Oriental Carpet Co., Ltd. is located in Yamabe-machi, a neighboring town of Yamagata City about 15 minutes by car. It produces high-quality carpets under the brand name “Yamagata Dantsu” and is the only company in Japan that handles the entire carpet-making process from yarn production to product after maintenance.
The history of the company began with the founder's desire to provide a place for local women to work. In 1935, he invited seven technicians from Beijing to spend two years sharing their skills. Since then, the company has developed by incorporating Japanese aesthetics and designs. Yamagata Dantsu's carpets are high-end products that have been delivered to the Imperial Palace, Kyoto State Guest House, Imperial Hotel, Kabuki-za Theater, and other prestigious Japanese and international facilities. However, in recent years they have also focused on products for general households. We visited the company's headquarters and mills and spoke with Atsushi Watanabe, managing director of Yamagata Dantsu.
The first thing that surprised us when we visited was a group of cute old buildings with light pink roofs and brown wooden walls. They were built in the 1940s and 1950s, and the choice of color for the roofs and the bright design of the buildings with many windows also reflect the company’s founder’s wish to make the women's work as comfortable as possible. The site has cedar trees planted giving off a Scandinavian atmosphere, and the entire process is done here from yarn dyeing to weaving and finishing.
Yamagata Dantsu carpets are produced by two methods: “hand-weaving” and “hand-stitching.”
Hand-weaving is a traditional method learned from technicians from Beijing. It is a process that requires patience: cotton warp threads are stretched on a weaving table, wool yarns are tied and cut one by one according to a plan similar to full-size grid paper, and the carpets are then woven little by little. When we visited, the weaver was working on a carpet 80 cm wide, and she told us that only a few centimeters are woven each day. The density of the weave is very high, which explains why it is durable enough to be used for 100 years.
The other method, hand stitching, began around the middle of the Showa period in Japan, and involves yarns being driven into cotton cloth from the reverse side using a special tool called a hook gun. Although these carpets can be mass-produced faster than hand-woven, Yamagata Dantsu pursues high quality similar to that of hand-weaving. Its range of designs, beauty, and durability are unrivaled by other companies. They have seven hand-weavers and about 30 hand-stitchers. Many young people from outside Yamagata Prefecture have also moved to the area recently.
Yamagata Dantsu's way of doing business is that the weavers themselves are in charge of the finishing touches and taking care of the rugs until the very end. In the finishing touches, the surface is trimmed and smoothed with a special tool called a shearing until it is uniform. Careful work is also required, such as using tweezers to raise the threads that are buried and are not visible as well as carving the carpet so that the pattern will stand out. As a “homecoming” for the carpets, they also offer a full after-sales service that includes washing and maintenance every 4 to 5 years.
In addition to these high-quality manufacturing methods, Yamagata Dantsu carpets are characterized by their delicate and beautiful colors. They listen to the wishes of their clients in-detail and create the colors in-house. They purchase wool yarns from England and New Zealand, create yarns with their own weights at affiliated factories in Japan, and dye them at their mills in Yamanobe-machi. They have recipes for more than 20,000 colors that have been created so far, but the quality of the yarns varies slightly depending on the time of year they are received, which requires a high level of craftsmanship to adjust the colors accordingly.
By combining multiple colors in various proportions, the carpets have complex gradations and a bumpy texture that is typical of carpets. For example, in the “NEW CRAFTON” series of solid-color carpets, two similar colors are mixed to create depth, even though they appear to be one color at first glance.
“Carpets are often thought of as a winter product, but they can be used comfortably in summer,” Mr. Watanabe said. They do not only provide warmth, but they actually draw in cold air, so you can enjoy the cool feel of the carpet on your feet.
NEW CRAFTON
They do not offer workshop tours in English, but their showroom in Tokyo is available in English.
https://yamagatadantsu.co.jp/showroom/
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21, Yamanobe-machi, Higashimurayama-gun, 990-0301
023-664-5811
Yamagata Dantsu
Website: https://yamagatadantsu.co.jp/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yamagatadantsu/