Roses
Chocolates Bearing the Name of the Rose
Kazuyoshi Yanagisawa
President, Chocography Co., Ltd. / 1970 Faculty of Business and Commerce
In 1989, we opened the chocolate specialty shop "Message de Rose" in Daikanyama.
The brand concept and inspiration come from the three major gifts in Europe: wine, bouquets of roses, and chocolate. I believed that even if stylized, the delicate beauty of a rose could be expressed through chocolate, and we achieved this using our company's manufacturing techniques. Since Message de Rose means "The Message of the Rose," we specialized entirely in chocolate gifts with a rose motif.
We decided to use only Weiss chocolate as our raw material. Their manufacturing process follows traditional handmade methods, and because their production volume is small, it is a highly valuable and rare chocolate material with a wonderful aroma and melt-in-the-mouth quality.
It took five years and dozens of prototypes to arrive at the current rose shape. It was difficult to make it look like a delicate and beautiful rose, but we succeeded in expressing it by setting the number of petals to the current count.
We hope you will enjoy our pride and joy, a product that blooms just like a real flower.
Conveying Feelings Through Roses
Kana Todo
Preserved Flower Designer / 1994 Faculty of Policy Management
During my high school years studying abroad in the United States, I was struck by the culture where men routinely give flowers to women as an expression of affection. I entered my current profession out of a desire to establish this custom in Japan as well.
Preserved flowers are fresh flowers that have undergone preservation processing, allowing them to stay vibrant for a long time without water. Because they are easy to handle, they are popular among men and in offices, and the most popular of all is the rose.
Did you know that roses have meanings not only in their color but also in their number? For example, the "Dozen Roses." It is said that giving a dozen (12) roses to a lover will bring happiness. This is said to originate from a romantic medieval European custom where a man would pick 12 wild roses to make a bouquet and hand-deliver it to a woman to propose. There are various other floral meanings, such as one rose for "love at first sight" and 15 roses for "I'm sorry," which makes you want to give them to someone.
Why not entrust the feelings you are too shy to put into words to a rose and give them to someone special?
The Highest Quality Roses
Masahito Kitano
President and Representative Director, Aoyama Hanamo Honten Co., Ltd. / 2006 Faculty of Economics
Since our founding in 1904, we have strived to handle the highest quality fresh flowers. Through the efforts of successive owners and employees, we have been a purveyor to the Imperial Household Agency since 1959, and we work hard every day to live up to that name.
We are particularly particular about the quality of roses, which have always been popular. The conditions for high-quality roses recognized as top grade in the market naturally include flower size, symmetry, petal thickness, and good color, but also require thick, long, straight stems and fresh leaves. There are only a handful of producers who can stably ship roses that meet these conditions at a high level. Even for the same variety, the beauty and longevity vary greatly depending on the cultivation method, careful selection, and management during transport. While high-grade roses have higher wholesale prices, our company always specifically buys the highest-grade roses grown by master cultivators.
We quickly process the roses we purchase, place them in the refrigerator, and change the water daily. Based on our shop motto, "Discard the flower, or discard your credibility," we never miss a sign of deterioration and select only fresh items that can be enjoyed for a long time to sell.
Wild Roses and Broken Roses
Takahiro Nishio
Associate Professor, Faculty of Letters, Keio University
The poem by the great German literary figure Goethe, known for Schubert's song "Heidenröslein" (Wild Rose), is an unshakably popular work in the world of Lieder (with over 150 musical settings!). However, the content—in which a "rough boy" who feels "joy" at a "young" and "beautiful" rose blooming in the wasteland breaks the rose while ignoring the flower's "screams" and "resistance"—does not quite match the pastoral tone of the song. Since roses have long been a metaphor for "female purity," what is being hinted at through the image of a human trampling nature is likely an explicit relationship between a man and a woman. The musical sensibility that cheerfully sings of the boy's selfish violence seems to be two sides of the same coin as the perspective of the boy (man) who innocently fulfills his own desires.
Speaking of "breaking a rose," there is another literary work from before Goethe that immediately comes to mind. It is the tragedy "Emilia Galotti," which Mori Ogai translated as "Ori-bara" (The Broken Rose). There is a famous passage here as well that likens a woman to a rose, but the author Lessing did not forget to include a critique of the male-centric morality lurking within. Along with the song "Wild Rose," I hope you will take this opportunity to explore this other "Broken Rose" as well.
*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.