"What you need for making quality products is skillful techniques, the latest equipment, and high-quality leather. Like sushi, you have to choose good fish."
Ninomiya Goro Shoten, which mainly sells small leather items, creates pieces that fit with the times. These three points, which the second generation Shinichi talks about, are indispensable when talking about the company.
First of all, technique. Instead of ordering work outside to reduce labor costs, they cover all processes in-house. He is focused on training craftsmen by passing on the techniques to the next generation, including techniques such as the traditional fukin gusset. He spared no cost in equipment and installed easy-to-use Italian-made machines. And as for the leather, "I only buy the finest ones," he says. The philosophy behind their craft has been inherited and refined from the founder Goro Ninomiya and can be felt through the product. The wallet made of Tochigi leather expresses a delicate touch by letting the hair on the split side down while taking advantage of the rugged vegetable tanned leather. The "KAWA-ORIGAMI" series, which has a novel rounded silhouette, is made by folding a piece of leather and finishing it with minimal sewing.
The "Pino Almirante" series features surface processing with many irregularities. The more you use it, the more color and luster that will appear on the convex part, and a three-dimensional shadow will emerge. What all of their products have in common is a simple design that emphasizes the quality of the material and attention to details. Every item is full of love for the leather itself.
"When I was a kid, if I stepped on a piece of leather that was lying around at home, I would get in trouble with my father," Shinichi says with a laugh, and this is where we saw the roots of Goro Ninomiya Shoten.