Our fourth interview is with Weeks Inc. Their theme is: “enrich your life through every day commodities,” selling basic and practical everyday goods such as kitchen tools, apparel and interior items.
 
We had the pleasure of speaking to Ms. Yamaguchi from the merchandise department who initially reached out to NISHIGUCHI KUTSUSHITA (NK), with interest in our products, and Mr. Yamasaki, who is the head of product development for their original sock brand, Calen h.

In 1991 we opened our company “B・B・B POTTERS” in Fukuoka city. Our concept was that of “a shop selling items that makes every day enjoyable”. Since then, we have been professionally selecting fun and practical commodities for everyday life to introduce to our customers. We handle a wide variety of items such as tableware, kitchen appliances, stationary, apparel, furniture, and interior goods, and each of our shops cater to different styles. For example, our shop “tokineri” has a collection of traditional Japanese furniture and commodities that have continued to be used for their good quality and practicality. “LT LOTTO AND TRES” carries an array of bold, timeless Northern European goods such as tableware and furniture that boast timeless designs. “Day & days” is a welcoming store filled with commodities that can help create a fun, warm and loving home for families. It has always been a priority for us to cater to the area and clientele of each of our stores.

In February of 2018 we opened a guest house by the ocean called “bbb haus.” The entire house is designed and furnished with items that are sold in our shops so it’s a place where you can actually try them out. We designed this guest house so that our customers may discover new joy through the lifestyle that is displayed through our apparel, meals and of course the house with all the furnishings.

Our concept is “clothing you want to wear every day,” clothing with a good cut, fit and feel, comfortable and easy to wear on a daily basis. We design simple basic and comfortable daily wear to suit a wide range of people in their 20s to their 60s, really acceptable for any generation. Each time we design a product, our staff members are the first to try it on and test it out. We continue to make adjustments until the fit is perfect.

In last March’s exhibition, one of our long-time clients introduced us to your brand (NK) who was also a participant. That was when we saw NK’s products. We felt that they were well balanced with their simple design and reasonable price, it was also very clear that quality was something that NK really cared about.

2 of our shops, “B・B・B POTTERS” and “LT LOTTO AND TRES.” Actually, we carefully select different NK items for each shop. We like to really distinguish how we project the concept and style of each shop by having different items or sometimes different colors of the same items. The clientele and price expectations are different depending on the shop’s geographic location and we try our best to cater to those differences.

We always had interest in creating our own sock brand and had been searching for a sock company that matches our quality standards and technical demands but had been unsuccessful. With knitwin, we discovered that their concept and way of thinking for creating products overlapped with ours and after starting business with them, we were really able to try their products and see the quality and feel how comfortable they are.
 
The company’s decades of experience and high-quality craftsmanship became evident once we started manufacturing through knitwin and saw that they knew a lot about natural materials by the way they recommended thread that matched our standards and showed us various finishes that were achieved through the thread’s unique qualities.

I think that was achievable mainly because of our solid relationship with you (NK) and we also focused on listening to our customer’s needs. With those aspects in mind, we were able to build a vison of exactly what we wanted to create. We believe that the satisfactory production of our original goods was made possible by witnessing NK’s level of completion and quality of craftsmanship.

We feel the same and would like to continue to work with you in creating socks that match our brand concept and clothing line-up. We were successful in creating our standard sock line so next we would like to expand to create other seasonal items for our brand Calen h. We are excited to continue working with you to create and introduce items that will contribute to the well-being of people in everyday life.