Until last year, I was a customer of doublet.
This year, I'm on the production side.
Even now, sometimes I think,
"Wasn't I just buying this because I loved it? What am I doing now?"
This time, I went on a business trip to factories by myself for the first time.
I visited:
Milcreate-san.
Hang Loose-san.
Tanabe Embroidery-san.
Three factories.
I was excited.
But, of course, I also had anxieties.
I was going to meet people I usually only talk to on the phone or by email, by myself, for the first time.
What kind of place is a factory?
What should I talk about?
I still don't know much about processing.
I set off with a mix of anticipation and nervousness.
Milcreate
The first place I visited was Milcreate-san.
It was completely different from what I imagined a "factory" to be.
If I had to describe it, I'd say it had a casual atmosphere?
I had a chance to talk with Mr. Higashi from Milcreate and everyone else.
Since I usually communicate mostly by phone or email, when I met them in person and talked,
I thought, "Oh, they're actual people."
Which is obvious, of course.
We talked about various things, like how I joined doublet, work-related topics, and general small talk.
It felt a bit strange to be having all these conversations.
Among those conversations, what stuck with me the most were Mr. Higashi's words.
"Well, this time was tough too..."
"But when the designs come in, I get excited, and it's fun to work on them."
I thought, maybe this is the essence of doublet.
I send out orders, ask the factories to make them, and then see the finished products.
Until now, I couldn't understand what happened in between, no matter how much I wanted to.
But after hearing them talk, I realized,
that the "interesting things" doublet wants to create are truly made by everyone.
Mr. Ino always says,
"We and the factories are all on the same page."
It felt like those words finally clicked for me.
My first thought was,
"Thank you so much."
That's what it was.
Hang Loose
Next, I visited a processing factory for the first time.
As I checked the map, I thought,
"Is it really deep in the mountains like this?"
I had only ever met Mr. Yamamoto of Hang Loose virtually, through my phone.
I was a little nervous.
I knew almost nothing about processing.
What should I do? 😢
That's how I set off.
But when I met him,
he was, after all, a human being...
My anxiety only lasted at the beginning.
I don't know why, but when I talked to Mr. Yamamoto,
I felt like, "This must be what it means to have a weight lifted off your shoulders," and I was able to talk as my true self.
The actual workplace, on the other hand, was exactly what I had imagined a processing factory to be.
That's why I became even more curious.
I had seen the finished processed items, but this was my first time seeing the actual processing being done.
I understood each step, thinking, "Ah, so this is how it's made."
That day, I was wearing a doublet T-shirt.
Mr. Yamamoto saw it and told me,
"This uses fluorescent dye. When it's present, it limits the range of processing options."
From there,
he started making new suggestions, one after another, like "How about doing it this way?"
"This might work too, right?"
"Mr. Ino might not even know about this, right?"
Perhaps it was because the workshop was hot.
No, I don't think so.
I felt Mr. Yamamoto's passion for doublet was incredibly strong.
New suggestions.
= interesting.
= doublet.
I thought that if I could understand processing better,
the range of expression for doublet could expand many times over.
When Mr. Ino says, "I want to create something like this!",
I want to be able to say, "How about this?" myself.
......Huh?
New suggestions?
Oh, I'm thinking a lot for doublet.
I'm a doublet person.
It was a time at Hang Loose where I re-recognized my role and felt a renewed passion.
Tanabe Embroidery
When you think of doublet,
it was the place I most wanted to visit,
the place I absolutely had to visit.
I had a personal interest, and also a sense of mission that I had to go there for doublet.
When I arrived at the factory, my first thought was that it was incredibly clean and spacious.
It felt modern, different from the other factories I'd visited.
I had met Ms. Nakaishi from Tanabe Embroidery several times at exhibitions and in the office, so from the moment I arrived at the station, I felt a bit like I was returning home, even though it was my first time there.
At the factory, they showed me many past doublet embroideries.
They said things like, "We'll do our best to somehow manage the schedule for doublet-san!"
And they even took me to a Udon restaurant that Mr. Ino and Mr. Iwami had visited before.
It was... what was it?
Until now, I had only seen the "present" of doublet.
But coming here, I felt like I saw a glimpse of doublet's past.
Talking with Ms. Nakaishi and Ms. Megumi, the strongest feeling that came across was "fun."
It was a warm feeling throughout.
What kind of expressions will be possible with embroidery in the future?
I'm incredibly excited.
I think the possibilities are infinite.
Not only the things we'll create from now on, but also the designs that already exist, I want more people to know about them.
To our generation, and to our parents' generation.
doublet equals embroidery
No, I want the world to think,
"Embroidery means doublet, right?"
I want to spread it that much.
After visiting 3 factories
The locations are different.
What they do is different.
The people working there are different.
But there was one thing that was common to all the factories.
Their passion for doublet.
Now, little by little, I'm starting to see the faces, hands, and words of the people involved in making a single garment.
I want to convey more and more to the world about the people who support doublet,
and what kind of feelings they put into making things.
After returning from the factories,
my perspective on doublet products changed a little.
When I look at a piece of clothing,
the faces of the people involved come to mind more than before.
And sometimes I think again,
Just recently,
I was on the buying side.
Now,
I'm on the making side.