The art of shibori handcraft inspirationBACK TO INDEX

Harrogate, November 2002

Philippa Watkins, WGSN 08.07.03

The future of textiles is assumed to lie with high-tech innovation, buta more low-tech, hands-on creativity is also gaining prominence,influencing the creative production of textiles. The InternationalShibori Symposium demonstrated how inspirational handcraftedtechniques can be.

Pleated silks created through shibori techniques by Genevieve Dion

Creative skills are vital to the textile industry and its future. New fibres andfinishes are often the results of high-tech skills.

However, other, low-tech, more hands-on creative skills are also playing animportant role. Note the popularity of embroidery and fabric manipulation inrecent years, particularly in accessories - demonstrating a strongconsumer demand for products with a difference.

In truth, technology and craft skills can benefit each other. While manylooks can be produced by automation, the inspiration to develop themachinery comes from the craft skills.

Conversely, new synthetic fibres and finishes, with different characteristicsand properties, become the raw materials for artists to explore - which inturn feeds back into industrial production.

A prime example of thisprocess in action is thepleating, crushing andsculpting of polyesterfabrics – mastered sobeautifully in IsseyMiyake’s collections –which, because they arein polyester, are trulypermanent.

Here is a marriagebetween the high-techand the hands-on,building on the

knowledge and skills of manual crafts.

Yoshiko Wada

What is shibori?

• Shibori is theJapanese word fordozens of methods,including folding,stitching and clamping,which shape andsecure cloth beforedyeing. The root of theword literally means “towring, twist, and press”.

• It describes shaped,resist dyeing - a processof manipulating cloth that,when dyed, leaves thereserved areas recordedas patterns or three-dimensional shapes.

• A characteristic ofshibori resist is the softblurred edge to thepattern. There is alwaysan element of chanceand the unexpected, withhundreds of minisculeaccidents that can makeup the pattern.

Shibori SymposiumNovember 21-22 2002Harrogate, England

• Staged beside theKnitting and StitchingShow, this was the firstevent in Europe.

Artists taking part inthe symposium:

Jenny Balfour-Paul, UKMargaretBarnet, AustraliaCaroline Bartlet, UKPatricia Black, ItalyKaren K. Brito, USMarian Blayden, USGenevieve Dion, CanadaYukiko Echigo, JapanCatherine Ellis, USMichelle Griffiths, UKMarie-Helen Guelton,FranceAna Lisa Hedstrom, USKaei Hayakawa, JapanMie Iwatsubo, JapanTrine Mauritz-Eriksen,NorwayJoan Morris, US

This mutual process can be seen working well in Japan, where a strongtradition of skilled craftsmanship has a significant impact on the fashionindustry, particularly in the development of fabrics. Japanese designers areproducing some of the most exciting advances in the creative manipulationof textiles, thanks to the application of ancient crafts to modern materials.

Shibori

Shibori practitioners in particular are providing a real dynamism in textiledesign.

The Shibori Symposium is an example of how craft skills can proliferateand inspire the design community. Held in Harrogate, UK, this was the firstever event in Europe (following previous events held in Japan, India andChile).

The two-day event, with presentations and workshops by internationalshibori artists and designers, finished with an Art to Wear fashion show.Distinctly theatrical, the show was bright, colourful and eye-catching, withclothes that would certainly make an impact and are fun to wear.

Yoshiko Wada, who spearheads the Shibori Symposium, is also a drivingforce behind the growing worldwide shibori movement. It was Wada,spanning east and west, who first introduced Asian textile resist techniquesinto the US some time ago (which have since spread internationally)through her books, exhibitions and lectures.

Serenely diminutive, with a quiet but positive enthusiasm, Wada has alsodone much to encourage the research into new ways of applying thisancient art using modern materials and dyes.

Shibori is the Japanese word for a wide variety of methods, includingfolding, stitching and clamping to resist the dye, shaping andsecuring cloth before dyeing.

There is no single English word that covers the multitude of shibori effectsand techniques.

The root of the word literally means “to wring, twist, and press”, explainsWada in her book Memory On Cloth. It describes “shaped, resist dyeing”, aprocess of manipulating cloth that, when dyed, leaves the reserved areasrecorded as patterns or three-dimensional shapes.

Kaei Hayakawa, JapanMie Iwatsubo, JapanTrine Mauritz-Eriksen,NorwayJoan Morris, USAditi Ranjan, IndiaJay Rich, USKaren Urbanek, USYoshiko Wada, USJudith Whyte, Nigeria

The Symposium wassponsored by CreativeExhibitions Ltd(organizers of the Knittingand Stitching Show), andthe World ShiboriNetwork (WSN)

More information onShibori:

World Shibori Networkwww.shibori.org

Memory on Cloth: ShiboriNowBy Yoshiko IwamotoWadaPublished in 2002 byKodansha International

Shibori: The Inventive Artof Japanese ShapedResist Dyeingby Wada, Rice andBartonPublished by KodanshaInternational Limited.

The fabric is given a three-dimensional form by the folding, crumpling,stitching, plaiting or twisting, rather than being only two-dimensional. Thememory of the shape it is tied or stitched into is thus recorded in the cloth.

Genevieve Dion

There is a strong emphasis on the process itself that, together with theraw materials, creates the effects, which cannot be exactly repeated. Acharacteristic of shibori resist is the soft blurred edge to the pattern, aneffect that is quite different to a drawn pattern.

The dyer working with the raw materials allows the materials to find theirown expression rather than forcing it. And an element of the unexpectedis always there – chance and hundreds of miniscule accidents can bring aspecial magic.

But crucially today, the techniques to create these absolutely individualpatterns can be created through automation, without manualintervention, bringing them into the world of production.

Polyester is probably the most important modern fibre for creativetreatment. Its ability to shrink when heat is applied is the essential factor forcreativity - a quality that can be used to build dimensional effects andtextures in a fabric.

Mie Iwatsubo

Many designers include polyester in their collections because of itsversatility. Polyester raw material can be made into any shape of fibre toform any number of variations in the final fabric. Transparent, fragilelooking fabrics can be strong and durable, flexible, light-reflective, heat-retaining - and much else.

Blends create new looks and textures, each fibre imparting differentproperties to the final fabric. Microfibres have made them lighter and morebreathable.

Synthetic fibres and fabrics have come a long way since the days whenthey were seen as cheap substitutes for natural fibres. Many of the lesspleasant qualities experienced in wearing synthetics have been eliminated,making them much more comfortable to wear and easier to care for.

The electro-static problem is controllable – in Issey Miyake’s fabrics, forexample, by the addition of minute amounts of metal woven into the fabric.

Mie Iwatsubo

Shibori artists and designers

• Among the artists demonstrating their craft at the symposium,Genevieve Dion from Canada showed how she transforms Gunma silk(woven in the Gunma district of Japan) into the most delicate yet robust,fluid pleated fabrics, with a natural elasticity. Woven from high-twist S andZ twisted silk filaments, the still-gummed silk is shaped using a variety ofstitch resist techniques, so that the effects will be created whendegumming takes place.

The degumming causes the fabric to shrink because of its over spunnature. In unprotected areas, permanent pleating occurs, while theremaining stitch resisted and protected areas become textured. Using anumber of techniques gives different results. For instance creatinghorizontal pleats across vertical pleats, forces the long pleats to flare.

• Mie Iwatsubo from Japan mixes traditional with contemporarytechniques, knitting wool and silk, which she felts using stitch techniques.Knitting in eyelet stitch patterns, the fabrics naturally pleat when dyed andfelted. These are made into a range of distinctive accessories, scarves andbags.

• Kaei Hayakawa, leader of the Shibori Community in Japan and foundingmember of the World Shibori Network, utilises the shibori process in arange of products, from clothing (working with fashion designers includingYohji Yamamoto and Hiroko Koshino) to solid, hard sculpture.

Kaei Hayakawa

member of the World Shibori Network, utilises the shibori process in arange of products, from clothing (working with fashion designers includingYohji Yamamoto and Hiroko Koshino) to solid, hard sculpture.

His more recent work involved exploration of shibori artistry in the largerenvironment, translating shibori techniques on fabric into more rigidmaterials, glass, aluminium and even concrete. Examples in concrete canbe seen in the architectural installations at the railway station in Arimatsu,Nagoya, Japan.

• Catherine Ellis from the US has developed a method of weaving thestitching threads into the cloth, which are drawn up before dyeing, toproduce the intricate patterns. With a cotton or wool warp and polyesterweft, the resulting pleated patterns are permanent. She also uses felt resistpaste (sodium alginate) so that only the unprotected parts will felt whenwashed or dyed, creating differential tension to create 3-D effects in thefabric.• Yukiko Echigo is an extraordinarily inventive engineer and aperfectionist. Using traditional origami techniques, she stitches into thefabric and dyes in indigo, harnessing the natural force of oxidisation inindigo dyeing to produce her extraordinary patterns on cotton.

Yukiko Echigo