Taniguchi

Established as Taniguchi Woodworks, the company originally made items including wooden heels for women’s shoes, parts for traditional Japanese umbrellas, and bowls for Go stones. Building on this experience, it introduced wBOIS in 2009, a bag brand combining wood and leather.

Taniguchi’s approach is grounded in its ability to oversee every stage, from selecting logs to sawing, drying, shaping, and finishing. Each process is adapted to the wood species and intended use, with careful attention to grain and moisture content.

Taniguchi’s sewable wood is made by slicing wood to a thickness of 0.12–0.15 mm before applying a specialized treatment. The resulting material is flexible enough to be machine-sewn while retaining the grain and texture of natural wood.

The idea grew out of thin wood used for lampshades. Available varieties include black-streaked persimmon, figured ash, figured Japanese horse chestnut, cherry, hinoki cypress, and Japanese cedar, offering different grain patterns and tones to suit each design.

The company’s website showcases applications in fashion, furniture, and everyday objects. The natural variation in each sheet becomes part of the design.

wBOIS

Bags that pair sewable wood with genuine leather, using stitching to give the flexible wood its shape.

MOKU

Handbags hollowed out of natural wood, combining distinctive grain, sculptural forms, and the luster of an urushi lacquer finish.

KEYAKI

A collection of wooden craft objects and furniture that brings the character of wood to bowls, storage pieces, and everyday essentials.

The ZAKKA range extends sewable wood to smaller accessories, including wallets and business card holders.

Black-streaked persimmon, Japanese horse chestnut, and zelkova each have their own grain patterns and working properties. An understanding of these differences, combined with skilled finishing, underpins everything from Taniguchi’s traditional wooden objects to products made with its innovative materials.