Asakusa, Tokyo: Make Your Own Kanzashi Hairpin with an Artisan

Four people, maximum. That is not a marketing line — it is the size of the room. The studio is the artisan's own workspace in a residential corner of Sumida, not a venue built for visitors, and he is one of the few people still making kanzashi entirely by hand in Tokyo. What you make is brass, shaped with his tools and his mallet, and you choose what it means before you start. Kanzashi have always carried symbolism — a flower for a season, a motif for long life, a message from the man who gave it. You pick yours, and the piece you wear out is the only one like it.