Hello.
Nice to meet you ☺︎
I'm Mizue, the owner of the shop, and I make mizuebags.
I'm starting this blog to write down and keep a record of things related to production, thoughts and ideas that come to me while I'm working, my daily life, and my feelings and thoughts.
Mizuebag seems to be celebrating its 5th anniversary this year... Time flies!
Today, I'll write about how the brand started (though "brand" is too grand a word for something I started as a hobby).
I graduated from an art university in Kyoto.
While everyone around me gracefully moved into design, production, or apparel after graduation,
I joined a food and beverage company.
I really didn't know what I wanted to do.
I liked clothes, but there wasn't a brand I wanted to work for that much.
I didn't understand design in the first place, and I didn't like it.
It was a daily routine of working as a floor staff member in the food and beverage industry, feeling like there was no place where I could be passionate!
As I'm writing this now, I realize how naive I was.......lol
I hated and suffered from looking at everyone's sparkling (stylish professional life) Instagram posts after graduation.
I'm sure they were all busy with their new lives,
but I even envied that.
Especially my boyfriend from university (now my husband) started working at an atelier,
doing the stylish job he wanted in nature, and I was so envious,
frustrated, and in despair that I had nothing, that I even muted his stories at the time. Lol
I quit the company I joined relatively quickly and became a freelancer.
The more I worked, the more money I could earn, so I worked multiple jobs every day, at a restaurant for breakfast and lunch,
and at a lounge at night.
A general store, an izakaya, etc...
I liked working, and I wasn't afraid of going to unknown places,
so it wasn't a hardship.
But I always wanted to create something.
I envied my friends who drew pictures while working part-time.
I thought it was nice to have art.
I wanted to create something, but nothing came out. I couldn't do it.
I desperately wanted to find "something I wanted to do."
Perhaps only those who don't have something they want to do, or can't find it,
can understand this feeling.
People told me, "Why don't you just start something?", but
I didn't have that "something"!! It was so painful.
Amidst all that, the first "stay home" period began when COVID-19 started spreading.
My favorite brand was making bead bags, and I thought, "Oh, they're cute, I want one!"
When I checked the price, it was something like 70,000 yen.... So expensive!
There was no way I could buy it, and as I was looking at it, I thought, "Maybe I could make this myself..."
So I bought some cheap beads and started making one, and that was the beginning.
At first, I made it by looking at patterns online.
It was difficult, and I thought, "This is impossible, I don't understand it!", but it was so much fun.
Because I had wanted to create something so badly.
Even though it was "stay home," the general store where I worked part-time didn't close,
so I remember being excited that even though I was working, I could make beads when I got home!
I thought, "I've found what I want to do!" My daily mood and the sparkle in my days significantly
increased. I used to work until quitting time without a goal,
but then I started thinking, "I need to finish work quickly so I can make bead bags."
In any case, the quality of my daily life improved. I became happy even without anything special.
I'm so glad I encountered beads at that time~~~♡
The first bead bag was completed.
When it was finished, I posted it on Instagram with "Eh, it's cute."
My friends loved it, and I was so happy.
Even during art school, I never truly thought my own creations were cute
(it was always "this is about as good as it gets"). But this time, I truly thought, "This is so cute!!"
That made me happy too!
From there, I increasingly wanted to create new designs,
and I became completely absorbed in beads...
To be continued in the next post