Old power looms are still running. Enshū is a cotton-weaving district, and in the outskirts there are mills still working with an older generation of power loom rather than modern high-speed machinery. The old looms weave slowly, which means less strain is put on the yarn, and the fabric that comes off them is said to hold more air and to feel softer as a result.

Some mills sell cloth directly, and at others the denim finishing processes can be watched. The district registered a regional collective trademark in April 2017, and four separate trade associations use the name and the mark under it, which is a more complicated arrangement than most producing areas manage to hold together. Hamamatsu chūsen dyeing is designated a prefectural folk craft, and there are places offering demonstrations and hands-on sessions. Manufacturing jobs are plentiful here, the Shinkansen station and the city centre are close together, and getting about from day to day means a car for almost everybody.

There is a reason to keep using a slow loom when fast ones exist. The same yarn woven at a different speed produces a different density of cloth, so there are handles and weights that only the older machines will give — and those cannot be recovered afterwards by finishing. A district working this way cannot compete on volume and has stopped attempting to, which is a clearer position than most producing areas manage to take. What it is selling is precisely the difference that the slower machine makes, and that difference cannot be added later.