Corona knitting machines

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I have an old Corona knitting machine (model CN9). I’ve met a few other machine knitters who have Corona machines, but no one seems to know very much about them. Since I ran across a little tidbit about Corona on Corona’s website, I thought I’d post a translation here for those who don’t speak Japanese. (Japanese text from Corona website; English translation my own)

編機

Knitting machines

昭和２８年に家庭用編み機の製造販売を始めました。この年はスターリンが死去して朝鮮戦争が休戦になり、フルシチョフがソ連の首相になった年です。日本ではＮＨＫがテレビ放送を始め、吉田茂首相の一声「バカヤロー」で国会が解散されたという時代でした。

“[Corona] began manufacturing home-use knitting machines in Showa 28 [AD 1953]. That was the year Stalin died, the Korean War armistice was signed, and Khrushchev became premier of the Soviet Union. In Japan, it was the period when the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) began and the Diet was dissolved with Prime Minister Shigei Yoshida’s cry of ‘Bastards!'”

昭和２２年に産声を上げた弊社は時代が求める商品をつくろうと考えました。敗戦後８年、食糧事情もやや落ち着いた頃でした。衣食住どれをとっても不満足な状態でしたが、私どもはその中の「衣」に着目しました。

“In Showa 22 [AD 1947], our newly born company thought to make merchandise in demand at the time. Eight years after losing the war [WWII], it was a time when the food situation had settled down a little. Although [people were] very dissatisfied with the basic necessities of life, in the midst of that, we [at Corona] paid attention to clothing.”

女性はおしゃれです。習い事に長じています。おしゃれな衣服が欲しいが、戦後の物資不足のため手軽に求められない、そんなとき使いやすくて高性能な編み 機があれば、女性はすてきな衣服を作れます。おしゃれな装いにあこがれる女性の願いを叶えたのが「コロナ編機」でした。

“Women were fashion conscious. They were accomplished in practice [NOTE: Not sure I’ve translated this sentence correctly – I don’t recognize the idiom]. They wanted fashionable clothes, but because of the postwar shortage of goods/materials [inexpensive fashionable clothes] weren’t available. At that time if there were easy to use, highly efficient knitting machines, women could make stylish clothes. Granting women’s desire to dress in smart outfits was the Corona knitting machine.”

So it doesn’t actually say much about the machines themselves, just the social situation behind Corona’s decision to manufacture knitting machines. Still more than I knew about Corona than before!