At One&Co, 10 award-winning works are on display in collaboration with Omotenashi Selection. These winning entries are chosen by foreigners living in Japan who have been asked to vote for them based on their opinion of what constitutes an excellent traditional Japanese product.
Even with current travel restrictions, you are still able to experience the history, culture, technology, and beauty of Japan while in Singapore simply by coming to One&Co.
In this series, we would like to introduce the function and design of the products, and background of the Japanese traditional artists.
This time, we talked to Mr. Murakami of Actylife Corporation about the money packet, “Goshugi Pouch that Turns into a Pen Case”.
— First of all, could you tell us an introduction to the award-winning product?
It is common practice around the world to give money or gifts to people for various occasions: weddings, funerals, birthdays and so on. In Japan, it tends to be rude to give money or a gift without wrapping them up. However, the pretty decorative paper becomes useless after one receives the gift. In the Edo period (1603-1867), when paper was a precious commodity, people reused the paper for many times, but nowadays people dispose of them after using them for only one time. In our current consumerist world, we came up with the idea of using a paper bag for congratulatory gifts. We hope that it will enrich our lives by changing the purpose of a previously discarded paper bag.
Based on the principle of “effective use of all resources”, our company has been recycling clothes for a living. However, at that time, there was a lot of resistance to wearing second-hand clothes in Japan, therefore it took a long time for us to be recognized as a clothes recycling business. It has been ten years since the company was founded. The business of “promotion of ecology” is doing well, and nowadays, people recognize clothes recycling as a way of life as well.
When I started to think about integrating ecology into our daily lives, I happened to see a pile of gift bags piled up at the reception desk of a wedding hall. I felt a little sad for the gift bags that would be discarded after a wedding reception, but at the same time, I was passionate to reuse these gift bags once again. I ask myself: What can I do with these gift bags? We want to create a new culture of celebration through these “gift bags”. We also hope that this unique product will help you stand out when picking a gift for your loved ones.
―What kind of difficulties did you have before commercializing it?
Because our business is based on recycling clothes, all of our employees, including myself, are amateurs in the business of creating products, so we had to deal with a lot of uncertainty only in our knowledge of materials and processing techniques, but also the history of the decoration of traditional Japanese envelopes, which would later become the our core business. However, thanks to the support of local universities and government agencies, we were able to develop our products in collaboration with highly skilled processors, and we were able to obtain a patent for this concept. This product was created by a big support by many people.
―What are the “issues” and “potentials” beyond this current Covid situation?
While the market price of a gift bag is around ¥500, our products cost five times more. In addition, people cannot decide when to use the gift envelope (because you cannot for instance tell when your friends will be getting married), so even if they know about our product, they won’t be able to purchase it right away. However, we believe that the older we get, the deeper the desire to send our congratulatory messages in a unique and meaningful way. We might need more time, but we believe that the demand for our products will increased every year.
―Please share with us your goal for the future.
“Yuuhime” is a changeable congratulatory gift bag that continues to convey the sender’s thoughts and sentiments by changing its form from envelope into a pen case. This product makes not only the senders but also receivers happy, and this happiness will be carried forward into the future. Every time you see the pen case, you can relive that happy moment as if it was only yesterday. The product brings you back to the happy moment like a time machine. You can keep it by your side as a memento or give it to someone close to you as a gift to share your happiness. We will continue to make the gift envelopes with the hope that eventually every child who carries this pen case with them sees it as a good luck charm.
Yoshikazu Murakami
Representative Director, Actilife Corporation
Born in 1967.
In 2003, he has started selling clothing and sundries and in 2015, he has started manufacturing and sales of clothing and sundries products.
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