also craft #01 "F-style"

F-style: A Unit by Megumi Igarashi and Wakana Hoshino

"also craft" introduces various encounters centered on craftsmanship, curated by Shinichiro Nakamura of Landscape Products.
For this inaugural feature, we present F-style, a duo active in Niigata, comprised of Megumi Igarashi and Wakana Hoshino.

An Encounter with F-style, A New Encounter with Niigata

While perhaps I could have met them anytime, my proper introduction to F-style, to Megumi Igarashi and Wakana Hoshino, happened relatively recently.
Both were born in Niigata. After graduating from Tohoku University of Art and Design in 2001, they established their design office, "F-style," in Niigata City. They provide comprehensive services, from design proposals focused on Japan's regional industries to market development.
I feel I've recently become capable of orchestrating encounters like this. Or rather, I believe it happened because they were precisely the people I wanted to meet at the most opportune moment.
Lately, I find myself thinking that encounters with objects can be more rewarding than encounters with people.

Even before meeting them, my shop, Playmountain, carried products they had directed. I myself had already become captivated by some of their products (before meeting them).

Socks, in particular. While their use of organic cotton is certainly a virtue, the true excellence lies in their construction: they don't slip down, nor do they constrict. It was my first experience feeling such satisfaction from a pair of socks.

Beyond this, they present items chosen by their intuition and enhanced with exquisite ingenuity at a pleasing pace—from rattan products and magewappa bentwood containers to candles.

They re-examine the regional industries of Niigata and Yamagata with a contemporary eye, editing them with a comfortable rhythm. This pleasant cadence is reflected in their products, conveying a "something more" beyond mere usability.

They serve as the foremost example for the challenges I am currently facing.