Japan Trip - Edo Komon Dyeing Factory

One very cold day, I visited Tomita Some Kougei near Takadanobaba, Tokyo.

Snowing in November: quite unusual site for Tokyo.

Tomita Some Kougei is a Edo Komon Dyeing Factory.
They welcome visitors at their work place.

Edo Komon is a dyeing technique using stencil templates.
The designs are usually consist of tiny dots and it looks almost plane from distance.

Ise Stencil Template

Hariita boards hanging from the ceiling

First, place fabric (Kimono fabric is about 12 meters) on the long, straight Hariita board: it's essential that the fabric is straight and there are no wrinkles.
Hariita board is about 7meters long so place the fabric on the front and back side of the board.

Set the stencil template on the fabric, place resist paste with a paddle.
When you finish pasting one area, move the template to the next but you have to be extra cautious so that the design looks flawless.
After placing the resist paste to the entire fabric, dry the fabric.
This process is called Katatsuke.

The stencil template is made of multiple Japanese papers pasted together with Persimmon juice.
These templates are cleaned and dried before storing.
The templates withstand about 200 times use.

resist paste placed on the white fabric

With a paddle, dye the fabric with the base color: make sure that there is no irregularity of color.
This process is called Jiirosome.
Steam to set the color on the fabric.

Wash off the resist paste from the fabric, then dry.
You will see the white design emerging from the background base color.


This is a sample of designs.

They use black base color to make the design clear.
When you order, you can of course choose whatever color you want.

This is Edo Sarasa. Multiple templates are used for the multiple colors.

Before I visited here, I thought this place would be some kind of museum, didn't expect to see people actually working.
They were happy to answer to my question, but seeing them working seriously on this quiet, snowing day, I hesitated to make any noise (I still asked questions, though).

When craftsmen work sincerely, even their simple tools are beautiful.
These are brushes for Bokashi, the shading effect.

Next day, it was still cold but sunny.

A view from Shinjuku Takashimaya's roof garden.