Story of Shinto Towel
SHINTO TOWEL is a small factory in Osaka with more than 100 years of history and tradition.
Shito Towel wishes to preserve the traditional production of Senshu towels, and they want to create the best products possible. To do that, they utilise fully their historical knowledge and technical expertise, and be unafraid of new ideas in technology and design. They are always reviewing materials, function, and design in the pursuit of better products.
The superior absorbency, luxurious softness and the fresh feeling come from a traditional technic call “ Atozarashi” – a post-weave refining process. Towels are traditionally woven with starched fibres, as this increases durability, but the starch can repel water and thus affects absorbency. By washing and bleaching after weaving, the starch, oils, and other impurities in the fibre can be removed, allowing better absorbency while preserving its fluffy texture.s
The reasons why they keep using old shuttle looms, old machines…
In order to produce the Shinto Towels, old shuttle looms and rapier looms are necessary tools not because of they have been using these machines to produce their towels beacuse only these machines enable to enhance the technics and skills of their artisans fully. They truely believe that only their artisans are able to create what they have been creating which is thanks to their contributions and efforts to maintain these old shuttle looms with love, care and expertise.
The Philosophy of Shito Towel
Mass productions, automation are the mainstream in any industries nowadays which is good as it is cost effective and anyone can produce however once something goes wrong, it takes time to repair or even it might need to replace a whole machine from time to time.
The artisans at Shinto Towel often describes that modern machinery have no room to play with, they are so rigid on the other hand, these old machinery are not as efficient as the modern machinery but they are more flexible and have more room to play with where they can trial different technics or ways of producing their towels.
The signature brand “Inner-piles” and “2.5ply gauze” towels were created by trial and error of their artisans playing with the machinery they used.
They truely believe that that is the backbone of their philosophy and reason why they create their products with the way they do.
It is not efficient, it is not perfectly cost effective but this is the respect for their artisans and also their machinery.