The Fourth Generation representative of a family bedding business whose roots began with Takahashi Cotton Shop in 1873. He formally became representative in 2017.
On taking over
The workshop has reached me as the Fourth Generation. Before taking charge, I learned its work across production, shipping, and customer service. A family workshop is not made by printing the surname on a business card; it means making every shikibuton worthy of that name.
Direct conversation with customers
Direct conversation with customers changed how the workshop listens and responds. Feedback reaches the people who make the bedding, and the workshop can explain its materials, construction, and care directly to the person choosing a futon.
What the word “workshop” means
A workshop is not a factory. A factory pursues standardization and mass output; a workshop pursues “this one was made by a particular person.” In our workshop the sewing stations have names — Inose’s station, Shida’s station, Shimizu’s station. When a shikibuton leaves, the person who made it remembers which one it is. That memory is the most direct difference between “workshop” and “factory.”
Facing overseas
In 2023, the family business marked 150 years since Takahashi Cotton Shop opened. Today, HIMARI and SORA are offered in selected supported markets, with destination eligibility confirmed by the official store. Households in Asia and abroad differ from those in Japan — different floor plans, climate, rhythms of life. But the wish “to sleep well” is shared. The workshop hopes to apply the family's accumulated bedding experience to products suited to homes in selected international markets.
The next decade
I am now in my forties; by the workshop’s rhythm of succession I have roughly another twenty years as representative. In those twenty years I hope the workshop can achieve three things: that staff take pride in the workshop, that customers make “using the workshop’s shikibuton” part of daily life, and that the next representative need never worry about the survival of the family business. Nothing else is the core.