[VILLAGE Report vol.10] Japan’s top production volume for makeup brushes | Hiroshima Prefecture

From Okinawa to the Chugoku region. This time, it is a story about a town that those of us who handle cosmetics cannot avoid.

Kumano Town, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture

Kumano brushes were, in 1975, the first craft in Hiroshima Prefecture to be designated a national traditional craft so designated.

Today, it boasts the highest production volume in Japan for calligraphy brushes, painting brushes, and makeup brushes alike It is known for that.

As someone who works with cosmetics, I want to write down what that one line means.

There is a fairly good chance that the foundation brush or cheek brush you are using now has something to do with this town. And not only domestic brands. Brushes for global luxury brands are also made here.

It began with winter migrant work

Its origins, as expected, were not aristocratic.

In the Edo period, Kumano was a place where it was hard to make a living from agriculture alone That was the kind of land it was. So the villagers went to Nara Prefecture and Wakayama Prefecture for seasonal work during the agricultural off-season.

On the way home, they would buy local brushes and ink, then sell them as they returned. That was the beginning.

Then in 1834, Sasaki Tameji learned brushmaking in Arima, Hyogo Prefecture, returned to Kumano, and taught it to the villagers. From there, it spread throughout the town.

From sellers to makers

Isn’t that order interesting?

The people of Kumano were “sellers” at first. They bought brushes from other places and sold them.

As they sold them, they came to understand what kinds of brushes people wanted. Eventually, they moved to the side of making them themselves.

And now, the town that once walked around selling has become a production area named directly by brands around the world.

Where are we now?

Value Village is currently on the “selling” side.

We find good things and deliver them. It is almost the same as what the people of Kumano were doing at the beginning.

But they did not stop at simply selling. They took the insight they gained through selling, the sense that “this is what people are looking for,” and brought it back into making things. That led to becoming number one in Japan 190 years later.

Do not make selling the endpoint of communicating. Kumano’s 190 years teach us that.

Next issue: Okayama, next to Fukuyama.

References: Hiroshima Prefectural Government, “Kumano Brushes” and “A Thorough Look! Hiroshima Lab”; Kumano Town, “Traditional Craft Product ‘Kumano Brushes’” and “The History of Brushmaking in Kumano”; Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries

—The Value Village Editorial Team

Photo: Shinta / CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)