[/floatl]Yomiuri: Sedge hats may help city revive fortunes
The sedge hat is not usually considered a product likely to revitalize a local community, but a city is placing its hopes on a local manufacturer that is trying to reintroduce the headgear to the birthplace of the famed Hanagasa Matsuri festival. Sedge hats produced in the Okitama region of Yamagata Prefecture and in Toyama Prefecture have been used on special occasions. However, the number of Okitama producers has drastically decreased. This has particularly affected Obanazawa, Yamagata Prefecture, where the commercial manufacture of sedge hats has ceased. This has prompted Hiromitsu Inomata, president of Obanazawa-based Inomata Shoji Co., to step in...Inomata said he wanted to make sedge hats with a personal touch, from culturing the materials to the final stages...There are expectations that the commercial manufacturing of the sedge hats will not only help revitalize the local economy, but also preserve the local tradition. In the past, sedge hats were made by farming households. However, as local residents eventually were able to buy sedge hats from shops, the method of making the straw hats stopped being passed down to younger generations. The number of producers also declined sharply due to an aging local population and the manufacture of sedge hats died out in the city, the official said...According to a municipal official from Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture -- which produces about 90 percent of the nation's sedge hats -- in 1670, the Kaga domain produced sedge hats as a product of the domain. Such hats were used mainly by the farming community to protect themselves from sun and rain. The sedge hats were replaced by umbrellas and rain apparel following the period of a rapid economic growth...more...
