M.MINE

M.MINE is a Japanese jewelry brand that translates the material culture of Mino ware into contemporary personal adornment. Based in Tajimi, Gifu, and operated by the ceramics company Yugen Gaisha Suzuken Togyo, it presents rings, earrings and necklaces made with porcelain rooted in the Tono area’s ceramic industry. The brand frames its work through the geology behind Mino ware, drawing on clay formed in the ancient Tokai Lake basin and on the production history of one of Japan’s largest ceramic regions. Its pieces use porcelain clay blended in the Mino region and fired at temperatures above 1200°C. Product components also include cubic zirconia, Silver 925, K18 coating, rhodium coating, stainless steel and surgical stainless steel, depending on the design. The website states that all items are made by hand, with individual variation treated as part of the object. Even secondary elements follow the same production logic: the ring used on the jewelry pouch repurposes ceramic molds that are no longer in use. What distinguishes M.MINE is not a graphic treatment of craft, but a transfer of ceramic knowledge into jewelry as a product type. Rather than reproducing conventional pottery forms, it works with the material and technical conditions of Mino ware—porcelain body, firing, glazing and local manufacturing—and shifts them onto the scale of wearable objects. In that sense, the brand sits between regional industry and contemporary jewelry, using an established manufacturing base to test a less familiar application.