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October 07, 2025
 

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TEXTILES

Garment workers at a factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, in April.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 5, 2025
Bangladesh's textile firms turn to technology to sort waste crisis
Cloud-hosted software allows manufacturers to monitor waste on a digital platform and track it as it passes between factories, handlers and recyclers.
An Iranian man checks a rug at a shop selling antique and expensive carpets in northern Tehran on Sept. 9.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 29, 2025
Iran's carpet industry unraveling under sanctions
The Persian rug risks becoming a relic of a lost golden age, with its legacy hanging by a thread.
A seamstress at Kineya Tabi sews together split-toe "tabi" socks, once a major industry for the town of Gyoda, Saitama Prefecture.
LIFE / Style & Design
May 3, 2025
Japan’s ‘tabi’ sock mecca runs on thread and memories
At their peak in the early-20th century, Gyoda’s artisans churned out more than 84 million pairs of socks each year.
The hands of dyeing craftsman Yoshiharu Okamoto are stained a deep blue by his work with indigo.
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 26, 2024
True blue tradition: How Japan's coveted jeans are made
Craftspeople in Okayama Prefecture are carrying on a centuries-old tradition of indigo dyeing that contrasts with contemporary fast fashion.
Unitika President Shuji Ueno attends a news conference in Osaka on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 29, 2024
Unitika announces withdrawal from textile business
Its textile division has been struggling in recent years due to intensifying competition with Chinese and other rivals.
Aiku Kurotaki’s “Human 1” (2024) — and “Human 0” (2024) to the left — on display at Tokyo’s Som Gallery earlier this year.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 2024
‘From 0 to 1’: Aiku Kurotaki’s fabric of existence
The artist's wool sculptures play off the idea of string theory, which conceptualizes subatomic particles as infinitesimal strings vibrating in fixed patterns.
Workers at a garment factory in Gazipur, Bangladesh, on April 16, 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 5, 2024
AI supports fashion's climate goals, but workers may be left behind
In Bangladesh, about 60% of apparel workers, or 2.7 million people, risk losing their jobs due to automation.
A model displays a creation by Japanese designer Norio Surikabe during a runway show on Sept. 6 for the latest edition of Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo.
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 14, 2024
Tokyo’s top fashion showcase pushes rising stars to the world stage
Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo celebrated industry veterans while shining a spotlight on emerging talent.
The colored patterns of Tsuguru "nuri," made in Aomori Prefecture, are achieved by applying multiple coatings of lacquer, which are later polished down to reveal layers of colors beneath.
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
May 18, 2024
A new initiative rethinks old Tohoku crafts
Described as “collector's items,” the works are being kept under wraps until their debut at a May 24-25 exhibition at Kudan House in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 16, 2023
Marimekko designer Fujiwo Ishimoto returns to his roots in Ehime
When I arrive at the flagship store of Mustakivi in Dogo, Ehime Prefecture, I’m greeted silently by 82-year-old Ehime-born designer Fujiwo Ishimoto. He unlocks the back door to his adjoining atelier and motions for me to come in. We pass through the kiln room and enter a studio filled with ceramic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 10, 2022
Deep in Yamagata's mountains, rural artisans pull on history's threads
A spell of financial insecurity during the Edo Period gave rise to one of Japan's strongest textile traditions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 10, 2021
28 shades of aimai: Reinventing Japan’s traditional color wheel
Want to upholster your couch in a color that references “fog hanging above blue seas”? Now you can, with designer Teruhiro Yanagihara's lineup of textile shades for Kvadrat.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 4, 2021
No time to die, but a great time to wear a maekake apron
Once standard workwear for tradespeople, Anything Co. Ltd.'s maekake feature contemporary graphic designs, iconic ukiyo-e prints, manga characters and sports team logos.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 19, 2020
There’s a story behind each of Makiko Minagawa’s textiles
The former textile director of Miyake Design Studio is still pushing the boundaries of natural fabric, craftsmanship and sustainability.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 9, 2020
Design innovations in Kyoto's textile industry pave the way forward
The contrasting worlds of contemporary designer Mae Engelgeer and Hosoo, a historical Japanese textile company, overlap to ethereal effect at 'Colortage,' an exhibition of new approaches to fabrics.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 27, 2020
The warp and weft of sustainable weaving
Jin Shirai has mastered each of the traditionally separate roles of Japan's handicraft textile industry — from growing cotton, spinning it and dyeing the yarn, to weaving and designing fabrics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2019
Mina Perhonen: Fashion has a life of its own
Mina Perhonen's emotive approach to fashion highlights artisanship, eco-friendliness and our natural desire to connect and remember the past.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 30, 2019
Motohiko Katano: Tied to shibori dyeing
A pioneer of shibori textile dyeing, Motohiko Katano created striking modern designs and fascinating tessellations of motifs that seemed to defy the capricious nature of resist dyeing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 2018
'Les Mains sans Sommeil': It's not what you do, it's the way you do it
'Les Mains Sans Sommeil' is an ode to handiwork by Hermes artists-in-residence, whose experimental textile works wrestle with beauty and desire in surprising ways.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 11, 2018
Designer Linda Polgar gives vintage textiles a new lease of life
Longtime Tokyo resident on choosing fabric, fashion designers and surviving Japanese summer.
How Takaichi won the LDP’s leadership race
Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected leader of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, poses in the party leader's office after the LDP leadership election in Tokyo on Saturday.
Asahi ships beer using paper and fax after ransomware attack
Drinks produced by Asahi at a liquor store in Tokyo. Retailers in Japan are warning customers of possible Asahi Super Dry beer shortages after a cyberattack paralyzed production and distribution at the major brewer.
Retro-wrapped trains mark 100th anniversary of Tokyo's Yamanote Line
Trains decorated to resemble the 103 (left) and 205 series of trains that formerly ran on the Yamanote Line, in Tokyo on Saturday.
Den-en-toshi Line trains collide, halting service
A not-in-service train is seen derailed early Monday morning after colliding with a passenger train late Sunday at Kajigaya Station on Tokyu Railways' Den-en-toshi Line in Kawasaki.
North Korea says 'special assets' deployed against South
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the Defense Development 2025 military exhibition event ahead of the 80th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, in Pyongyang in this picture released Sunday.
Takaichi, the LDP’s first female president, is far from an ‘overnight success’
Newly-elected Liberal Democratic Party chief Sanae Takaichi greets her fellow LDP members on Saturday at party headquarters.
How a family-run landscaper turned the Osaka Expo green
The team at Ryokukou Garden consists primarily of a single family, including Toshiki Tanisaki (second from right), who led the company's efforts at the Osaka Expo, Chikako Tanisaki (fifth from right), who performs daily maintanence at the expo, and Takeshi Tanisaki (fourth from right), who added a nursery to the family farm more than 50 years ago.
Eat your balloons: The culinary theater of Grant Achatz comes to Tokyo
Avant-garde chef Grant Achatz and his team from Alinea are in Tokyo for a three-week residency.
Japan’s first foreign wine investor plants its roots in Hokkaido
Intrigued by Japanese wines, Burgundy winemaker Etienne de Montille decided to explore Hokkaido's wine scene, eventually setting up his outpost in Hakodate in 2017.
Tea ceremony experts see matcha boom as a big opportunity
Atsuko Mori, founder and director of Kyoto-based tea salon Camellia Tea Ceremony, prepares matcha during a tea ceremony in Kyoto.

Podcast

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Longform

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SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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