This spring my wife and I started a little company together. I was doing photography and photo editing work when I was living in Sweden, and since closing my company there I have been wanting to set up something in Japan and now finally it has come to fruition. In Sweden I was working closely with a company called Våges. They make candle holders, and our collaboration has now continued in a new form.
My wife and I love candles, love the cosy ambiance it creates, something that can be described with the word “mys” in Swedish. Lighting a candle is a natural part of many Swedish people’s lives, but this tradition is not at all established in Japan where candles are very much associated with religious practice. Sure, you can see a candle here and there, and scented candles are sorties used, but it is quite different from Sweden. The risk of earthquakes is also a contributing factor to why some people are a bit hesitant to light a candle.
Since we love the way candles can enhance everyday life, and love Våges’ metal candle holders, we decided to try to share our affinity for candles with people in Japan and thus have imported a variety of Våges’ products. We have created a webshop (atelier-yoshizawa.com) and Instagram account (@sumaandreas), and a few weeks before Christmas we joined a winter market at a nearby Tsutaya Books where we for the first time introduced our products in real life to curious customers. As a way of approaching the Japanese lifestyle, we used a lot of LED candles as well as the normal candles for the display and as it got darker we had a very cosy corner in the chilly evening. It was really “mysigt”!
