Japanese Leather Card Holder – Indigo Hand-Dyed Business Card Case

Dyed by Hozuai in Kameoka, Kyoto - the workshop that brought Kyoto's own indigo back after it had been gone for a century.
A business card case in 100% cowhide, dyed with Ryukyu indigo in arashi-shibori - the storm resist, where the hide is wrapped and bound so the dye runs in diagonal lines across it. The leather is cut after dyeing, so every case falls on a different part of the pattern: the one that arrives is the only one of its kind. Holds about 25 cards.
- Material: 100% cowhide
- Indigo / method: Ryukyu indigo / arashi-shibori, storm resist
- Size: 11 cm x 6.5 cm
- Capacity: approx. 25 cards
- Care: the dyed leather is top-coated, but hard rubbing against clothing or a bag lining can transfer colour
The workshop - Kyoto once had its own water-blue indigo, praised as kyo-asagi. In 1923 it vanished: imported and chemical indigo pushed it out, and what was left of it became known as maboroshi no kyo-ai, the phantom Kyoto indigo.
Hozuai went looking for it in Tokushima, the old country of Awa indigo, and met a nineteenth-generation indigo master there. His seed, it turned out, had been carried from Kyoto generations earlier. The seed came home - to Hozu, in Kameoka, on the river of the same name.
The house works two indigos: the revived Kyoto indigo, and Ryukyu indigo from Okinawa, made by an indigo master of that island. Every piece is dyed by hand, one at a time.
Shipped directly from Kyoto, Japan. Packed with care for international delivery.