About the 11th of April _ Japan

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I arranged to meet Haruko Watanabe from Gallery Tsumugi today. A few months ago I ordered a catalogue for the Boro exhibition at the Amuse Gallery in Tokyo, from Haruko. When I ordered the book she said, "if you are in Tokyo, come and see my shop/gallery', I don't suppose many people actually do visit! We had a happy afternoon looking at all the Boro items and fabrics. Haruko had been to an auction the day before so had some lovely hemp pieces, I love the stiffness of the hemp fabric and she also had a samurai outfit in brown, similar to this...

 

A bit impractical for fighting in though

, ceremonial only! I bought some small pieces of fabric from Haruko, mostly just examples of different types of Shibori and some pieces of paste resist fabric just to have for samples to show students. Photo to follow.

The same day, my son and I saw the start of a Cosplay convention. Bus loads of teenage girls were turning up in downtown Yokohama with Wheelie suitcases, dissapearing into a building and coming out dressed up in Cosplay outfits. Most were busy taking photos of their friends in the gardens.

Boro Exhibition no 2

This is the second post about the exhibition of Boro textiles at Amuse Gallery, Asakusa, Tokyo. The pieces that amazed me were the huge kimono which were about 6-7ft tall when they were hung but were made for a person to sleep inside during winter, the padding is about 2-3 cm thick and they are made of layers of fabric and what looked like cotton stuffing. many of the layers were shredded down to just the area around previous stitching.