Company outlineHistory of Kawada Feather

Time of foundation　
-Starting as a Down & Feather merchant

Torakichi Kawada, the founder of Kawada Feather started “KAWADA Shop” for down & feather business near Sumida river of Kinshi-chou, Sumida-ku, Tokyo in 1891. Yasukichi Kawada succeeded its business from 1905. Junichiro Kawada was appointed as the person in charge in 1944.

Our business was interrupted due to World War II. After transferring to Takayama-city, Gifu, Junichiro Kawada could restart business in March 1946. We moved to Nagoya in 1949, and Kazunari Kawada was appointed as the responsible person in Nagoya in 1952.

 

Founding period
-Makes feather products popular in Japan

Kazunari Kawada established and registered Kawada Feather Co. Ltd. and became as CEO in 1963.
In the 60’s, Kawada Feather mainly produced feather decorations for hats, exported to USA, feather duster named “KEBATAKI” used to clean cars, and developed wing feather pen named as “HANETSUKIPEN”, sold in Tokyo Tower where was the best sightseeing spot for long time. Besides, Kawada Feather also provided fancy feather and its products used for acting or dancing scenes like the Takarazuka Theater.
Our orders also increased due to new products like the shawl for Japanese Kimono and the feather decoration, named “Marabou”.
We developed and started the production of “Hamaya”, which is known as one of good-luck articles in Japan, from 1972. Nowadays, We produce almost all of “Hamaya” in Japan.

 

Time of growth
-Advent of 1st Down boom

After 1970, Kazunari Kawada started purchasing down & feather in US under the request by trading company. In 1978, Kazunari started down & feather and down jacket business for business development. First of all, we started the raw material process and down jacket production. When down jacket boom came the next year, we started the mass production of down jackets and down comforters in Japan. Japan was called as the sewing factory in the world at that time.

After the first down jacket boom, Japanese began to know the high quality of down & feather. Especially from the winter of 1985, down comforters’ market began to grow up dramatically.

 

Time of Decision
-From Aichi prefecture to Mie prefecture

There were 3 down & feather factories in Nagoya city, which were in full operation with down & feather processing and down comforters’ production. We started to look for suitable water and climate to increase the difference of our production volume & new system, and process down & feather. The purpose was for next generation business and further market development.
Finally, we found the best place in Meiwa Cho, Mie Prefecture and started new factory construction in 1987.
Toshikatsu Kawada, the eldest son of Kazunari Kawada, who is skilled in machine design, devoted himself into the construction of Meiwa factory. Toshikatsu deeply understood the character and structure of down & feather, and then created machines based on his incomparable theory.
Also, Toshikatsu produced an extraordinarily unique processing Line using his developed machines. It can remove almost 100% dust and dander from down & feather.In 1990, at the memorable 100th anniversary of the company, we started to operate Meiwa factory with all of our expectations.

 

Time of maturity
-Discovery of a large amount of special water and climate for de-dusting

The processed down & feather in Meiwa factory was the most beautiful and safest quality ever. Meiwa would cover the production of the other two factories beside Nagoya main factory. However, there was a large quality gap in between Meiwa and Nagoya factory.
Four washing machines in Nagoya factory have the same volume with one production line in Meiwa factory. Because of the unexpected quality difference between Nagoya and Meiwa factory, we decided to stop the production in Nagoya factory immediately. We went through the first season by using the first line of Meiwa with two shifts. The setting for the second line in Meiwa was brought forward after that.
After we started to operate the first processing line, we established the second line, and then third line in 1997 to solve the waiting time for 3 months in the peak time. Even now, we advance the machine innovation and the factory automatization every year.
On the other hand, we still manufactured down comforters in the Nagoya factory. In 1991, we also built Automatic Down & Feather Filling Machines in Meiwa factory to start producing down comforters. After that, we realized that existing machine and equipment have the demerit and limitation to produce down comforters, so we started to develop the special machine with unique engineered. Now, we have new Full-Automatic down filling machines and facilities.
In 2007, Kazunari Kawada was appointed as the chairman of the board, and Toshikatsu Kawada was appointed as the representative director of Kawada Feather. We integrated all management function into Meiwa in 2011.