A hypothesis starting from 'Is that really a Saitama craft?' An industrial model redefining traditional crafts as 'Future Vintage'
KARMA et CARINA announced an 'April Dream' to redefine Saitama's traditional crafts as 'Future Vintage' slow fashion, creating a new industrial model connecting artisan skills with modern consumption.
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- 📰 Published: April 1, 2026 at 19:10
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Our company supports April Dream, a project that makes April 1st a day to broadcast dreams. This press release is the dream of KARMA et CARINA.
Traditional crafts in Saitama Prefecture possess highly skilled techniques but are disconnected from modern daily life.
KARMA et CARINA perceives this disconnect as a 'starting point for value creation.' By overlapping the artisan's skills with the designer's aesthetics, we aim to broadcast clothes that will maintain their value 10 or 20 years from now—'Future Vintage'—from Saitama to the world.
This project is an attempt to re-edit Saitama's traditional crafts at the material and technique level, and implement them in the market as 'slow fashion' suitable for modern life.
A hypothesis starting from 'Is that really a Saitama craft?'
When we talk to people about this initiative, we always get the same reaction.
'Is that really a Saitama traditional craft?'
Scattered across Saitama Prefecture are traditional crafts with long histories and advanced techniques. However, many of them remain known only to those 'in the know' and fail to function adequately as 'chosen products' in modern consumption. Every time we receive this question, our conviction deepens.
This very disconnect is the blank space that breeds new industrial value.
What became clear from dialogues with 20 workshops
Currently, we have held repeated dialogues with about 20 workshops and businesses in Saitama Prefecture.
What we repeatedly observed there is a common structure.
The skills are there. However, there is not enough design to connect them with modern consumption.
The problem facing traditional crafts is not a lack of artisan skills.
It is that the design for connecting with demand has not yet been sufficiently established.
In this project, we are tackling this design through the entry point of fashion consumption.
By dismantling the materials and techniques once and reconstructing them as 'clothes suitable for modern life,' we transform traditional crafts from 'cultural assets to be preserved' into 'value that continues to be updated in the market.'
The reason we purposely reveal that we are incomplete
This project is not the announcement of a finished product.
We are currently in the midst of implementing a model of industrial reconstruction while continuously holding dialogues and testing.
Not just the completed product, but this process of trial and error and verification itself is the core of the project. What kind of design is needed so that traditional crafts are not just 'bought once and done,' but become products that are continuously chosen? We are facing this question through the means of fashion.
Traditional crafts in Saitama Prefecture possess highly skilled techniques but are disconnected from modern daily life.
KARMA et CARINA perceives this disconnect as a 'starting point for value creation.' By overlapping the artisan's skills with the designer's aesthetics, we aim to broadcast clothes that will maintain their value 10 or 20 years from now—'Future Vintage'—from Saitama to the world.
This project is an attempt to re-edit Saitama's traditional crafts at the material and technique level, and implement them in the market as 'slow fashion' suitable for modern life.
A hypothesis starting from 'Is that really a Saitama craft?'
When we talk to people about this initiative, we always get the same reaction.
'Is that really a Saitama traditional craft?'
Scattered across Saitama Prefecture are traditional crafts with long histories and advanced techniques. However, many of them remain known only to those 'in the know' and fail to function adequately as 'chosen products' in modern consumption. Every time we receive this question, our conviction deepens.
This very disconnect is the blank space that breeds new industrial value.
What became clear from dialogues with 20 workshops
Currently, we have held repeated dialogues with about 20 workshops and businesses in Saitama Prefecture.
What we repeatedly observed there is a common structure.
The skills are there. However, there is not enough design to connect them with modern consumption.
The problem facing traditional crafts is not a lack of artisan skills.
It is that the design for connecting with demand has not yet been sufficiently established.
In this project, we are tackling this design through the entry point of fashion consumption.
By dismantling the materials and techniques once and reconstructing them as 'clothes suitable for modern life,' we transform traditional crafts from 'cultural assets to be preserved' into 'value that continues to be updated in the market.'
The reason we purposely reveal that we are incomplete
This project is not the announcement of a finished product.
We are currently in the midst of implementing a model of industrial reconstruction while continuously holding dialogues and testing.
Not just the completed product, but this process of trial and error and verification itself is the core of the project. What kind of design is needed so that traditional crafts are not just 'bought once and done,' but become products that are continuously chosen? We are facing this question through the means of fashion.