'Air conditioning' absorbs goods in Japan

A type of shirt that doesn't seem very fashionable, bulging when worn because there are two fans inside, but it is very attractive to customers in Japan because it helps people in this place to cool off in the summer.

Kuchofuku - the shirt manufacturer - has seen a surge in orders in the face of a serious shortage of electricity after the March 11 tsunami.

" I worked in a very hot place and had to wear a long-sleeved shirt, so I ordered this shirt to 'cool off' and prevent the overheating stroke ," said 33-year-old Ryo Igarashi as he lined up. buy Kuchofuku's air conditioning shirt.

According to Vancouversun , there are nearly 1,000 companies in Japan using this type of clothing, including a company specializing in automobiles, steel manufacturers, food processing and manufacturing plants, construction units.

Hiroshi Ichigaya, founder of Kuchofuku company (standing) is wearing a jacket with a cooling fan on the back, at the company's headquarters in Toda City, a suburb of Tokyo, Japan. Photo: Getty Images.

Beside the heat-resistant shirt, Kuchofuku also sold mattresses, air-conditioners. These products add meaning when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is closed after the tsunami and the government requires companies in Tokyo and northern Tohoku to reduce electricity use by 15%.

According to the customs department, the import of electric fans through Tokyo ports in May reached a record high, up 70% from a year ago, to 1.24 million units.

The fans in Kuchofuku's air conditioning shirt are connected to a lithium-ion battery that can last for 11 hours on a single charge, only consuming a fraction of the electricity of a normal air conditioner.

Mr. Ichigaya, an engineer who worked at Sony for two decades until the early 1990s, came up with the idea of ​​personal air conditioning when trying to invent an energy-efficient air conditioner.

He said that his clothes were a special solution: the more he wore, the cooler it was, than the shirtless. Thanks to 20 liters of air circulating every second through the shirt and escaping through the collar and sleeve lines, the fans dry sweat, helping the wearer feel cool.

Air conditioning shirt was launched in 2004. It initially attracted units to build but now the manufacturer also received orders from office workers and housewives.

A standard air conditioner jacket sells for 11,000 yen (about 140 USD), while others can cost more.

A central government official recently ordered 500,000 of these shirts but Kuchofuku had to lower the order level because it was unable to increase capacity in time to meet demand.

Ichigaya added that this year the company sold 40,000 shirts, cushions and other cooling products, twice as much as last year, and the number of sales could reach 80,000 if produced enough.