Japanese Leather & Natural Material Crafts

About this book

A technique manual teaches you to make leather goods. A global handbook gives Japan a few pages. Japanese Leather & Natural Material Crafts does the missing job: 200 Japanese leathers, tanning regions and makers in one uniform format — every entry gives Region & Material, Tanning & Making, Character & Handling, and Buying & Care, each entry written in full at 200+ words.

Himeji's white-tanned shironameshi and Tatsuno's river-side pits. Tochigi vegetable-tanned cowhide, Sumida's small Tokyo tanneries, indigo-dyed and persimmon-tanned skins. Full-grain, top-grain and split told apart skin by skin; aniline, wax pull-up and bridle finishes judged by hand; wallet, bag, belt and shoe-upper leathers with the care each one actually needs.

A front chapter teaches the four checks — grain, edge, smell, flex — and an honest section covers split, bonded and synthetic material sold under leather-like names. No photographs: the recognition fields are written for the hand and eye, because pore, fibre and flex are checks a photograph cannot make for you. Prices, stock and hours are never asserted; every entry asks you to confirm them on the maker's official channel.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.