In the Edo era, stripes were preferred among the villagers as a pattern that expressed a sense of iki (stylishness, or a Japanese aesthetic sensibility). Among the Kaiki fabrics used as lining for haori (short coat used on Japanese kimonos) are a plethora of striped patterns in exquisitely designed color patterns. Even today, there is a high share of suit linings made of cupro fabric in Yamanashi, illustrating how striped linings are still being woven today, simply changing in form from haoris to suits. In recent years, this delicate harmony of textures and stripes has been produced, not only in linings, but also in textiles for clothing and interiors, and in materials ranging from silks and cottons to linens.

Tamamushi (iridescent) fabric, made by using different color yarns for the warp and weft, offers a good representation of the special qualities of Yamanashi’s textiles — thin yarn, yarn dyeing, and high density. We can imagine how, in the age of the Kaiki, people wearing haoris (short kimono coats) lined with Tamamushi silk fabric would have been mesmerized by its wavering colors at night in their rooms, lit up by the single light of an andon (traditional paper lantern). Today, the chambray textile has been passed down through suit linings as well as dress fabrics.

Among the fabrics archived from over a hundred years ago are textiles called Ekaiki, which use a technique of painting pictures directly onto the weft on the loom. The pictures represent motifs that bring to mind such things as the popular theater of the time or seasonal poems. Through these patterns on clothing linings, we can see how people enjoyed the culture of their times. Yamanashi today also prides itself on its skillful Jacquard weave of motifs and patterns on neckties and linings, and our textile designers propose various ways of enjoying such patterns.

This is an abstract flower pattern that feels somewhere in between texture and graphic, abstract and concrete. By printing only on the weft and further weaving in a striped pattern, this Kaiki creates a flower pattern expressed almost as though it is hiding in and out of the layers. In the Yamanashi center of production today, there is a wide variety of floral Jacquard prints that are subtle and profound, rather than flashy and straightforward. Such designs are created by using a variety of colored yarns with different qualities, like luster and matte, for differing uses.

Textiles have an irregular unevenness, much like a painting’s matière (the physical texture of paint). The textile designers in this locality pour their hearts into bringing together textures using their yarns, as opposed to producing more graphically-focused designs. Even before the introduction of the Jacquard weave, craftsmen had creatively devised ways of producing rough textures in fabrics by making use of differing yarn thicknesses and densities. Today, new fabrics with fascinating textures that mimic the qualities of nature and create wavering and rhythmic effects are being developed on a daily basis, even more freely than in the past.

This is an abstract flower pattern that feels somewhere in between texture and graphic, abstract and concrete. By printing only on the weft and further weaving in a striped pattern, this Kaiki creates a flower pattern expressed almost as though it is hiding in and out of the layers. In the Yamanashi center of production today, there is a wide variety of floral Jacquard prints that are subtle and profound, rather than flashy and straightforward. Such designs are created by using a variety of colored yarns with different qualities, like luster and matte, for differing uses.