Shokunin

Bespoke samurai ateliers · est. Kyōto

Shokunin

Twelve works a year. Each entered into the Register, sealed by its maker, and released only by petition.

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The doctrine

We do not sell armor.We release it.

Shokunin is a house of three ateliers — armorers, swordsmiths and lacquer masters whose lineages together hold more than a thousand years of craft. Each year the house completes twelve works. No more are made because no more can be made properly. Each is documented, sealed and entered into the Register; collectors petition for the right to hold one.

12Works a year
3Master ateliers
53Generations combined

The Register · MMXXVI

Works of the year

Four works currently stand open. The remainder of the year is sealed.

Lacquered kabuto helmet with a gold crescent-moon crest, lit by a single warm light against darkness

IV / XII

Gesshō 月照

Kabuto · war helmet

A sixty-two-plate russet iron bowl, raised and lacquered over eleven months, crowned with a crescent of hammered gold. Made to be worn once, and kept for three hundred years.

¥18,400,000Open to petition
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Katana resting on a black lacquer stand, its temper line caught in low warm light

VII / XII

Samidare 五月雨

Katana · long blade

Folded from tamahagane smelted in a single three-day burn, its temper line falls like rain seen through lantern light. The twenty-sixth Kanemoto considers it the finest blade of his tenure.

¥31,000,000Under petition
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Lifelike russet-lacquered full face mask with gold repair beads above the left brow, mounted in darkness

IX / XII

Kuronami 黒波

Sōmen · full war mask

A full sōmen of russet lacquered iron, its left brow carrying beads of gold — not decoration, but an honest repair in the kintsugi manner, marking the single flaw the studio chose to keep.

¥9,700,000Open to petition
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Black-lacquered ō-yoroi shoulder plates bound with warm brown silk knots and edged in aged gold

X / XII

Musubi 結び

Ō-yoroi · full armor

A complete ō-yoroi built around the cord that holds it: black-lacquered hon-kozane drawn together in chestnut-brown silk, row after row, until separate plates move as one body.

¥42,800,000Open to petition
Open the dossier →

Sealed until their season

XITantō · short bladeUnsealed November 2026
XIIReserved for commissionBy appointment only
An urushi master guiding a young apprentice as they lacquer a kabuto at a night workshop
Shirakawa Iori, eleventh keeper · instruction at the lacquer bench

The ateliers

Three houses.
One oath.

House Mizuno raises iron in Kaga as it has for sixteen generations. The Kanemoto forge in Seki has folded steel since the age of the warring states. Shirakawa of Wajima lays lacquer in a room kept at the humidity of a sea cave. Each master signs an oath into every work’s register entry: that nothing left the bench before it was finished, and nothing finished was hurried.

  • House Mizuno · armorers, Kaga 16th generation
  • Kanemoto Forge · swordsmiths, Seki 26th generation
  • Shirakawa Studio · urushi masters, Wajima 11th generation

The binding

The cord is
drawn last.

Each iron scale receives eight grounds of black urushi. Every ground cures for nineteen days in cedar humidity before the next is laid. Only then does kachi-iro silk bind the rows — tensioned by hand so the cuirass can move without losing its line.

Lacquer
8 hand-laid grounds
Cure
19 days per ground
Lacing
340 hours per cuirass
Macro view of lacquered armor scales bound with indigo silk cords
Kachi-iro silk over eight grounds of kuro-urushi

The twelfth work

One commission a year
is accepted.

Work XII of every Register is reserved for a single patron: a full ō-yoroi armor, built to the patron’s measure and family crest over fourteen months. The process is unchanged since the house was founded.

  1. 01

    Petition

    A letter to the Register stating who you are and what you ask the house to make.

    One letter
  2. 02

    Audience

    A meeting with the three masters, in Kyōto or where you stand. Measures are taken; the crest is drawn.

    One day
  3. 03

    The making

    You receive the forge record as it is written — plate by plate, ground by ground.

    Fourteen months
  4. 04

    Investiture

    The finished work is presented, sealed into the Register, and released into your keeping.

    One evening
Write to the Register

The 2027 commission opens to petition in September