SCOTTISH MADE ASSEMBLE PRODUCTS FOR JAPANESE DEPARTMENT STORE HANKYU

In the very early days of 2020 (pre Covid) we were asked to meet with a team of Japanese buyers from Hankyu. Who were interested in Kalopsia’s sustainable manufacturing model and the way we utilise high-end waste from mills around the UK. They wanted to create beautiful accessories for their British Fair later in the year.

We were delighted to be asked to be part of the fair and had a fantastic time working on this. Hankyu’s ethos aligns brilliantly with everything we do so this was really one of the most straight forward projects of this kind we have worked on!

Half the range were made in Hankyu’s own tartan, and the other in tartan surplus and seconds sourced by us. The only real challange was making sure we had enough surplus to use of a batch of this size!

You can hear us talk a bit more about the project below and go check out Hankyu’s British Fair website for more information on this. It is really quite lovely!

We hope next time we will be able to make it out for the launch!

HANKYU HISTORY

Hankyu Department Stores, Inc. is one of Japan's leading department store chains. The company's stores can be found in the Japanese cities of Osaka, Toyonaka, Kawanishi, Kyoto, Kobe, Takarazuka, Tokyo, and Yokohama. Although the first Hankyu Department Store did not open until 1929, the history of the company dates back to 1907, when Japanese entrepreneur Ichizo Kobayashi helped found the Mino-Arima Electric Railway Company (the name Hankyu derived from a combination of the Chinese characters for Osaka, which can be read as the words "Han" and "Kyu," the latter of which means express).