01
下地
Primer
The steel is etched and sealed before a single coat of lacquer is touched. This is the only step performed by machine — everything after it is by hand.
Seto · Aichi, Japan — Hand finished
A vessel
that remembers.
水は、記憶する。
Urushi-lacquered steel with hand-applied 24k gold seams. Made in a four-hundred-year-old lacquer workshop — designed to be repaired, not replaced.
01
The Object
Specification
Batch No. 001 / 300
The body is drawn from a single sheet of 430-grade stainless steel, then hand-burnished to a matte that reads as lacquer rather than metal.
The finish is urushi — the same lacquer used on Japanese swords and lacquerware since the 16th century. Twelve coats, each cured in darkness for seventy-two hours.
The seam is where the philosophy lives. When a vessel is repaired, the repair is not hidden. It is laid in gold, and kept.
- Capacity
- 720 ml
- Weight
- 268 g
- Body
- 430 stainless
- Finish
- Urushi · 12 coats
- Seams
- 24k gold · hand
- Range
- −20°C to 95°C
- Batch
- No. 001 / 300
02
塗り
Lacquer
Twelve coats of urushi, brushed by a single artisan. Each coat is left to cure in the dark for seventy-two hours so the finish hardens into something closer to stone.
03
研ぎ
Polishing
Polished by hand against a single-grit stone until the surface reads as black glass. Each bottle passes through this stage eleven times over.
04
継ぎ
Seaming
Where the vessel is repaired, gold is laid in the seam. The repair is never disguised — it is the most beautiful part of the bottle.
Seto Lacquer School · Est. 1603
01 / 04
03
Anatomy
Seven parts
-
Part 01
Cap
Brushed brass, knurled by hand. Opens with a single thumb press.
-
Part 02
Neck
Sealed with a food-grade silicone ring under the collar, so the lid is watertight without a thread.
-
Part 03
Collar
The only place the bottle meets the hand. Polished until it holds light like wet stone.
-
Part 04
Body
430 stainless steel, drawn from one sheet and lacquered twelve times over.
-
Part 05
Gasket
Silicone, moulded in Seto. Replaces itself — the bottle's only consumable part.
-
Part 06
Base
A gold ring is struck into the bottom, stamped with the artisan's name and batch number.
04
Voices
In use
「It feels less like a bottle and more like a lacquer box that happens to hold water. Twelve coats you can feel with your thumb alone — that's the whole thing, honestly, that's the craft of it.」Mireille OkadaArchitect, Kyoto
「I dropped it on concrete in March. It was repaired in the workshop and came back better than new, because now the seam is gold and I know exactly where I dropped it.」Haruki TanabePhysician, Osaka
「I've owned a lot of bottles. This is the only one I've ever wanted to give away without thinking about it — it's that quiet, that complete.」Sofia MarchettiCurator, Milan
第一回 · 三百本のみ
Reserve
the first 300.
Each bottle is finished by one of six artisans in Seto. Once the batch is gone, the workshop returns to swords and lacquerware. There will be no second run.
¥28,000Price
300Units
14Weeks