niime 百科

Encyclopedia of niime

The sewing team’s role is to make the final product using one-item materials that the weave and knit teams ingeniously created. The group consists of five full-time and six part-time staff, the largest of the ‘tamaki niime’ teams.

Yoko Katake has the longest career amongst the sewing team. She could get right to the point of each situation with a calm and collected perspective. Her words convey a deep passion for the brand, and I would like to know what about the sewing teams manufacturing process was so unique and explains the essence of ‘tamaki niime’.

Katake

Recently, we have divided our team into two groups. We made a ‘denim team’ since we sew a lot of denim in the company. The leader, Ms Kawabata, is taking charge while I oversee knit material tops.

—— You divide the roles.

Katake

I have been thinking about this a lot. We have half of the full-time employees and a half of part-time workers whose work styles and ways of thinking are all different, so I need to explain the company’s situation every time. Otherwise, it’s hard to communicate.

—— I see.

Katake

As I told you in the last interview, we have staff with strong personalities, so it’s not easy to bring them together. In other words, that’s why we have been naturally working on teamwork and helping each other.

—— I see.

Katake

And then Ms Kawabata came in and became a leader, and we truly felt we had many problems. We recently had discussions as a team. I think they came to understand and take action.

—— I knew Ms Katake was an analyst. (laugh)

Katake

(laugh) We have a range of part-time workers. From older people to working moms who want to work at a different time of day, but as they come to work here on the sewing team, their desires are the same: to make good products and be satisfied with what they make.

—— I see.

Katake

That’s why they became aware of their responsibility for the final product, and they are changing their mindset by making an effort on their initiatives. Making new accessories came from one of the part-time workers.

—— Not just doing given tasks.

Katake

It’s because we have a place to make ideas into reality, and they want to take advantage of that, which caused a significant change.

—— Hmmm. I see.

Katake

When I started working here as a part-timer, I wanted to get involved with such things. I took for granted getting my ideas and making them. On the other hand, many workers just work some hours to get money. However, now, they work on their initiatives, that’s the atmosphere here.

—— I see.

Katake

Part-time workers’ spirits influence the other staff’s awareness, creating good relationships that pull from both sides, bringing a synergistic effect. When someone says something that they want to do, they start thinking of how to do it, and then they naturally want to finish up within certain limits, right?

—— Yes.

Katake

So we try to finish the work early that we are doing and use the spare time to help staff who want to work with a new project. It’s not surprising, and we can do the work that we couldn’t do before because we couldn’t afford it.

—— Listening to what Ms Katake said, your whole sewing quality has improved, and everyone has become more active in proposing new ideas, and your works became more effective.

Katake

I think so.

—— It looks like everything goes well.

Katake

Maybe because we are getting used to what we do, and I think we are aware that it’s better to speak up and take action. (laugh)

After completing the products, the final inspection and finishing touches were completed by everyone, which is the way of ‘tamaki niime’. Working with the ‘Toru Team’ that takes pictures of each one-item product, the inspection is done in detail from the customer’s perspective. But, according to Ms Katake, it isn’t easy to make judgments because of the uniqueness of one-item products.

Katake

Simply put, the denim stitches are one example. Mr Yamashita of the knitting team calls his design ‘poor good’ designs. (laugh) So it’s hard to judge.

—— I kind of understand what you mean.

Katake

He values that it’s all right that the stitches aren’t straight like machine-made. So we could decide the style by ourselves.

—— I see, I see.

Katake

Our boss often says she wants you to think from customers’ perspectives and make judgments as a professional worker. It is hard to express judgement in numbers. We need to discuss each case and decide on it.

—— It’s the way of setting values in the uniqueness of ‘tamaki niime’, one-item products.

Katake

You are right. That’s a different point from other apparel products.

There is no other way. However, sometimes you need to judge one by one.

Katake

Right. We sometimes do. I am in charge of ‘repairing’, which is sometimes well done nicely, but the customers understand it’s difficult to fix because of one-item products, but they request to restore them to be able to wear even though it’s not like the original. That’s why I can’t make standard manuals. I can’t fix them as they desire until I listen to what they want.

She showed me the pictures of the before-and-after. Then, depending on how much repairs they need, she discusses with them, suggesting some options.

Katake

One time, I was asked to repair all the ripped parts, but we didn’t have the same materials.

—— I understand you don’t have them because of the one-item product. How do you cope with that?

Katake

So we looked on the shelves in the stocks. (laugh) After searching, we put navy blue cloth instead of the original material was a calm grey one. If you look at it well, they are very different.

—— Really, they are. But it doesn’t look feeling out of place at all at a glance. It looks nice.


Because all products are one-item, there are no exact matches in stock for repairing large ripped parts in most cases, but they could mysteriously fit well with other materials.

Katake

That’s the greatness of ‘tamaki niime’ cloth. (Looking at pictures), it gets done well like this. Picking up from pants materials, you can’t tell the difference at a glance, but colours and tones are all different. The vertical threads are black, which is the same.

—— In this case, Ms Katake decides everything from materials and the rest, right?

Katake

Yes, I ask them if it’s ok to have me do everything.

—— You do it through consultation. Improving your skills extends what you can do with sewing.

Katake

I used to work at a repair shop, but I didn’t do this type of work and was hoping to do this someday while watching experienced workers results.

Watching and learning their skills.

Katake

Because they didn’t teach me. After I started working here, they asked me if I could do it, and I started trying to do it even though I didn’t know if I could do it or not. Wondering how to fix it with certain clothes, I invented the way. (laugh) Because of the uniqueness, I have to think about it every time. I guess it’s all different from other companies clothing.

—— This is different from fixing them with original materials in the stock.

Katake

There are no experienced workers in our sewing team staff. Maybe Ms Miyazaki is the only one. Even me, my job wasn’t to sew a piece of clothing. So after I started working here, I was taught and studied a lot by myself.

—— Even the weaving, most staff started working with no experience.

Katake

And then, when teaching, I found out that you won’t improve yourself if you aren’t passionate about learning. I think about that a lot. However, as I told you previously, I am glad and thankful that we have increased our inspired staff and motivate themselves.

—— I feel ‘repairing’ is creation. It is creative because there are no samples for it. It’s a restoration for one-item products that you could repair with your free inspiration.

Katake

That’s right. Ms Miyazaki’s repairing is also very interesting. She makes designs with stitches with holes or tears to fit in well. (laugh) I think it’s great.

—— She conversely makes use of the torn parts.

Katake

I think she is even a genius. We certainly make sure that customers are all right with fixing their clothes like this. So I guess one-item products weigh a lot to express creativity in repairing.

—— Do you have any other opportunities to make changes to the sewing team’s motivation?

Katake

Last year we made many masks and sold them, which helped us increase customers. Even we were in the pandemic, we made good circulation. The sewing team is the final stop to finish up the products. No other team can replace us to think about the final products. I think we became aware of that.

—— I see.

Katake

Ms Miyazaki was originally sewing as a job. As we use sewing machines regularly, we try to make something pleasing to customers. It’s just a simple idea created for customers who may be happy to have them. Our workplace may be a more accessible environment for concepts like “we may be able to make this” or “how about using this cloth? “

—— It is a place for producing exciting products. They could make ideas, create tangible objects there, and get quick responses from the online store. So it’s easier to motivate and try more challenges for further adventures.

Katake

I think so, but it’s tough to make our ideas come true. We are denied often, or it’s not right, which happens all the time.

—— Ms Tamaki checks on you?

Katake

Yes, and the shop staff and others’ opinions to listen. The products that pass through everyone’s view are minimal. However, it’s not true that everyone agrees on what they like. Specifically, within our customers, there are many enthusiasts.

—— I see.

Katake

We have customers who like the things that many others don’t like.

—— Mr Yamashita told me the same thing.

Katake

It’s not always true that the products they all like will sell well. But small accessories used daily are high hurdles to pass through a small number of people’s preferences.

I also asked about materials they are sewing. At the factory where all the dyeing, weaving and knitting processes are completed, the pursuit of material quality is maintained during experimentation daily. Ms Katake mentioned unique characteristics in the materials’ the sewing team is taking care of.

Katake

The ‘tamaki niime’ fabrics are tough to sew. They are too soft. (laugh)

—— They are not just for the shawls?

Katake

No, not just shawls. They are thin and soft. You can’t sew well until you get used to them. For example, the general fabrics for Banshu ori men’s shirts are indeed hard to sew, but the movement of sewing machines is easy with them. But our fabrics have their own unique peculiarities. It’s probably because they are intentionally not putting twists on. If you are not used to handling them, you wrinkle them. It’s hard to work with them. Our fabrics have unique peculiarities, totally different from other companies’.

—— I didn’t know there were many difficulties in handling.

Katake

My goal is to improve our skills to sew more variety parts and make even those who start with no experience become a highly-skilled artisans. We have just discussed that each one wants to improve skills in the team.

—— How about getting new items or developing products? I believe you have denim skirts.

Katake

You are talking about neat denim flair skirts designed by Ms Miyazaki, right? We haven’t had many skirt products until now though, this skirt hem is spreading out, which makes it very heavy for the regular denim materials, but our denim is soft and light, making it possible to look nice even though it uses much fabric. Ms Miyazaki gets inspired to have ideas when she touches the fabric.

—— The moment she touches attractive fabrics, she gets inspired.

Katake

Taking advantage of the softness of our denim, we try to make cute products, and we are making small Tamafukuroo bags. That is our sewing team’s playfulness. First, they look at each fabric and find interesting shape stitches with colours. Then, we sew each with different stitches.

—— Wow! That looks fun.

Katake

The product’s naming is ‘Tamafukuroo-Cho’. Its concept is that the bag’s surface is the canvas, and we draw graffiti on it. “Cho” means the notebook for graffiti. We exchanged these ideas for it. It’s so much fun to see what kind of stitches a person next to you are making, and we find it surprising, “wow!” (laugh)

—— (watching the video of ‘Tamafukuroo-Cho’ on online shop), it’s so much fun to see various graffiti.

Katake

I have been thinking a lot recently that we spend time sewing shawls or other things, and there’s some time to make stitches, which looks like ticking time. The extra time spent becomes the products that go to the customers. And after that, the customers spend time with the product. I feel this is a beautiful job.

—— The playful stitches are evidence of free creations. Traces of creativity are engraved.

Katake

The bag’s design is practical, but we wanted to apply playfulness.

—— So everyone is free to stitch themselves?

Katake

Our preference and inspiration are all different in each person. It would be interesting to put all ideas into the products. I think that’s Ms Miyazaki’s idea.

—— You make graffiti with stitches at the last step?

Katake

So if I fail, I would ruin the product. I get so nervous about doing it.

—— I’m sure you do, even though it’s all free to do it. (laugh) But it would be best if you had the guts to do it, now or never.

Katake

That’s right. With denim or knits, we do it right away! As we know, our feeling is put into the products at each moment.

—— I see.

Katake

It’s all for the uniqueness of ‘tamaki niime’.

—— That’s where one-item products are alive, or you put life into them.

Katake

That’s why we get so attached to them, and many customers want to fix and keep them even after products are torn or damaged. It is too wasteful to lose them when they get damaged.

—— It is too wasteful. Ms Tamaki and staff want them to be used, avoiding becoming trash. I had an impression about repairing that the products are all renewed. I think there are ‘tamaki niime’s unique colour and concepts there. After hearing everything, it all seems to come together.

Katake

I went to the Machida store in Tokyo and served customers for a week. I have learned it is good to have an opportunity to tell customers that there is meaning in each exciting product. What we are doing every day is not routine, but it’s fun. Even though it is not easy, we never get bored as we sew. People don’t get bored with our products because even though they are designed with the same styles, we make different fabrics every season. So I feel the customers feel secure getting the same pants style with other materials.

—— They can’t get bored because they are one-item products.

Katake

They won’t get bored with shawls and outfits…but I wonder what else makes them not bored?

—— That’s very deep; it’s the core of the theme.

Katake

There’s one thing we can say that we can keep doing it. The sewing itself is a simple task, but the creativity of ‘tamaki niime’ won’t bore you.

—— So they don’t make patterns. It is just naturally like that in where there’s no force. Dyeing, Weaving, and Knitting all try various experiments, and if you multiply with them, there are unlimited possibilities.

Katake

They are genuinely unlimited.

Original Japanese text by Seiji Koshikawa.
English translation by Adam & Michiko Whipple.