The Visit
The Hankyu Department Store
Our Stand at Hankyu Dept Store
Hankyu Department Store is vast, specialising in an array of products including women's fashions (with the men's fashions in a separate building!) over many floors, and exquisitely arranged food halls, where the choice is staggering and everything looks delicious.
The tenth and eleventh floors are dedicated to changing exhibitions - and October sees the much loved British Fair which attracts Anglophile customers from all parts of Japan.
The Cotswold theme for 2010 was a very popular choice and as well as us there were various representatives from our area selling British puddings, Rape seed oil, wonderful bread, cream teas and scones. The mad dash and queues for the scones had to be seen to be believed!
Everybody at the store made all the British exhibitors feel so very welcome - their generousity made it a week to remember!
Mr Partner
Japanese Home Choice Magazine
We had been approached in the spring of 2010 by the Japanese publishing company Mr Partner in conjunction with Hankyu Department store and we worked with them on a range of new designs for our tile mats which we felt would appeal to the Japanese public.
Mr Partner's editor Keiko gave us a lot of feedback on our ideas and we worked closely with her and her staff to get the right look for the market. Mr Partner is a very popular lifestyle magazine in Japan with many devoted followers who were eagerly waiting for Keiko and Tiles of Stow (featured in the magazine) to visit the fair.
Keiko Igata, owner of Mr. Partner
Keiko also loved our Terracotta Plaques and the Impressions tiles and wanted to include these on our stand - so we had our work cut out designing and in production over the summer months. Time was tight but the order was ready to be shipped in August. Sea freight takes around 40 days - we were hoping that there would be no hold ups as the consignment needed to arrive by the end of September in time for the opening on 5th October. Thankfully everything arrived in time and sold like hot cakes (or scones!) to the fair's visitors.
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We've expanded out Tile Mat gift range to include five new designs. Click here to see more...
We exhibited in Osaka, Japan in the Autumn last year. See how we got on
Our new Economy Collection - great spiced up with any of our mosaics or borders
We've been making the Impressions range for 20 years - our slide show takes you through the making process.
I just had to write to say how pleased we are with the lovely olive tree tiles you designed for us I thought you might like to see a picture of them in place. Not the best angle as it doesn’t do it justice but it will give you some idea. 