About KUDEN — From Nikko to the World
Stand as yourself.
Samurai Mode is not clothing to be shown off.
It is what you choose for yourself, in the moments that matter.
The Question
Is fashion still cool
when someone else pays the price?
Transparency & Ethics
We disclose how and where our clothes are made, so that the conditions the people sewing them work in can be checked. And we make each garment only once it is ordered — the old Japanese kimono shop, rebuilt online — to reduce overproduction and waste.
- Tell the truth.
- Exploit no one.
- Make with care.
Next Kimono
My mother's kimono stayed,
and the memory with it.
But kimono has drifted out of daily life. It takes knowledge to put on, and time no one has.
So I took my mother's kimono as the starting point and made clothing you can simply wear. The structure of kimono, and its sense of beauty, cut for the climate and the days we actually live in.
No dressing rules.
Just the soul of kimono.
WHY WE EXIST
Carrying Japanese culture forward,
with the people who love it.
KUDEN takes the Japanese sense of beauty and the work of Japanese hands, and sends it into the world as clothing people can actually wear.
You wear it, you learn what is in it, you enjoy it. And that one garment keeps an artisan working, which is what keeps the culture alive.
Not consuming a culture. Carrying it forward together. That is what we make here.
Carrying Japanese culture forward.
Building a place where anyone can work with pride.
These look like two separate things. At KUDEN they are one.
It began with something personal and urgent — a wish I had as a father.
It began with one wish.
— To work alongside my son.
That story lives on the designer's own page.
Two Entrances
Two new doors into Japanese culture.
KUDEN begins with the clothes.
rinlife Magazine begins with knowing the culture.
They are not two businesses.
They are one project: to let people around the world know Japanese culture and enjoy it, so that it survives — and to use the proceeds to support Japanese culture and initiatives for people with disabilities.
Nishijin-ori — Kawabata Co., Ltd. / Nure-gaki Yuzen — AO. From rinlife Magazine interviews.
KUDEN / 口伝 — passed from person to person
Passed on by word,
and by hand.
The name KUDEN comes from kuden: knowledge passed through the spoken word, not written down. Craft and intent move from one pair of hands to the next.
This garment is somewhere along that line.
Takahiro Sato — Founder & Designer / Nikko, Japan