Hiroyuki Saito

Hiroyuki Saito, born in 1972 in Kanagawa Prefecture, is an innovator dedicated to revitalising Japanese washi paper. After working for 13 years at a major Tokyo-based telecommunications IT company, he made a decisive career shift in 2008, founding Gojusaki Shachu in Uchiko, Ehime Prefecture, to revive the endangered craft of Ōzu washi.

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Actively engaged in both preservation and contemporary application, Saito has exhibited at the Cool Japan Design Gallery at the 2015 Milan Expo and presented washi installations at Yohji Yamamoto’s Paris flagship store in 2017. He is a committee member of the Cabinet Office’s “Cool Japan Public-Private Partnership Platform” and a recipient of the Second Mitsui Gold Crafts Award.