Toyooka Kaban Artisan Avenue

Toyooka's Central Bag Store

Toyooka City is Japan’s epicenter of handbag production, even being home to a street by the name of Caban Street (literally meaning “bag street” in Japanese). Toyooka Kaban Artisan Avenue is Caban Street’s largest store, with two floors of handbags, wallets, and purses on display from over twenty different brands participating in the Toyooka Kaban label.

The shop staff is well-versed in each brands’ special features and are happy to help visitors pick out a locally-crafted bag to take home as a souvenir.

Commitment to Quality

Among the many brands on display and for sale in Toyooka Kaban Artisan Avenue, most produce their products while abiding by the stringent standards of the Hyogo Prefecture Bag Industry Association’s “Toyooka Kaban” Regional Brand Committee.

Each product awarded with a Toyooka Kaban tag is individually inspected by experts to make sure they are in compliance with the high standards of the Toyooka Kaban label.

Honoring Toyooka's History

Toyooka’s roots as a bag-making town go back a millennium approximately 1,200 years ago.

Due to the flooding of Toyooka’s Maruyama River, yearly rice harvests were unpredictable. As an economic alternative, townspeople began to weave baskets and traveling containers using materials from Toyooka’s willow trees.

As these containers grew in popularity across the country during the Edo Period, bags created using weaving techniques known as yanagi gori (willow craft) and eventually western-style bags produced in Toyooka gave the city a reputation famous for bag-making.

Yanagi gori bags, crafted by a local expert in Izushi, are available for purchase.

Collaborations

Toyooka Kaban Artisan Avenue sells bags from a variety of Toyooka Kaban collaborations with other companies and organizations.

Past collaborations include:

• bags with eyeglass containers in collaboration with Fukui Prefecture’s Sabae City, Japan’s center for eyeglass production.
• bags created from denim crafted in Okayama Prefecture’s Ibara City, Japan’s center for denim production.
• bags created from used fishing nets in collaboration with Alliance for the Blue.