This producing district runs an examination in towels. Imabari makes towels: weaving and dyeing plants are concentrated in the city, and there are company shops and exhibition spaces where the process can be seen and the product bought in the same visit. Imabari Towel is a registered regional collective trademark, and goods carrying the brand have to meet a defined quality standard rather than merely being made within the city limits.

There is also a qualification, the Towel Sommelier, examined annually — a producing district taking on the training of the people who sell its output, which is not a common arrangement. The population is around a hundred and fifty thousand, there is work in garment manufacture and in shipbuilding, and the Shimanami Kaidō passes through, so the city is also the way onto the islands for a steady stream of cyclists. Setting a standard means accepting that some of your own district's output will fail it. Protecting a name requires being strict on the inside first.

Whether a towel is any good becomes apparent after it has been used and washed. At the point of purchase all a customer can judge is how it feels in the hand, which is the least informative property it has — so the standard was written around the things that matter later: how fast it takes up water, how stiff it goes after washing. The district measures what the shop floor cannot show, and then puts its name on the result. That, rather than provenance, is what the trademark is actually doing, and it is why the standard can fail a towel woven three streets from the association's office.