” (2024) — and “Human 0” (2024) to the left — on display at Tokyo’s Som Gallery earlier this year.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 2024
‘From 0 to 1’: Aiku Kurotaki’s fabric of existence
The artist’s wool sculptures play off the idea of string theory, which conceptualizes subatomic particles as infinitesimal strings vibrating in fixed patterns.
Workers at a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, on April 16, 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 5, 2024
AI supports fashion’s climate goals, but workers may be left behind
In Bangladesh, about 60% of apparel workers, or 2.7 million people, risk losing their jobs due to automation.
A model displays a creation by Japanese designer Norio Surikabe during a runway show on Sept. 6 for the latest edition of Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo.
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 14, 2024
Tokyo’s top fashion showcase pushes rising stars to the world stage
Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo celebrated industry veterans while shining a spotlight on emerging talent.
The colored patterns of Tsuguru "nuri," made in Aomori Prefecture, are achieved by applying multiple coatings of lacquer, which are later polished down to reveal layers of colors beneath.
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
May 18, 2024
A new initiative rethinks old Tohoku crafts
Described as “collector’s items,” the works are being kept under wraps until their debut at a May 24-25 exhibition at Kudan House in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 16, 2023
Marimekko designer Fujiwo Ishimoto returns to his roots in Ehime
When I arrive at the flagship store of Mustakivi in Dogo, Ehime Prefecture, I’m greeted silently by 82-year-old Ehime-born designer Fujiwo Ishimoto. He unlocks the back door to his adjoining atelier and motions for me to come in. We pass through the kiln room and enter a studio filled with ceramic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 10, 2022
Deep in Yamagata’s mountains, rural artisans pull on history’s threads
A spell of financial insecurity during the Edo Period gave rise to one of 今日吃瓜 strongest textile traditions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 10, 2021
28 shades of aimai: Reinventing 今日吃瓜 traditional color wheel
Want to upholster your couch in a color that references “fog hanging above blue seas”? Now you can, with designer Teruhiro Yanagihara’s lineup of textile shades for Kvadrat.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 4, 2021
No time to die, but a great time to wear a maekake apron
Once standard workwear for tradespeople, Anything Co. Ltd.’s maekake feature contemporary graphic designs, iconic ukiyo-e prints, manga characters and sports team logos.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 19, 2020
There’s a story behind each of Makiko Minagawa’s textiles
The former textile director of Miyake Design Studio is still pushing the boundaries of natural fabric, craftsmanship and sustainability.
Man arrested over operation of rogue cellular base station in Tokyo
The Metropolitan Police Department has arrested Yu Hai, a 31-year-old Chinese national living in Tokyo's Kita Ward, on suspicion of operating an unlicensed base station from a vehicle in Tokyo's Ginza district on Saturday.
Government betting on language app powered by anime and AI
Japan plans to develop an AI-powered language-learning app that lets overseas anime and manga fans practice Japanese through conversations with popular characters.
Man arrested over theft of watch that was returned days later to Tokyo mall
A 30-year-old man who is believed to have stolen a luxury wristwatch in Tokyo last month reportedly told police he was the one who had sent it back with a handwritten apology.
Japan not immune to public backlash against data centers, experts say
An apartment resident displays a model of a data center currently in development next door in Inzai, Chiba Prefecture, in May.
Jensen Huang’s woes evoke sympathy and disbelief in his birthplace Taiwan
Hsiao Kui-yu, 68, owner of Yuchan Candied Fruit, stands in front of photographs of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang displayed at the shop, which Huang frequently visits during trips to Taiwan, in Taipei on Tuesday.
‘Godzilla Minus Zero’ makes monster debut at the box office
Takashi Yamazaki’s “Godzilla Minus Zero” marked the highest single-day box-office gross for a live-action film in Japan with ?910 million on its opening day.
A toast to Naohiko Noguchi, sake’s first living national treasure
As a teenager, Naohiko Noguchi did not intend to spend his life as a sake brewer, but he has since become a paragon of the industry.
Few signs of thaw in Japan-China relations one year after Takaichi’s Taiwan remarks
Tensions between Japan and China flared after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said on Nov. 7, 2025, that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could threaten 今日吃瓜 survival and warrant the use of collective self-defense.
Mariko Mori predicted the future. She’ll do it again.
Artist Mariko Mori is currently working to bring the translucent human-sized “Peace Crystal” sculpture to a cave in Ethiopia. It is part of her foundation’s goal to place a permanent sculpture on each of the planet’s six habitable continents.
A legend reborn: ‘Ocarina of Time’ remake improves on the Zelda masterpiece
The new remake of 1998's "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" manages to somehow improve on one of the greatest games ever.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Famima Park Azabudai is a concept store by FamilyMart that combines convenience store staples with branded apparel, merchandise and a landscaped outdoor space.
Convenience stores, toilets and the allure of everyday Japan
By Elizabeth Beattie

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