A dry cleaner

Winter/2015

In the summer of 2014, a dry cleaning service in Komae, Tokyo, that I was very acquainted with quietly closed its doors for the last time. Nowadays, it would be placed in a rare category of cleaners. It was an old-school dry cleaner; not the kind that distributed the clothes to an agency to do all the work but a shop that dry-cleaned the clothes in-house. For 20 years, ever since I became a grown-up, I would gather my suits, my jackets and my knitwear when the seasons changed and ask this particular dry cleaner to kindly give my clothes a thorough clean. Even after I moved away from Komae, I would stuff what must have seemed a stupendous amount of clothes into my car and head to this cleaner when the seasons changed.

Now, of course, in our company we do not manufacture handicraft items but technological products. Yet every day I hope that, through these products, the will and ambition of our engineers and the heart and soul of the people of Aizu can be felt by those who use our products.

Cutting edge technology combined with the warmth of a handmade product — that’s a combination I aim to achieve.

I would call it “clothes maintenance” rather than mere cleaning. A workmanship I could trust completely, one that seemed to understand both the clothes and their wearer.

(text / Kazuto Yamaki CEO of SIGMA)

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