It goes without saying that domestic fabric mills and makers have faced serious difficulties. Bankruptcy and cessation of business have increased, which enables Japanese to develop and produce fabrics under the notion of a production area.Then, what are positive aspects for fabrics made in Japan? There are always both merits and demerits in anything. In addition, while one thing is considered merits, it sometimes tend to turn out demerits, and vice versa. Therefore, merits and demerits are both ends meet.
Production base was transferred to China a while ago, and it’s been done to other Asian nations and India currently. Merit of such huge overseas factories as China, Asian nations and India is enormous volume production based on vertical integration. That is they can produce final commodities at one mill from spinning through weaving and finishing. On the contrary, Japanese production system relies on horizontal cooperation between small mills which are in charge of individual production processes. Once a direction is wrong, for instance, production system in Japan as a whole cannot last any more. This is regarded one of the demerits for Japanese system indeed. However, each production process is so specialized that it’s possible for Japanese to produce rather high quality fabrics due to very talented craftsmen in each process.
Since huge factories have been transferred to foreign countries so far, domestic production equipment has not been expanded, and then there are few mills in Japan which can produce huge amount. Compared with other nations, labor costs in Japan are higher than in others. As a result, fabrics made in Japan tend to be more expensive than others. However, while prices of “mass brand”, so to speak, become lower and lower year by year, high-price brands have forced us to produce smaller amount than before. In addition, tendency of small production at high-price brands becomes usual because of environmental interests.
Producing high quality fabrics as an industry but not as craft is another advantage in Japanese production. We wonder how much demands for such high quality fabrics are, because they are not only expensive but also hard to handle.Such small mills in Japan goes with demands from high-price brands. And delivery time is shorter than overseas due to small amount of production. This can be one of the merits for Japanese production.
There is also one of the features in Japanese fabrics based on craftsman’s ingenuity by using orthodox equipment. When we had a chance to visit socks mill for sport, we saw “3-dimention knitting” which enabled to change depth of knit fabrics according to foot parts. This technology unique to the craftsman there. If he is not there, it might be impossible to make them again. This kind of technology is considered one of the features in Japanese fabric production. Moreover, it’s Japanese fabric mills that can produce sturdy and durable materials like industrial ones through fine wool materials like 300 worsted yarns.
When it comes to sustainability as well as traceability, Japanese makers have got used to these tendencies. That is one of the merits that Japanese makers have. For instance, if we interview Japanese makers, they are to answer about their product’s composition and where they get raw materials as follows: xx cotton yarns and xx polyester are woven. Such traceability goes very well with current public opinion.
Not only fabrics but also Japanese products, as a whole, have had good reputation: Made-in-Japan is wonderful. There are almost none who regard as low quality products made-in-Japan,
which is considered advantage over products made in overseas. This is somewhat same as good image by the Japanese about made-in-Italy as well as made-in-France. The Japanese understand that all items made in Italy and France are not necessarily good in quality, but anyone tends to have good impression at the outset. We wonder if images toward Japanese products are same as toward Italian and French ones.
Well, there isn’t always good thing in Japanese products unconditionally. There are a lot of shortage in Japanese companies and mills.
First of all, Japanese firms are apt to appeal just high quality. But if regardless of good quality, cloth design, colors and shape are not good enough, clothes as well as fabrics cannot be sold in the market. Most of final consumers don’t care about fabric weight, degree of twisting nor speed of weaving. Design, colors and shape as clothes and fabrics are at pivot. That’s the case in other products. For example, if electric products were hard to use and their design was not good no matter how high their quality may be, they couldn’t be sold. If so, clothes and fabrics don’t last for good apart from electric products and automobile. Fabrics woven by very fine yarns are expensive, but don’t last long. Therefore, the public feel difficult to understand the real value of such high quality clothes and fabrics. Japanese craftsman could not look to care about design, colors nor shape which most consumers tend to speak highly of. As a result, their sales don’t increase and they’ve had been struggling in developing new markets.
Good reputation about Japan has let the Japanese not to pay much attention to self improvement, misunderstanding that they can easily sell their products whatever they make. Not only textile-related companies but also most Japanese firms besides just chunk of automobile industry have made mistakes again and again in developing overseas markets.
We should take into account the difference of culture and life style among countries, when it comes to developing overseas markets. What people in a nation demand for is different from nation to nation. If the Japanese ignore the differences, they are not successful in selling no matter how good Japanese products may be.
The big apparel companies such as World Co., Ltd., Onward Kashiyama Co., Itokin Co., Ltd and etc. all of which were prosperous in Japan tried to advance Asian markets, in the main , China after late 1990s through mid 2000s. But they were all unsuccessful and then gave up once. Although Asian countries then were not developed enough, the Japanese firms didn’t implement adequate marketing research. Any commodity without marketing research cannot be sold overseas in spite of its high quality.
Promotion and display are significant as well, in addition to marketing research overseas. No matter how good qualities may be, nothing can be sold if promotion effort is poor and display doesn’t attract people overseas. The Japanese words, “My heart is brocade even if I wear rags” or “You can understand the real thing if you just use it”, don’t work overseas, because the words are just nothing but illusion.
Anyway, we are aware that it’s not easy for Japanese to make foreign people behold good image about made-in-Japan products. Brand images take quite long time to be attained, which is sometimes real nuisance. Good reputation that Japanese industries have can turn out to be a big advantage. Since we, Japanese, already hold the advantage, we need to make more effort on other aspects than good reputation.