Sanyo Shokai

Sanyo Shokai is a Japanese textile company based out of Tokyo. The company is one of the oldest modern fashion companies in Japan and has extended its reach in recent decades to multiple countries, including the United States, and multiple nations in Europe and Asia. Though Sanyo Shokai has been known mostly as a company that supplies textiles and clothing, they have also managed to develop a decent following of customers interested in their low cost, affordable fashions.

History

Sanyo Shokai was established in 1943, during the height of the war. They were the first company to effectively treat wool gabardine for water repellency and quickly became well known in Japan as a producer of fine outerwear, including some of the top quality rain coats in the world. The same basic production methods is still used today for many of the basic products in the Sanyo Outwear collection.

The launch of Sanyo Shokai New York in 1978 saw their biggest international expansion as Sanyo Shokai stretched its reach into other markets and started producing a much wider array of products. Today, the Sanyo Shokai company includes the brands Sanyo Collection, Sanyo Outwear, and Sanyo Lux Wool Collection, including a wide array of both rainwear and outerwear.

Today, the Sanyo Shokai company has also integrated multiple other aspects of business into their model. While one aspect of the company provides clothing, another, known as “Other Related Businesses” leases properties and works in the financial district, largely procuring and developing new storefronts and business partnerships for the clothing sector. Sanyo Shokai’s sales in 2007 reached more than $1 billion, making it one of the largest clothing companies in Japan.

Design Style

Sanyo Shokai’s outerwear is best known for its unique usage of manufacturing techniques. Always using the newest technology to develop their clothing as the company has evolved, the current rain coats produced by Sanyo Shokai are developed in a combination of more than 200 operations. These jackets are produced with multiple different points of focus in mind, including a outer shell fabric, and hand sewn buttons.

At one time, the outerwear and rainwear ends of the company were completely separate, but in recent years their designs have crossed over many times. The newer materials being developed are chosen to be environmentally friendly and have thus made their way into all three major lines of Sanyo Shokai clothing.

External Links

• Sanyo Shokai Official Website (Japanese)
• Sanyo Shokai Online Collection (English)