Who
Craft

Shoichi Ishizawa ( ultratama.com) is easy to spot at any Tokyo craft event due to the large number of yarn creatures that graze around the periphery of his table, like barnyard animals in a tiny urban concrete pasture.

Ishizawa is the founding member of Ossu!Syugeibu (rough translation: Greetings!Craft Club), a crafting group for men he started in 2003. He describes the group as being Japan’s “most cute and charming club,” and says he started it to “combat the stereotype that craft equals women.” Although his wife and other female friends occasionally join in the fun, the club’s core members are “seven handsome guys” who meet twice a month to craft and drink sake.

Ishizawa works as a fashion designer and tea ceremony instructor, but none of the other members have had any crafty training, and come from such varied disciplines as photography and engineering.

“We have no crafting skills, so our club has no rules, and we have no technique. We don’t care if we can’t knit straight. We don’t care if we drop stitches.” The lack of rules serves the crafty crew well in that it gives them the freedom to do everything from designing funky new outfits for Blythe dolls

to sewing necklaces of leaves. Or they might just stitch together some silly masks to wear while drinking beer.

Even in Ishizawa’s professional work as a designer, he tries to follow the same unrestrained approach and tries to ignore traditional methods of clothing design. “I want to cut out fabric randomly and sew it up and see what happens. No theory. That is what I want to show to the other members of my group.”

He modestly cites his lack of technical skills as a defining factor in the direction of his work; his main inspiration comes from childhood memories and the uninhibited naiveté of children when they create. These influences, along with the unique mentality of the group, result in a stunning combination of childlike whimsy, simple construction, and sophisticated design. Ishizawa and his friends make beautiful objects, but perhaps more importantly, they make things that will make you smile. ×

Photography courtesy of Shoichi Ishizawa

Anna Dilemna is a doll maker and writer at annadilemna. typepad.com. Claire McNeil lives in Tokyo, ransacks junk stores, and blogs at gunnerjournal.wordpress.com.