Eyewear district, Japan
Sabae
Japan's eyewear town in Fukui, which makes about 95 percent of Japanese-made glasses frames.
Sabae, a city of about 68,000 people in Fukui Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, makes most of Japan's glasses frames. The industry began in 1905, when the local landowner Masunaga Gozaemon brought frame makers from Osaka to teach farmers a craft for the snowbound winters. Sabae is now known worldwide for fine titanium and acetate frames.
A winter craft
Masunaga saw frame making as indoor work for farm families when snow stopped field work. He invited the Osaka craftsman Yoneda Yohachi to train young people, and small family workshops grew up across the area, each specialising in parts or steps. After the Second World War demand rose fast, and the former grounds of an army regiment in the city centre were turned over to eyewear factories.
Titanium and the Megane Museum
Titanium is light and does not rust but is hard to weld. Sabae's makers were among the first anywhere to produce titanium frames, in the early 1980s, and the skill gave the town an edge in high-end eyewear. The city's Megane Museum (megane means glasses) shows how frames are made and lets visitors try the work. Sabae makes frames for its own brands and for many fashion houses abroad.
Guides of Sabae
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Sunglasses: Rich Niewiroski Jr., CC BY 2.5, source
- Rimless eyeglasses: Document1, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Glasses: Jacek Halicki, CC BY-SA 4.0, source