Creating a Masterpiece: Function, Form and Artisanal Craftsmanship

Japan has a longstanding tradition in bags and accessories with iconic items like the furoshiki wrapping cloth, reflecting the country’s rich cultural heritage and meticulous craftsmanship. Today, Japan is celebrated for its exceptional quality in bags and accessories, visionary designers who push creative boundaries, and its innovation of cutting-edge technology into an advanced automated supply chain. How would you define the uniqueness of the Japanese bags and accessories industry, and from your perspective, what would be its main strengths?

Traditionally, Japanese people have always paid close attention to detail. They provide detailed care for others and are very sensitive about what others care for. For example, when it comes to bags, Japanese people do not consider bags solely as something used to store items but typically look at ways to add functionalities and improve their usefulness. The functionalities and convenience of our products are factors we pay close attention to. That is why Japanese bags are so well accepted by the global market.

Japanese products are backed by Japan’s cultural and historical background. Inoya, our parent company, has a factory in China that is operated by Chinese employees. However, it is difficult for them to be on the same page as us when it comes to manufacturing. We try to educate them to sew as we do in Japan, but it is always difficult for them to understand. Japanese people have traditionally had unique characteristics when paying attention to detail.

Amidst the trend where many bag brands outsource their production to other companies, we established our in-house  factory, "BASE," in 2008.

We believed this would allow us to further pursue craftsmanship. At that time, it was highly unusual and considered risky for a brand to operate its own factory.

 We started with only a few members at the time of its founding, we now operate with a team of approximately 50 people across two locations: BASE Osaka in Osaka Prefecture and BASE Toyooka in Hyogo Prefecture, carrying out all processes in-house.

We think this is a crucial effort to pass down Japan's craftsmanship and manufacturing skills to future generations.

For us, the growth of our artisans directly contributes to the development of our brand. Managing everything from planning and production to sales entirely within our company is one of our greatest strengths.

Over the next 15 years, Japan anticipates significant demographic shifts characterized by both an aging population and a declining population. This will, of course, result in a shrinking domestic market and labor shortages. What challenges has this demographic shift created for your company, and how are you navigating them? Additionally, what new opportunities are being presented, and how are you capitalizing on them?

In the past, many Japanese products were mass-produced at low or medium quality and, therefore, could be replicated by Chinese competitors at lower prices. However, recently, people have become more aware of SDGs, and more and more people are trying to remove waste from our daily lives. As a result, we are no longer pursuing mass production as the population of Japan declines. Our strategy is to pursue more precious products that consumers can use for longer. We also provide repair services at our in-house facility. Furthermore, we are trying to add more value to the products we make. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, this kind of philosophy has become more and more accepted by consumers. We are also seeing inbound tourists from foreign countries increasingly buying our products as they recognize the value of what we produce. As a result, we are currently feeling a lot of momentum, and we intend to work even harder to become one of the top makers in Osaka.

What is your international strategy to help compensate for the shrinking market here in Japan?

We have been focusing on the international market for a very long time and have been participating in exhibitions in Paris twice per year for almost 20 years. Our international strategy has been a long-term strategy of ours.

What countries do you target the most internationally, and which countries do you believe offer the most growth potential for your business?

We have been gradually increasing our distribution points around the world. However, when we look at the revenue breakdown, we see a large proportion coming from the US and the UK. Also, the breakdown of inbound tourists indicates that the US is always in the top three. Moving forward, we focus more on expansion in the US as well as in Europe.

One of the challenges in the bags and accessories industry is creating products that are both functional and aesthetic. Each of your bags is designed with careful attention to detail, with some of the finer qualities revealing themselves over time as you combine functionality with fashionable aesthetics, ensuring your products meet the needs of consumers willing to pay a higher price for higher quality. What are your strengths in manufacturing and development that allow you to combine aesthetics and functionality successfully?

One of our main strengths is that both our designers and craftsmen work in the same company. They tend to join our company because they like the master-piece brand. Most of the other brands outsource their manufacturing to external facilities. However, our designers and craftsmen like our brand and, therefore, have a higher sense of perfection when working on our products.

Your company focuses on manufacturing fashionable bags while also adding something very unique. Could you elaborate further and explain to our readers the types of functionalities you add to your fashionable bags? How are you able to combine functionality and aesthetics to manufacture such unique pieces?

I would like to explain the background behind our decision to mix functionality and design in our master-piece products. The Japanese bags and accessories industry is in a very unique position as there were two preceding regions in the industry. The first region is Europe, which has a lot of historic brands and craftsmen who work with leather. The second is the US, which is a leading nation that specializes in outdoor and sports-related products with high-performance and highly functional materials. They are the two advanced regions when it comes to bags. We wanted to mix these values and align them with Japanese fashion trends. That was the beginning of the master-piece brand.

This year, your company celebrated its 30^th anniversary with the Black Crazy series while showcasing the Scramble series and Ark series as part of your 2024-2025 Autumn & Winter collection. You also have the Potential series, which is your flagship series featuring Outlast, a temperature control material developed by NASA. Which of your new series or products are you most excited about moving forward?

We have high expectations for each of the new series that you mentioned. However, we have many other products that have been around for more than 10 years that are still very popular with the users. We have been making minor changes to our existing models and updating the products constantly. While we have expectations for our new series, we also strongly believe that we can grow and improve our existing products even further.

When it comes to your existing products, you mentioned that you are looking to strengthen your presence in Europe and the US. Which brand do you believe has the most growth potential for your overseas business, and which one would you say is your flagship product?

Potential is our flagship series and has been around for more than 10 years. It has been well received by our foreign customers. Every season, we make a new series, however, some of our foreign customers still chose to buy our Potential bags.

With the success that you have had in the US and Europe, why do you think foreigners gravitate towards your products specifically as opposed to products made in their own countries? What is unique about what you are bringing to their markets?

Foreign buyers often say that mixing leather and nylon is unique to the Japanese industry. It represents what I mentioned earlier about mixing two different fashion cultures, and that is what makes the Japanese bag and accessory industry unique.

To mark your 30^th anniversary, you introduced the Black Crazy series, which includes backpacks, tote bags, and shoulder bags, amongst other models. The collection’s main body materials feature five distinct black fabrics, each showcasing unique weaving structures of your original fabric. These materials are sourced through collaborations with suppliers both in Japan and overseas. How do you select the materials that are used in your products, and what aspects of your supplier partnership network enable you to source the materials you need for your products?

As you mentioned, the Black Crazy series are made using different materials featuring five distinct black fabrics. We chose the threads to make these fabrics, and you can find the Japanese archipelagos in the leopard pattern. We procured the different materials through our suppliers with whom we have had a long relationship. Each season, we consider many different fabrics, and based on those fabrics, we create an image of the bag. We then decide which materials to use. That choice is also made depending on the parts of the bag. For example, at the bottom, we tend to use durable fabrics as there is always friction. The fabric used at the bottom of the bag must be resistant to friction.

In addition to manufacturing fashionable and functional backpacks, among other products, you also have your golf lineup in collaboration with FDMTL, which features products such as the FDMTL master-piece golf self-stand case and the potential golf cooler shoulder bag. What opportunities do you see in the golf bag industry, and why did you decide to collaborate with FDMTL for this venture?

FDMTL is a Japanese fashion brand that is highly accepted by the foreign market. Their denim textiles feature patchwork. When we decided to develop golf bags, we wanted to create something new and interesting. Our goal was to release something unprecedented in the market. Denim patchwork was not being used in golf bags, so that was the starting point for our collaboration with FDMTL.

Have the products seen a lot of success internationally, specifically in the US, which has a very big golf market?

The bags that we collaborated with FDMTL on sold out in the overseas market.  In the beginning, we decided to produce golf bags due to the declining population in Japan and the shrinking domestic market that we spoke about earlier. We wanted to widen our customer base. We already had users for our fashion bags, so we thought that it would be great if they also used our brand for their golf accessories. That was the reason behind our decision to produce golf bags.

Partnerships play an important role in the industry, whether it is collaborating with other companies for products like your collaboration with Nowartt for the Digital Zoo series or partnering with suppliers both domestically and abroad. Are you interested in expanding your international partnership network, and if so, what types of partnerships are available, and which countries are most appealing to you?

We do not place a lot of importance on the expansion of our partnership network as we want to increase the value of our own brand. Rather than expanding our brand extension, we would like to add more value to our brand.

You mentioned that your company is focusing on Europe and North America. However, during our research, we saw that you do not have a physical presence in those regions. Looking towards the future, what strategies are you implementing to penetrate those two key markets for the future growth of your firm?? Are you looking to find distribution partners or retailers?

We currently have distributors in China, Thailand and the Philippines. However, when we try to expand to other markets, we will consider direct sales. We have already been participating in exhibitions in Europe and have completed the shipments ourselves. Going forward, we are not planning to increase our distributors, as if we did so, it could extend beyond our manufacturing capacity. We want to continue to operate within our current manufacturing capacity, and we plan to focus on communicating the value of Japanese bag manufacturing to the global market.

Your company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Please imagine that we come back five years from now for your 35^th anniversary and have this interview all over again with you. What would you like to tell us? What dreams and goals would you like to achieve over the next five years, and how would you like your company, your brand, and your products to be seen in the eyes of the global market?

It is becoming more and more difficult to train craftsmen and staff to manufacture our bags. This is partly due to the declining population. It has been very hard for us to secure workers with certain skill sets. If we can secure good human resources who possess the skills that we require, and pass down their expertise from to the next generation of craftsmen, I believe that we will be able to raise our production capacity and produce better products. That is our goal for the next five years.

For more information, please visit their website at: https://mspc.jp/

To read more about MSPC Corporation, check out this article about them.