HI-CONDITION POP UP AT TOSHO KNIFE ARTS

August 20, 2019

HI-CONDITION will have a pop-up at Tosho Knife Arts at 20 - 22nd of September.

Tosho Knife Arts have been known as one of the originators for high-end Japanese knife shops in North America running a business over 10 years.

Owner, Olivia Go created kitchen knife and sharpening culter which hasn't popular as much as now at 10 years ago. Her passion and creativity created a new trend in North America, also many talented people started their career by working under her.

Co-owner, Ivan Fonseca is now working as a professional sharpener/ finisher in Sakai where the Japanese kitchen knife produces. He is known as one of the high skilled sharpeners, he also produced many of high-end kitchen knife under a Japanese kitchen knife brand called "Konosuke".

The author of "KAISEKI APPRENTICE JON", Jon Klip also started his career as a sharpener at Tosho Knife Arts. The winner of "Kezurou-kai USA 2016 California", Jude Noteboom worked as sharpener too. If you work as a chef in Toronto, you must know Brian Lee as a current shop manager and knowledgeable sharpener at Tosho, he helped many talented chefs and passionate cooks with his passion and knowledge.

Douglas Chang had been worked and helped Tosho Knife Arts for while when he worked as a chef in Toronto, after putting an end to 14 years of his chef's career, he opens his own knife shop called Ai and Om knives as a finest kitchen knife store in Vancouver. This take over the passion and knowledge what happened in Toronto with Tosho Knife Arts.

As you can see, Tosho Knife Arts is not just a knife seller but there is the epicentre of culture, they produced many talents in the past 10 years.

Tosho Knife Arts are working with HI-CONDITION starting the year 2017. The president, Yuji Osada is working independently in this harsh industry, without using any existing distribution, every material is picked by him, every products are designed by him. This is ineffective in the world where there is already an established method, but he has a passion for originality for that because he created many crafts and arts by his hand as a leatherworker and stencil artist.

He spends a few years to figure out the best shape and getting the best materials for these items and started to make "HI-CONDITION Selvage Denim/ Canvas Apron" at 2016, "HI-CONDITION Knife Roll" at 2017 with help from Tosho and Ai and Om knives. At Christmas season of 2018, HI-CONDITION had an in-store pop-up at Ai and Om Knives for the first time outside of Japan, that ended up with great success.

At 2019, he opened a new storefront at Asakusa-Bashi, Tokyo. His crowdfunding project got 300% of the target which made over 30000 CAD support from 150 people. Grand opening attracts much attention as one of the most growing brands at East side of Tokyo where known for the historical textile district.

Osada-san will bring some of his crafts such as leather tote bag and leather knife roll. Also, some limited items will available during the pop-up.
He will also demonstrate making a leather sheath for a paring knife, will give you free leather name tag if you own any of HI-CONDITION product. Many of the new items will start to sell at 20th in-store.

President of Hitohira will visit at Tosho at the same time, and I will bring some rare and Jiro knife only available to the people who showed up on pop up. Hope this will be a great opportunity for the people who want to know more detail of craftsmanship.