The 10th collaboration project with the magazine “HUNT”. A blade that can be used as easily as clothes. Clothes that can be worn while being cared for like a knife. Based in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, I visited a couple who spends a lot of time making tools for their daily lives.
I visited a couple who took the time to custom tools for their daily lives.
The sound of hitting iron. In the old days, there was a blacksmith in every town, and that sound echoed as a daily life sound. Blacksmiths who handle farm tools, fishing gear, and household knives are called field blacksmiths, and they custom tools such as hunting swords and nata in the mountains and makiri knives in the seaside to meet the needs of the land.
“Iwaki City, where I was born and raised, was close to the sea, so there were steelworks and ironworks, but regardless of that, field smithing usually existed as an indispensable occupation in everyone’s life.” That’s what Yasuto Suzuki, a blacksmith based in Iwaki City, says.
edc Blacksmith (Yasuto doesn’t put his name on the blade he hit, but he randomly puts a notch on his back. He unknowingly puts a lot of notches on killing tools such as hunting knives. )
edc (Edc’s cloth Iloilo. In addition to clothes, potholders made by sewing multiple layers of hagire are also available.)
At the age of 57, he and his wife, Tomoko, who is a cloth writer, are making living tools made of iron and cloth under the unit name “edc”. By the way, both of them are from Iwaki, and when Tomoko was looking for someone to sharpen the blade of the cutting shears used in her work, she met Yasuto. However, Mr. Yasuto is not a craftsman who has just started. He studied under Kensuke Ishizu and was in the apparel industry until he was 40 years old.
“I’ve been sharpening blades as a hobby since I was a kid, but I started making blades after I was 30 years old. I started hunting and made my own knives at that time. While doing so, I left the apparel over the age of 40 and returned to Iwaki because it was also called the care of my parents, and started making a living as a knife sharpening.
After that, he learned forging techniques while attending local blacksmith Shozo Hasegawa, and started his career at the age of 45, who was late bloomer as a blacksmith. He launched edc at the age of 49.
“Since my master is a field blacksmith, I custom anything, whether it’s a hoe or a kitchen knife, but I don’t think I’ll be able to master everything by the time I die, even if I imitate my master, so it’s the most familiar knife in my life. I mainly custom kitchen knives and knives. ”
EDC Blacksmith (Knife and constellation of a monastery in England are drawn on a nakiri bōchō. Each one is made with good individual differences while facing the hand at that time, so there is a taste that industrial products do not have.)
Mr. Yasuto says that he wants to custom blades that he can enjoy and use in his own way, leaving it to skilled craftsmen all over the country to make it well, and he has a different perspective from conventional craftsmen. As he thought, the products produced from his hands are all unique and wild.
What we custom is a universal product that can be used for a long time.
Edc customs “cloth and iron in life”. The name comes from the lily family plant “Edc (Mannen Ao)”, which is said to be a lucky charm. The Suzuki family has been cultivating rohdea for a long time, and the former greenhouse has become the current blacksmith’s yard, and the Chinese character Mannen Ao overlaps with Tomoko’s manufacturing using indigo dyed cloth. It seems that he naturally arrived at the name.
(Mr. Tomoko uses a kitchen knife made by Mr. Yasuto, and Mr. Yasuto wears work clothes made by Mr. Tomoko. Of course, the tools of edc blend into the life of the Suzuki family.)
Two people who focus on daily life tools and devote themselves to manufacturing every day. The aim is not a disposable item that is consumed in fashion, but a universal item that can be used over and over again for a long time. At edc, we don’t release new products according to the season, we release new products when they are made, and other than that, we just continue to custom existing products seriously while making fine adjustments.
“If it tears, it will be repaired, if the fabric becomes thin, it will be spliced, and if it fades, it will be dyed again. That’s how I want to custom clothes that can be worn carefully.”
edc (The red stitch instead of the tag has the idea of
(The right is the classic indigo-dyed “upholstery dress”. The left is the persimmon astringent-dyed “seed-sowing shirt” that can be worn in unisex. The clothes made by edc are expressive.)
Edc clothes made using traditional Japanese techniques such as indigo dyeing, persimmon astringent dyeing, and custom, which were seen in old stray clothes. At first glance, it looks Japanese, but many of the designs are based on European labor clothes as in Millet’s “The Gleaners” painting. Clothes born from such a unique sensibility have an emotional atmosphere.
Manufacturing that faces the era of mass production
Most of edc’s products are made by two people, so they cannot be mass-produced. Besides, Mr. Yasuto takes the style of making the blades he wants to custom that day, so it is difficult to provide a stable supply. Since we want to make things at our own pace, we basically sell clothes and cutlery only at solo exhibitions and events that are held several times a year.
edc Blacksmith (Inuit’s all-purpose kitchen knife called Ur is one of the representative items of edc. Some of them have a handle with a pyrograph of a friend’s illustrator tomot.)
“I think it’s a silly story from other craftsmen, but I never put it in an exhibition with only cutlery, and I don’t want to put it in a specialty store. Edc’s products are” tools for daily life. ” Some of the tool lovers enjoy decorating it, but the tools are pitiful. It can be rusted or torn. While we are alive, we will fix the blades and clothes. I’ll give it to you, so please use it as a tool for a long time. ”
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