Post on August 9th, 2010 in Art and Industry: The business of fashion

I spent the morning browsing through the archive trying to come up with some print ideas for our fall winter scarf selection. I got very involved with a selection of Katagami.  Katagami are intricately cut stencils created by Japanese for over 500 years. They were created out of several layers of mulberry bark that were compressed and cured together. The variety of pattern in the Japanese textile tradition is immense and these stencils certainly show it.

The Katagami were used to print intricate patterns for luxury kimonos. Some of the patterns are truly fantastic and could make for some extremely sophisticated multi colour graphic prints! Pictures do not do these stencils justice as the amount of work to cut with this level of detail and intricacy is just plain crazy.

Katagami were used until the mid 1920s for printing and were phased out as more modern techniques became available, however in the examples that remain the creativity and craftsmanship is truly inspiring.