MoNo hana.

Tsumami-zaiku, found at a coming-of-age ceremony

Minami Nakada first came across tsumami-zaiku at her coming-of-age ceremony at 20. She was to wear a furisode sewn by her grandmother, a kimono tailor, and when she looked for a hair ornament to go with it, tsumami-zaiku pieces cost 20,000 to 30,000 yen. So she decided to make her own.

Folding and layering single pieces of fabric into small flowers, she was drawn in by the delicacy of the work, and her respect for the craftspeople behind it grew. Hoping younger people would wear it too, she experimented with dyes and with Western flowers such as roses. Today she folds her flowers from pure silk habutae.

A grandparents' home in Toyama, and tin

Her connection with tin, the other material, goes back to her grandparents' home in Toyama. Tin had been part of her life since childhood, and her love of sake brought her back to it. Today, MoNo hana. buys its tin from Takaoka in Toyama, a town long known for its metal casting, and Nakada shapes it in her home studio in Machida.

The brand's logo is a hexagon. Nakada grew up in a family that made its own fishing tackle, and the shape comes from the strength of bamboo fishing rods. The hexagon became the shape of the Rikka obidome too.

Tin and silk in a single piece

She launched MoNo hana. in January 2026. The name takes her initials, M and N, as capitals, and expresses her aim to create "hana" (flowers, and by extension beauty) through simple, monochrome-based design.

That same year, she won an Excellence Award (the Governor of Tokyo Award) in the goods category of the Sustainable Fashion Design Award 2026, hosted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The winning piece, Rinne Shōka, sets flowers given at life's milestones on a tin base, made with pure-silk tsumami-zaiku and mizuhiki paper cord. In April, her solo exhibition of the same name at the Toyama Glass Art Museum drew 1,522 visitors over two days. In August, she received the Machida Cultural Association President's Award at the Machida City Exhibition 2026.

"I want to pursue the beauty that comes from contradiction."

From Machida to Paris

The next steps are set: an exhibition in March 2027 and a presentation at Paris Fashion Week in 2028. Next year, she also plans to release tsumami-zaiku made from remade kimono.

The brand's goal is "a brand that can stand on the world stage with tsumami-zaiku and tin." From a studio in Machida, she is carrying Japanese materials and handwork into what people wear around the world.