Yamaguchi Craft Ltd.
Coporate Profille
The national Echizen Ware artist Ryoji Yamaguchi founded Yamaguchi Craft Ltd in 1962. Yamaguchi was good at making timber lacquer ware, and he founded the Yamaguchi Craft Ltd. to mainly produce such products. In 2005, Ichihashi became the second head of the company, and he launched an exclusive lacquer ware brand – Hacoa – and established a Hacoa shop in Tokyo. Ichihashi succeeded in the business of Hacoa and became a young leading executive, for the innovation he brings into the industry of Echizen Ware.
Story
Echizen Ware appeared 1500 years ago in Fukui prefecture, when the Keitai emperor was a prince, he asked the artists to make this lacquer ware. At that time, about half population of the nation were collectors of lacquer wares. With many influence from other national regions, this industry had changed a lot. Fukui, Ishikawa and Kaizu are the three major prefectures that produce Echizen Ware. High quality and long lasting endurance are the two qualities of Echizen Ware, and are valued more important than the gorgeous appearance. Various types of products were available in Yamaguchi Craft, and they are popular for service at restaurants all around Japan.
Interview
Due to the westernization of Japanese lifestyle, traditional art crafts’ industry suffers from its decreasing market demand and successors. The founding of Hacoa is an approach to improve this situation. At the beginning, some conservative voice were received against commercialize this traditional industry. Now the brand has established its reputation and customers can access the products through online shops or from the exclusive Hacoa shop in Tokyo. These days, many young people wish to work for Hacoa and this is the very goal we aim to achieve: to bring on the traditions through the young blood.
Recommendation
Hacoa is an executive timber brand founded in 2001. It contains both an ‘old fashioned’ and a modern ‘trendy’ style in it. The former one represents the traditional technique and the latter one represents the trendy modern lifestyles such as Internet shopping.
The variety of Hacoa’s products has reached more than 100 items, which contains smart phone cases, memory sticks and accessories for computers. The first computer accessory we produced was a keyboard for computer; this was made for a customer who is allergic to resin in 2003. This timber keyboard is relatively expensive, but still remains a popular item in our products.
In 2008, the offer for memory sticks suddenly dropped, due to the fact that the world was suffering from the financial crisis. To cope with this situation, the company released a new model product every month to increase the variety of the products. Within these few years, Hacoa has now reached stable market sales un-harmed by the depression.
