Shitsurindo

Shitsurindo has made Echizen lacquerware in Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture since 1793, trading under its former name Owanya Uchida before adopting its current one; the company store still operates from its long-held address at Nishibukuro-cho in Sabae. Echizen-nuri is the tradition that supplies the large majority of Japan's commercial and restaurant lacquerware — a different scale and market than the collector-facing Wajima or Aizu traditions — and Shitsurindo is one of the district's oldest surviving houses still trading directly to the public rather than only wholesale.

The company runs three distinct product lines from the same workshop: Shitsurindo proper, which keeps traditional forms focused on everyday practicality; aisomo cosomo, a playful, contemporary-colored line aimed at younger buyers; and RIN&CO., a dishwasher-safe lacquerware and lifestyle-goods line built for daily use without the fragility associated with classic urushi finishes. Alongside new production, the shop offers kintsugi repair, mending broken lacquerware with gold-dusted lacquer rather than discarding it.

Echizen-nuri's retail-facing side is genuinely underrepresented relative to its commercial-lacquerware dominance, and Shitsurindo — 230-plus years in continuous operation, with an English-language site describing its own history and three named product lines in specific, checkable detail — is a well-documented example of that side of the tradition.