Kirigeta/Mr. Tsutae Iwadate

*Chiba Prefecture's traditional craftsman

"You can't fool paulownia"
There was a time when you couldn't think of footwear without thinking of geta (Japanese traditional wooden clogs). It was then that there were no less than 8 geta making workshops in Narita alone. It seems that even wearing Western clothes with geta was not considered inappropriate. Now most of the hand-made geta are limited to high-end luxury goods. Of these, Iwadate Tsutae of Teradai is the only one who can make the Doshima variety of geta which are given as offerings at Naritasan Shinshoji Temple or Sogo Reido Hall. Worked on from bottom to top, the carefully finished geta show much beauty in the grain, and the paulownia itself is soft, making for footwear that absorbs the shocks that can run up to the head. "Even if I don't sharpen my plane, I can get away with it on a hard wood. But with paulownia it's so obvious when the luster is scraped away. You can't loaf and expect a good sheen." It's a terrible pity that you just can't use this beautiful footwear as decorations.