Each and every Mone House T-shirt is hand-printed and carefully made.

The creator of the "Yubari Melon Logo T-shirt" is Sugawara Motoyo of mone house. At mone house, we produce and sell a variety of products, including T-shirts, with the desire to add a variety of sensibilities to everyday life and to cherish each person's sense of what they like .

The appeal of mone house's T-shirts is the warm texture of each T-shirt, which is hand-printed with silk screen printing . The cute designs and striking colors are also very attractive, making you want to collect T-shirts with different designs and wear them with the whole family.

We spoke with Sugawara, who aims to create a new image of the town and an opportunity for people to connect with the town through the T-shirts.

"Changing the image of Yubari" with T-shirts

Sugawara-san has always thought it was interesting how clothing can greatly change the impression people have of others. He created a T-shirt for his hometown, Yubari, and says he has always wanted to "change the image of Yubari." "I've always had the theme of ' changing the image of Yubari .' When I thought about promoting Yubari, a T-shirt could go far away, even overseas . What's more, just having someone wear a T-shirt promotes Yubari forever. Even if it's just as loungewear, the person wearing it is always wearing Yubari, so maybe they'll remember Yubari from time to time. In fact, 'Yubari' is always close by."

The editorial team at Domingo learned about some wonderful initiatives in Yubari, such as "Shimizu Sour" and "Yutetsuken," through mone house T-shirts, so it makes perfect sense that people would get to know the city through T-shirts. The reason I insist on hand-printing my T-shirts is because I want to deliver what I think is good to people who also think it is good . "I once outsourced the printing of T-shirts, but when I saw the finished product, I thought, 'Wow, this is completely different.' The color and balance of what I had in mind was a little different. But I don't have the money to have it redone, and it's difficult to explain. I thought the best way to create the products I had in mind was to print them by hand myself , so I've been doing that for the past four years." All of the T-shirts currently on sale have been hand-designed by Sugawara, from designing the designs to creating the plates and printing.

I started to feel proud of my hometown, Yubari, which I used to hate.

Ms. Sugawara was born in Yubari, but left her hometown after graduating from high school and worked as a nursery teacher in Nara and Kagoshima. What were her feelings towards Yubari?

"I lived in Yubari until high school, but I really wanted to get out of there , and I didn't like Hokkaido because it was all nature. I was the kind of person who would disparage my hometown by saying things like, 'Yubari is just a place after all.' But when I was working in childcare in Kagoshima, I got a huge culture shock from seeing how proud the people of Kagoshima are of their town ." As a nursery school teacher, Sugawara's work often reminded her of her life in Yubari while talking to children. She wondered, "I've had a lot of contact with Yubari from my childhood through high school, so why don't I like it? Why don't I know so little about Yubari and how famous Yubari melons are?" This led her to decide to return to Yubari after quitting her job in Kagoshima.

The first thing I wanted to know when I returned to Yubari was, " Why is Yubari melon said to be so luxurious ?" Sugawara says that during the one season he worked as a "demen" (a part-time farm worker) cultivating Yubari melons, many of his values changed significantly .

"When I saw farming from the outside, I thought it was a tough job, but when I actually got inside, I saw the veteran older women working efficiently and powerfully, and the man who was a producer where I worked part-time said to me, 'Mocchan, farming is like gambling,' and I saw the husband-and-wife producers seriously facing the 'difficulty of working with nature', especially with regard to Yubari melons, including the importance of temperature control, and I learned anew about the history of the production of Yubari melons, and I thought, 'This is something Yubari can be proud of! ' At the same time, I really understood why Yubari melons are so expensive. That year, when I learned that there was so much hard work behind the delicious Yubari melons, I sent a Yubari melon to the people in Kagoshima who had been looking after me, along with a photo of the producers' cool hands at work." This was a major event that changed Sugawara's own impression of his hometown, Yubari. Since then, his perspective has broadened to include Yubari's long history and people's feelings towards the city, and he has become interested in Yubari. Having had an experience that completely changed his own image of the city, Sugawara says he now wants to change the image more people have of Yubari . "I felt a certain sadness in the way I said I hated my hometown , and I didn't like that. At the same time, I thought it would be nice if I could do something to help change people's perceptions of my hometown in the same way ." Sugawara, who had a strong interest in design and clothing, left Yubari once more, attended school to study design professionally, and then returned to Yubari.

Hand-printed T-shirts are opened to the outside

He says that he has built relationships while living in Yubari and that many people have told him things like that. "I often get told that I should try it for 10 years , because it will definitely be more interesting if I continue for 10 years. I intend to return to childcare at some point, and I plan to continue making T-shirts while doing both. I also want more people to experience silkscreen printing ."

He says that this is not just an experience for visitors, but that he wants to make preparations so that it can be taken over as a job as well. "The place I'm currently renting as my studio is a closed school managed by the general incorporated association Laplus . In the future, I'd like to work for Laplus, which is working on urban development with a focus on welfare services for people with disabilities. I've been doing this for four years now, and the more I do it, the deeper it becomes, so I think I'll need to study a bit more before I can do it again, but it's something I want to do." There was also a big change in his feelings towards Yubari, whom he had previously hated. "I've recently been thinking a lot about how much I love Yubari . And I really think that nature is what makes it such a fascinating environment, with no two landscapes being the same ."

The view from the workshop

Mone House is a company that takes action immediately when an idea strikes its own conclusion, and is passionate about Yubari. We look forward to seeing more of Mone House's activities and products on their Instagram and website! The T-shirts are also available for purchase through the Yubari City Hometown Tax Donation Program, so be sure to check it out.