Hiyoshiya

Hiyoshiya has made kyo-wagasa, Kyoto's traditional oiled-paper-and-bamboo umbrella, since the late Edo period — over 160 years — and describes itself as the only Kyoto workshop still carrying the technique through five unbroken generations. The umbrellas are built the old way: split bamboo ribs, a wooden hub, and washi paper stretched and oiled by hand, a construction largely unchanged since the craft was passed down.

What distinguishes Hiyoshiya from a purely preservationist workshop is what it has done since Kotaro Nishibori took over as president in 2003 under the stated philosophy that tradition survives by continuing to innovate. Rather than keep the wagasa structure confined to umbrellas, Hiyoshiya adapted its ribbed bamboo-and-washi form into a line of interior lighting, using the same folding skeleton and paper diffusion that make a wagasa canopy glow when backlit. That reinvention grew the business well beyond a single craft shop, into consulting, education and a network connecting artisans internationally, while the original Kyoto workshop still turns out hand-built wagasa and teaches visitors the dohari paper-pasting step in short courses.

For a craft with a shrinking number of working hands, Hiyoshiya is a rare case of a centuries-old technique staying commercially alive by finding a second object to live in.