The cloth is stood upright, still on the roll. Donburi-ike Street runs through Semba, the old merchant quarter of Osaka, and the fabric wholesalers along it set their bolts on end in the shopfront rather than stacking them flat. It was a trade-only street for most of its history. A growing number of shops now sell retail as well, so the row is mixed: some will cut a metre for a passer-by and some will still only deal in quantity, and the sign in the window is how you find out which.

Several of the old wholesale buildings have been converted, with shops and offices taking the upper floors, and the use of the street is turning over gradually rather than all at once. This is the stretch between Hommachi and Shinsaibashi, where offices and housing are increasingly mixed, so the people on the pavement on a Wednesday are not the people there on a Sunday. Standing a bolt on end shows the colour and the drape at the same time; stacked flat, a roll of cloth tells you nothing except how thick it is.

Fabric is not sold without being handled. A buyer has to take the edge between finger and thumb, so the shopfronts stay open and the rolls are placed where an arm can reach them from the street — which is why a wholesale district that was never designed for the public turns out to be unusually easy to walk into. The openness is not hospitality, and nobody here would describe it that way. It follows from the nature of the goods, which cannot be chosen by looking alone, and a trade that has to let strangers touch its stock ends up with a street anyone can walk into.