Heart of Japan ~Technology & Tradition~ When You’re Fit to Be Tied: Creative Inspirations from the Shibori Dyeing Tradition of Aichi

When You’re Fit to Be Tied:
Creative Inspirations from the Shibori Dyeing Tradition of Aichi

Tie-dye designs from Japan found online and
on-site to wear, make, or otherwise enjoy in your home

AICHI PREFECTURE, JAPAN – 24 September 2020 –

Japan’s love of quality fabrics is well known to wearers of well-crafted fashions and collectors of sculptural textile art around the world. Lesser known, even among Japanese people, is the legacy of diverse shibori dyeing methods that originated four centuries ago in Arimatsu, a tiny district within Nagoya, the capital of Aichi Prefecture in central Japan. Though shibori is easily accessible to the casual home hobbyist, the more one explores its methods, the deeper the adventure goes.

Shibori—What Is It, and How Is It Done?

Like tie-dye, shibori is a resist-dye method that takes advantage of cloth’s own pliancy—a fabric’s ability to be folded or otherwise manipulated into shapes that will block penetration by colorants. Shibori literally means “compression,” and its techniques are more numerous and intricate than those behind the swirls, stripes, and bull’s-eye patterns of tie-dying. Artisans might stitch, pleat, pinch, wrap, roll, twist, knot, or crumple the material, or combine any of these in variation, to create their designs. Once shaped, the fabric is secured before its immersion in the dyebath by further binding, clamping, and sometimes even its partial enclosure in an airtight wooden cask! Careful control of the material’s immersion in the bath yields color contrasts and gradients and, depending on the shaping methods used, even three-dimensional patterns. Shibori is ultimately a hands-on process, ensuring that each garment or item is one-of-a-kind, with a spontaneity not found in mass-produced items.

A Tradition Is Born

Courtesy of Postal Museum Japan
Just 20 minutes by train from central Nagoya, the Arimatsu district today is a key production center of shibori textiles, a trade founded in the early seventeenth century when the former Tokaido highway was just being developed. This important route connected the political capital of Edo (present-day Tokyo) in the east with the imperial center of Kyoto in the west. At 53 official post towns along the route—depicted in the famous “Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido” woodblock series by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858)—travelers could procure food, water, and shelter. Arimatsu lay about midway along the journey, just over ten days and 200 miles on foot from Edo, between the rest stops of Chiryu and Narumi. Today the Arimatsu and Narumi districts together are well worth visiting for their historical townscapes and the workshops offered by shibori artisans who carry on their families’ trade. And the Tokaido bullet train, named for the old highway it roughly follows, whisks travelers to Nagoya from Tokyo in just an hour and 40 minutes.

The individual who is given credit for launching the shibori tradition in Arimatsu is Shokuro Takeda, who moved there from the Chita Peninsula in 1608 with seven other households to establish a settlement and new cottage industry in the backcountry between the two post towns. Takeda saw opportunity in the cotton production that had been newly established in his homeland in nearby Chita, and set out to manufacture high-quality cloths using innovative dyeing techniques. By 1620 the small Arimatsu settlement had grown to fifteen families, and by 1633 its dyeing trade was well established.

In subsequent years, increased traffic along the Tokaido by samurai entourages going to and from the capital, and by commoners making pilgrimages to Ise Shrine in Mie across the bay, brought steady demand for the artisans’ handy tenugui towels—Japan’s version of the bandana—and their bolts of cloth for kimono and yukata robes, all rendered with bold designs. The lively industry extended to Narumi, the nearest post town less than two miles away, with families across the two villages working as a cooperative, each specializing in some aspect of textile production: designing, stenciling, binding, dyeing, steaming, refining, etc. These skills have been handed down through the generations. Arimatsu–Narumi shibori was officially recognized as a traditional craft by the national government in 1975, and in 2019 the Agency for Cultural Affairs designated the Arimatsu area a Japan Heritage site.

Try Shibori Yourself

Nothing replaces direct learning from a master in the studio, but there are plenty of shibori resources for everyone from beginners to established textile designers, both online and in the form of instructional videos and books. Textile scholar Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada is the founder of Slow Fiber Studios and president of the Berkeley, CA-based World Shibori Network, a global community of people committed to support, sustain, and promote shibori traditions. Together with stitch workshop specialist Andrew Galli of Studio Galli Productions in Long Beach, CA, she has produced the DVD Arimatsu–Narumi Shibori: Celebrating 400 Years of Japanese Artisan Design. It includes detailed demonstrations of each step in a number of different shibori processes. Her Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing, co-authored with Mary Kellogg Rice and Jane Barton, offers process illustrations complete with tool diagrams and is considered the seminal English-language book on the tradition. Still more US-based resources for shibori dyeing can be found at Natural Dye Workshop.

An artisan demonstrates tatsumaki “tornado” binding
American Craft Council fellow Ana Lisa Hedstrom is an Emeryville, CA-based textile designer who works with and teaches Arimatsu shibori methods for application in wearable fashions, quilts, and sculptural art. Her creations are held in the collections of the Cooper Hewett Smithsonian Design Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the de Young museum of San Francisco, among others. She has produced a number of instructional videos, available through Studio Galli Productions, that show how to achieve dynamic patterns in both traditional and contemporary ways. Arashi Shibori: A Language of Stripes is a two-hour video class in the art of pole-wrapping—a method equally accessible to children as it is a means for advanced textile artists to add increasing layers of complexity to their work. The video also presents contemporary and vintage fabrics collected by Hedstrom over years visiting studios in Arimatsu and Narumi. Homeschoolers and DIYers looking for a fast introduction will appreciate this how-to compendium by the Rit brand of colorants. It covers the basic steps of three classic shibori techniques—arashi pole-wrapping, itajime block resist, and kanoko binding, which only requires some twine.

Timeslip to the Past

  • Courtesy of Postal Museum Japan

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A dozen or so merchant houses that were part of the historical shibori trade stand today in Arimatsu, sporting the low-slung eaves, ceramic roof tiles, and white-plaster walls of traditional Japanese architecture.

Takeda Residence
The Takeda residence, headed by an offshoot of Shokuro’s line, is an active shibori studio and, like the Kozuka and Oka homes, is recognized by the city of Nagoya as a cultural asset. The Hattori residence, built in 1790, operated as the wholesale shop Igetaya. Its stately main house fronting the Tokaido, well-preserved reception room for customers, and storehouses for pigments and other tools of the trade are registered cultural properties of the prefecture. More information about these and other heritage sites can be found here. While in town, visitors to the Tie-Dyeing Museum can see local artisans conduct daily demonstrations, and try their own hand at dyeing a handkerchief, table runner, door curtain, apron, or t-shirt in one- to two-hour classes by advance appointment.

Takeda Residence
Good times to visit the Arimatsu and Narumi districts are the first weekend of June, when dozens of dyeing demonstrations are held as part of the annual Shibori Festival, and around the time of the yearly Grand Autumn Festival on the first Sunday of October. With its procession of three elaborately decorated portable shrines that date back to the 1800s, the event has been designated an intangible folk cultural property by the city of Nagoya.

Centuries-Old Tradition Meets Modern Design

  • Tenugui designs by Suzusan

  • Sculptural lighting by Suzusan

A brief walk from the historical district of Arimatsu, Tsuyoshi Kuno runs a shibori dyeworks studio where small groups of five and up can participate in half-hour, one- and two-hour, and half-day dyeing classes. He also teaches a one-day workshop in which each participant dyes a 42-foot bolt of local Chita cotton that will later be tailored into an original yukata cotton robe. The itajime technique of folding the cloth triangularly and then pressing it between two sturdy blocks is used to render the classic “snow-flower” pattern.

Founded in 2008, Suzusan is the contemporary business arm of a century-old family dyeworks in Arimatsu. Its creative director, Hiroyuki Murase, is the eldest son and fifth generation to carry on his family’s studio and shibori dyeing tradition. Drawing on his experiences studying design in the United Kingdom and Germany, he has created new product lines that unite the Murases’ 100-year expertise with fresh ideas about texture, fabric, and design. His father, Suzusan chairman Hiroshi Murase, has given frequent workshops abroad, teaching the design of classic stencil patterns as well as advanced modern dyeing methods involving the fulling of wool, the degumming of sericin on natural silk, and selective melting-off of metallic fabrics. Hiroshi and other veteran Suzusan artisans can be seen at work on their stenciling, tying, and dyeing tasks in this short video.

Fashions by Suzusan
Sheer silks in vibrant shades of blue, black, and red, featherlight cashmere sweaters and shawls suitable for all seasons, and stylish lighting accessories are just a few Suzusan products that breathe contemporary relevance into the shibori tradition. The company’s Home & Living arm lists U.S. stockists of their cushion covers, throws, and lighting goods. Online, Tiina the Store carries accessories, blankets, coats, jackets, dresses, sweaters, and tops, and offers free shipping on orders of $150 for delivery within the United States.

Eye-catching Arimatsu tenugui designs, no two alike, are sold on the Slow Fiber Studios site here. To stay up-to-date about the ongoing evolution of Aichi’s “little-known famous” shibori legacy, follow Arimatsu Shibori.

Getting There

From JR Nagoya Station, take the local Meitetsu Honsen line to Arimatsu, two stops beyond Narumi, about 30 minutes. The official Aichi Now tourism site introduces still more sightseeing spots nearby these two traditional townscapes here.

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One-stop flights from the US West Coast to Chubu Centrair International Airport in Tokoname, Aichi depart from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. At the time of this writing, travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic are still in place for much of the world. When they are lifted, the Aichi Tourism Promotion Office looks forward to welcoming visitors back. Until then we will issue bulletins like this one from time to time, showcasing both online and on-site ways to explore Aichi’s many offerings.