Bespoke Experience
A day built around one master, in layers, within a single city.
What would you like to do with your hands, your eyes, or your suitcase?
Every day begins with one passion. Choose one, and the days below narrow to match.
One tradition, and the crafts that give it its shape, in a single day.
A making session with a master usually lasts about two hours, and a tea gathering a little under half a day. So a Bespoke Experience brings several together around one tradition: the tradition itself at the centre, and the crafts around it that make it what it is. Take tea. The scroll in the alcove, the braided cord on the box, and the gathering where they meet.
Sumi-e ink with Tsuchiya
About two hours with brush and ink: the kind of single-breath line that hangs in the alcove of a tea room. You learn to read it before you see it there.
Lunch nearby, chosen around the day
A quiet table between workshops, picked for the season and for how you like to eat.
Braiding silk by hand with Dōmyō
Another two hours or so at the braiding stand, on the kind of cord that ties the box a tea caddy sleeps in.
A tea gathering with the head of the Sowa school
Where it all meets: the scroll in the alcove, the cord on the box, the bowl in your hands. By now you know what you are looking at.
The day can continue over dinner
Only if you want it. Many guests prefer to stop while the tea is still with them.
This is a sample to show how a day can be layered. It has not been agreed with the masters shown, and on the day itself the order, timing and content may change with each master’s schedule and circumstances. Every real day is shaped individually after a private conversation.
New Arrival
Make It Yourself — Kimekomi Dolls
Kimekomi: Making Your Own Edo Doll With the Third-Generation Mataro
New Arrival
Make It Yourself — Edo Chōchin
Chōchin: Writing Your Own Paper Lantern in a Tokyo Workshop Founded in 1913
Make It Yourself — Silversmithing
Silver Chasing with a 13th-Generation Workshop
Witness It Live — Chaji
A Chaji Tea Gathering with the 18th Head of the Sowa School
Witness It Live — Noh
Wearing a Noh Mask on a 700-Year-Old Stage
Make It Yourself — Sumi-e
Sumi-e Ink Painting in a Tokyo Keikoba
Witness It Live — Zazen
One Hour of Zazen in a Centuries-Old Asakusa Temple
Bring One Home — Sword Polishing
Holding an 800-Year-Old Blade in a Sword Polisher's Workshop
Witness It Live — Kyōgen
Kyōgen Comic Theatre With a 700-Year Lineage
Make It Yourself — Ikebana
Ikebana: Arranging the Space Between the Flowers
Wear the Craft — Kumihimo
Kumihimo: Braiding Silk by Hand in a 300-Year-Old House
Meet the People Behind These Experiences
These are the makers and tradition-bearers we have built a relationship with directly — not through an agency, and not as a one-off shoot. Each has agreed to open a door that stays closed to most visitors, and each experience above is scoped together with them, not around them.
Carrying On a Generation, Dyeing the Iki of Edo — Takatoshi Nakamura, Third Generation of Fujiya Dyeing Studio
Read the Interview →
Ohkura Motonari
Nōgaku performer, kyōgen role — Ohkura-ryū; founder of Seisho-kai
Read the Interview →
Newly published interviews appear here automatically.