Take a Look | Nihon Kawa-ichi's "Japan Leather Pride" Exhibition at Isetan, Lot 10 & Nayuta Chocolatasia!

Isetan Japan, Lot 10

Nihon Kawa-ichi

January 2019

Nihon Kawa-ichi, which is also known as Japanese Leather Market that is organized by the Tanner's Council of Japan, has set for its first ever overseas expansion in Malaysia and they had just debuted last Saturday. It is currently held from 4th Jan - 17th Jan 2019 at the Ground floor of Isetan The Japan Store, Lot 10.

In this event, Nihon Kawa-ichi is poised to introduce the "Japan Leather Pride" to the Malaysians, featuring around 300 leather products from 7 Japanese bag and leather goods manufacturers. These brands are azzuni (有限会社清川商店), Flathority (株式会社猪瀬), WOGNA (エールック株式会社), numeri (株式会社 DIECI-LABO), Nakazawa Bag (有限会社中澤), RED LINE/Marélice (レリップ株式会社) and Kiichi (株式会社喜市).

All exhibited goods are made of leather tanned in Japan and come in a broad variety of designs and colours, including leather bags that can be used as backpacks, shoulder bags, Dulles bags, etc. Wallets, coin purses, and card cases will be available, too.

Here are a few brands and their available items exhibited in the event:

Kiichi

"Kiichi (Kiichi Co,.ltd) is a leather brand from Kobe. With an emphasis on sewing products in Japan from Japanese materials, it uses soft leather with excellent colours, produced to order in Hyogo Prefecture, to produce simple, easy-to-use leather accessories."

Leather Material: Cow from Hyogo, Japan.

Kiichi is probably the only brand in Japan Leather Pride exhibition that has a wide variety of leather goods. As you can tell from the picture below, they have lanyards, wallets, key-chains and pouches in various vivid colours. The colours on these products are very stylish and acceptable for youngsters and baby boomers.

There is a set of leather sample for you to take a closer look into the leather type and colour.

If you're curious about the pricing, here are some of the price tags from Kiichi items.

They have different sorts of wallets too. For example, folded wallets (with and without buttons) and zipped long wallets.

Kiichi has another display table directly under the pillar right in the centre of the event too. They have more wallets here.

Watermelon!
Dogge! Car!

No, that's not the brand name but look at the cute designs!

One of the crew demonstrated to us by twisting and pulling the leather sample vigorously just to prove to us that it is very durable.

Do you want a slice of mini watermelon?

How about the doggo instead? It's actually quite spacious inside with functional sections and compartments. Even the "thighs" are spacious inside too!

Nakazawa Bag

"Characterized by simple, stylish designs generated by high levels of skills and originality of craftspeople supporting a 90-year tradition of crafting high-quality mean's leather bags, it continues creating bags that value the elegance of the leather."

Leather Material: Cow from Hyogo, Japan.

If you like to see your pouches made on that day itself, you should give this a try!

Not only that, you can even DIY your own pouches with the guidance of the craftsman who will be available on the spot too!

The pricing is rather reasonable as well. you can choose a larger pouch or a smaller pouch depending on how you are going to use it, e.g.: coin pouch, card pouch, candy pouch, etc. You also get to pick doggo style or catto style.

On the other hand. working women opt for these bags and pouches created with a design that is chic and timeless.

Numeri

"Numeri (DIECI-LABO Co, Ltd) is the Italian word for "number." This name expresses the desire that its products will become something similar to a lucky number or favourite number for their owners. Made with care, one at a time, in a studio in Tokyo, its products reflect its passion for domestic natural leather and handmade craftsmanship."

Leather Material: Cow from Hyogo, Japan.

Numeri is available between Kiichi and Nakazawa display tables. They mostly offer handbags here in this exhibition with a set of pouches.

Flathority

"Flathority (Inose Co., Ltd) began with the vision of creating products that nobody else could match. It delivers highly finished leather bags created by outstanding, highly skilled craftspeople. It insists on handling all processes, from procurement of raw materials through planning, production, and repair, in-house."

Leather Material: Cow and Horse from Hyogo, Japan.

Here are some available designs from Flathority. They have sling bags and backpacks.

Flathority has a pair of leather samples available for you to check it out too.

While the above products are rather casual-looking, they also had some designs for working people. These bags and accessories are a set of horse rear leather bag, like, specifically only the horse rear section. The finishing product is smooth and glossy.

This is a fold-able coin pouch.

This is the folded wallet.

They also have a long wallet for this range.

For working men, you can also opt for these briefcases made with leather and wooden handle. By holding this bag, you'll feel how luxurious it is. Not to mention that you will feel how amazing the craftsmanship of this range.

There is even a padlock on the briefcase to secure your items and documents in the bag.

Those are just some of the available products! Go to the exhibition to check out even more products :D I personally enjoyed my time there so I'm sure you would too :)

Complimentary Gift

A complimentary piece of chamois leather cloth, which can be used to clean glasses or LCD screens, will be presented to every participants who had completed a survey during the exhibition. All you need to do is to scan the barcode available almost everywhere in the exhibition, complete the survey and show any of their staff with the completion page to obtain the leather cloth.

If you're lucky, you can even grab a bag of candy back home! (A bag not a piece 😋)

In addition to the occasions to learn to discover different materials by touching and feeling natural leathers, any guests of the exhibition will also get to observe how leather is processed and completed through a VR animation, which offers a true-to-life experience as if you are watching it right in the factory. If you don't know where the VR goggles are, just ask the staff and they'll help you find it.

Got free time? Go and check it out! The staffs are super friendly and they won't bite.

JAPAN LEATHER PRIDE

Dates: 4 January 2019 (Friday) - 17 January 2019 (Thursday)

Venue: Ground Floor, ISETAN The Japan Store (LOT 10)

Business hours: 11am - 9pm

Official website of Nihon Kawa-ichi: https://www.kawa-ichi.jp/index.html

Special Thanks

I was invited to check it out along with other bloggers! A great big thank you to the host/PR team for giving me the opportunity to explore Japanese leather goods. Without the invitation, I wouldn't know so much about leather goods and products (since they're always out of my purchase power, so I tend to look past it 😅).

If you're curious with the freebie, here's a few pictures for you to look at :D

I've also purchased a keychain during the exhibition from the brand called Kiichi at a price tag of RM30, which is actually quite reasonable for a leather made accesory.

Met the girls during the event too!
(Candace, Cheryl and Tiffany)

Not only that, but I'd also like to thank Nayuta Chocolatasia for catering us with yummy refreshments (the apple pie was seriously amazing) and also gifting us a goodie bag filled with chocolate goods! Nayuta Chocolatasia is right next to the Japan Leather Pride exhibition so go and check it out when you're free! You can always request for testers too and their pricing is relatively reasonable.

Nayuta Chocolatasia

Lot 10 Shopping Center 50 Jalan Sultan Ismail,

50250 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Phone: +60-3-2141-7777 | 11:00am – 9:00pm

Email: info@nayuta.com.my | http://www.nayuta.com.my/

"A brand new, high-quality chocolate label produced by Asian people to suit Asian taste palette.

Since many centuries ago, chocolate culture has been long developed in Europe, and most of the global chocolate brands are basically adjusted to the preference of Europeans. Bitter, rich, and complex with high cacao percentage is now the mainstream of world’s chocolate brands, and is much appreciated for its healthy image in the world. Despite this, Asian people, including Japanese, prefer milky, caramel-infused and soft textured chocolate. That is why this great collaboration between Malaysia and Japan took place to develop chocolate specifically for the Asian palette."