Genuine leather accessories resembling chocolate created with a mature sense of playfulness

Creating accessories based on the appearance of chocolate, CHOCOLATAN creates products that have a mature charm using textured leather with a pronounced indentation. Up to now many accessories based on confectionery motifs have been made for women. But CHOCOLATAN is gaining popularity by focusing on adult males.

“At the time I had transfered from a food sample company and was at JETRO,” says Tsutomu Kamo, who found the company in 2014. The product line started due to a conversation about whether we could make something that connected to special foods in Hyogo Prefecture. Hyogo Prefecture is all about sake, Kobe beef, and Kobe sweets. I remembered that a chocolate bar keychain was the most popular item when I worked at the food sample company. Hyogo’s Banshu leather has a similar color to chocolate, so I thought we’d be able to do something interesting with that.”

Though the initial idea to make a leather accessory that resembled a chocolate bar was good, realizing the concept proved difficult. “I thought it would be fine to simply press the leather. But existing press technology would only make the leather soft and round. It didn’t resemble the feel of a chocolate bar,” says Kamo. “I went to many leather shops and companies doing three dimension pressing, but the results were unsatisfactory. For a time I was at a loss. That’s when I was introduced to a rubber factory making shoe soles in Nagata.” Kamo rented a portion of the factory, and after much trial and error succeeded in creating a press with a hard edge using the company’s own in-house technology.

The company is now working hard to promote Kobe’s chocolate culture, holding events while they develop new products. “Kobe is a great town for chocolate. We want to provide a store in Kobe that offers both eatable chocolate and chocolate accessories.