1 Introduction

As an old establishment among the Nishijin-Ori fabric producers Kano-ko Co., Ltd. has passed traditional skills producing diverse products and elaborate expressions through the 30 cm width fabric used in Obi (Sash for Japanese traditional kimono) down to the current generations. However, as its ability for expression through weaving advanced we faced the limitation due to constrain of 30 cm fabric width. In addition, fabrics with 30 cm width could not be adopted for other products, such as interior decoration or western clothing, which was a problem for its business. Therefore, Kano-ko has been investigating for over several decades the necessity of producing fabric with 100 cm width and above, maximum 150 cm, through its unique weaving technique. But there was hardly any past example of weaving wide fabric using Nishijin technique other than for obi fabric. As knowhow could not be learnt from existing product, engagement with a completely new endeavor was necessary.

Even though we have been weaving 30 cm fabric using shuttle looms for several decades, the fact we never produced wide fabric meant we did not own adequate loom for its production, and it was necessary to start from finding new power loom and weavers. Our first attempt was to modify the loom used in Nishijin to produce neckties. However, in order to weave 150 cm width using the loom with 50 cm by 3 Kama (Kama is the unit used for the pattern contained in the cloth width of patterned fabric) required major modification on the loom such as filling the gaps of fabric between each Kama. The weavers who were using the looms felt it to be an excessive demand. In addition, the aging weavers were extremely reluctant to explore the new challenge in order to produce new type of fabric, leading the project to come to a dead end. For the weavers who have been producing neckties, it was more important to focus on the daily order for neckties, which brings them modest but stable income, than to develop and produce a new innovative fabric.

In order to find a new loom, we expanded our search area to Tango, which is a textile producing town in the northern part of Kyoto. After requesting help from the Tango Textile Industry Association, we discovered a textile production company that possesses looms of every possible width. However, its process and technique was very different from Nishijin style, and its location meant 2 h travel by car between Nishijin and Tango and consequently difficulty in communication, it was not possible in the beginning to prepare environment for starting the production of textile we were searching for.

On the other hand, the demand of market, for instance from apparel makers who use the fabric, began to overtake the preparation of production, and we started to receive requests to use the textile that has not been produced yet because the customer valued the idea. This was the beginning of adoption of our textile to clothes and bags by JUNKO KOSHINO brand run by Ms. Junko Koshino.

In Kyoto, there were many events celebrating 400 years of Rimpa (Rimpa School: one of the major historical schools of Japanese painting) in 2015. Among them was a large event co-sponsored by Kyoto Prefecture and Kyoto City. As a part of large Rimpa exhibition at Kyoto National Museum, a large-scale fashion show produced by Ms. Junko Koshino with invited guests celebrating the 400 years anniversary of Rimpa was being planned. They were looking for fabric to be used for this fashion show. But Ms. Koshino was demanding a fabric that realizes unprecedented bold color and depth. As such textile cannot be found among existing products, they approached the textile business department of Kano-ko.

Therefore, in order to participate in the fashion show of Ms. Junko Koshino, it became necessary to rapidly advance on the production system of wide fabric. Ms. Koshino was wishing for Kanze Water Flow pattern, which is the signature pattern of Rimpa, Rabbit Ear Iris and Thousand Cranes patterns of Ogata Korin and Ivy pattern of Tawaraya Sotatsu.

2 Method

For the realization of these patterns, Kano-ko developed method to produce fabric with 120 cm width. When using rapier loom with 20 cm by 6 Kama, it is not possible to produce expressive fabric that contains our best techniques, we employed shuttle loom with 60 cm by 2 Kama. As it was proven to be possible to realize the effect of blur or shading, which are characteristics of Obi pattern by Kano-ko, environment to start test production was gradually prepared through meetings with weavers, modification and maintenance of looms, revisions of pattern designs (design drawing) which are crucial in Nishijin weaving, and other countless attempts.

The design proposal from the design office required the fabric to express thickness, shading, vivid contrast, crispness, volume and weight, meaning very high standard was demanded on the fabric production. It is common in contemporary Obi production that the parts that are not visible are made cheaply as many expressions has to be included in affordable textile. However, it is absolutely impossible to achieve the innovative fabric with luxurious appearance required by the design office. Therefore, a traditional Nishijin technique called Baikoshi was adopted.

Black lines are base weft threads, red and blue lines are pattern weft threads. Normally, one pattern weft follows one base weft. Here, by weaving in 2 pattern weft threads (they are shown as red and blue in diagram but the same color in reality) after each base weft, it results in more vivid textile (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Weaving structure diagram of Baikoshi technique

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Baikoshi is a technique that weaves in 2 (or 3) pattern weft threads after each base weft thread in order to make weave less visible and produce more volume [1]. As it demands considerable amount of work, it is rarely employed today even in Nishijin. But it is also essential for expressing impressive shading, volume and color contrast, it was decided to include Baikoshi technique in the newly developed wide fabric. Through this, black did not appear on surface when weaving blue pattern weft with black warp, showing sharp and vivid blue, resulting in a beautiful fabric as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2.
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Example of Baikoshi technique

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Figure 2 shows an example of design by Junko Koshino woven into a fabric by Kano-ko. Commonly, fabric with pattern that has such subtle blur is produced as print, and even then it is difficult to produce this much sense of depth. In the case of this fabric, blue and silver wefts are woven into black warp. With normal weaving, blue woven with black appears as though the black base color comes through blue, resulting in less sharp blue. The same goes for silver. However, when Baikoshi technique is used, no matter what is the color of warp, base color black appears as black, and any color woven into it will clearly appear as the color of weft without being influenced by the color of warp. This results in superior fabric where the color of weft is vividly expressed. In other words, the color of weft is emphasized by repeating each color twice as in black → sliver → silver → blue → blue.

This is a traditional technique passed on in Nishijin, and not invented by Kano-ko. However, in view of the sever decline in the number of weaver that maintain traditional skill, an attempt to produce fabric that incorporate the top-level techniques of wide twill weave and Baikoshi that are suitable for high-class fabric is extremely rare in the textile industry. For product produced for clothing, it is safe to say this was the first of such production.

Moreover, the wide fabric released this time faithfully reproduced the subtle coloring and atmosphere of original Japanese paintings, which is characteristic of Nishijin-Ori, making it perfect for costume that expressed Rimpa produced to commemorate its 400 years anniversary.

In fact, when seeing the fabric produced by Kano-ko which satisfied the demands other fabric maker could not fulfill, Ms. Koshino said, “I was surprised that they were much closer to my image than I expected”, proving that our techniques are surprising even for contemporary apparel makers to whom new things are rarely produced.

3 Result

As yield rate improved by repeating production, we conducted various tests in order to move toward mass production. We used our normally produced Obi fabric as comparison object. Below is the result of this quality inspection.

  • Date of Inspection: The 21st of December 2015

  • Inspection Subjects: Degree of Color-Fastness/Physical/Performance

  • Inspection Institute: General Incorporated Foundation, Kaken Test Center Kyoto Laboratory

Tables 1 and 2 show the result of quality inspection. In the quality inspection test result, among the degree of color-fastness, it either tied to or slightly below the standard number on the degree of color-fastness in JIS0844 A-1 type washing and laundering and the degree of color-fastness to perspiration in JIS0848. Threshold is 2–3, and the gray background cells denote better performance than the comparison object. Table 3 shows the inspection result and differences in relation to the standard number.

Table 1. Result of quality inspection (Physical)
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Table 2. Result of quality inspection (Durability / Physical)
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Table 3. The inspection result and differences in relation to the standard number
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However, in case of wool or silk product, it is not considered low-quality if it satisfies 2–3 level. Moreover, the usage of this fabric will be limited to luxury clothing and accessories, meaning heavy-duty factors are not required. It can be concluded that its overall quality perfectly satisfies the standard for usage as textile.

4 Future Challenge

The next challenge is to apply Hikibaku technique, which is the ultimate skill in luxury Obi of Nishijin, to complete wide woven fabric using leather. In the limited field of Obi, it is extremely rare to use anything for woven structure itself other than silk, gold or silver thread, or special paper for Hikibaku. However, in the category of decorative products which is the target of wide fabric, leather is a dominant material, leading us not only to explore the combination of fabric and leather, but also to think if we could turn leather into woven fabric, it would become an ideal material. Moreover, by combining this material with gold and silver thread or silk, we hypothesized that it would produce an unprecedented new material.

Hikibaku is a weaving technique that applies Japanese lacquer on Japanese paper made from mulberry tree or oriental paperbush, scatter gold and silver leaves on it, cut it in strips and weave them into a fabric. Our challenge was to weave in leather strips instead of paper strips.

Leather textile that weaves leather strips already exists. However, our challenge is to weave in pattern in this leather textile. This meant instead of printing on leather, pattern is produced through weaving. We know that it is theoretically possible, but it is predicted to be extremely difficult in reality.

If one cuts leather into thin strips and weaves them into fabric, the surface of leather will be hidden by the structure of warp, losing the characteristic texture of leather and will appear as ordinary thread. That does not make an attractive textile. On the other hand, if one uses thick leather strips, it will emphasize the texture of leather but it will also make the weaving pattern rough. Therefore, in order to fully utilize the benefit of leather, the thickness of the strips must be perfectly controlled.

In order to achieve accomplished weaving in leather Hikibaku, we started from weaving Obi fabric with 30 cm width. After long trial, the experienced weaver managed to weave this leather Hikibaku. However, even though Nishijin weaving in unrivaled in its skill for 30 cm width fabric, in order for the fabric to be accepted in the world, it needs at least 1 m width, demanding a totally different approach in everything including threads weavers are not familiar with, new loom, novel weaving structure and Hikibaku technique. For instance, the weaver never makes mistake in the order of Hikibaku strips or its front/back sides when producing 30 cm fabrics. But this occurred when producing 1 m fabrics. Or, each time changing the density of warp and weft, thickness or type of thread, the fabric yield decreased. Solving these problem required time.

Originally, Hikibaku is a technique employed in order to make fabric appear as though gold leaf is applied on its surface, giving it formal character. Its appearance resembled golden folding screen turned into fabric. Golden folding screen is an art form that applies gold leaf on partition wooden boards and painting on them. Formal Obi using Hikibaku technique is made from weaving thin strips of paper with gold leaf into fabric, then producing pattern by using gold and silver thread for weft, giving it an artwork-like appearance.

Now, among the techniques nurtured in Nishijin, there is a method that gives Hikibaku its optimal appearance. In order to understand this, it is necessary to know the basic structure and texture. That is the difference between plain weave, which is the simplest woven fabric, and twill weave, which is luxurious fabric. Plain weave has the warp : weft ratio of 1:1. If one weaves simply with plain weave, weft obscures the Hikibaku strips and it will not appear on the surface of the fabric. Meanwhile, twill weave has 2:1 ratio of Warp and weft, meaning if one uses Hikibaku technique on it, it has even more warp than plain weave, further sinking Hikibaku into the fabric structure. Therefore, another, about 2/3 thinner, thread aside from warp and weft is woven in us upper layer in order to bind the Hikibaku strips, resulting in vivid appearance of Hikibaku on the surface of fabric. This extra warp is called Betsugarami (Separate entwinement). This means that when using leather instead of normal Japanese paper strips in Hikibaku weaving, it becomes essential to bind the leather Hikibaku with this extra Betsugarami binding warp in order to maximize the material texture of leather. This is a highly specialized process. It is possible only by weavers who mastered Hikibaku technique, and not many textile makers even in Nishijin can produce it.

Fabric using Betsugarami exists for a long time. But as it requires excessive work and cost, and as it is a technique that emphasizes the expression rather than durability of the product that results in delicate textile, it became a declining technique. However, it is an ideal method for weaving depth and limitless expression in fabric with mere 30 cm width. By frequently employing this method, Kano-ko has realized the opulence and beauty radically different from the products of other makers (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3.
figure 3

Structure of Betsugarami technique [2]

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Loom that can produce gold brocade fabric for formal Kimono with 1 m width did exist before. But in reality, for producing high-quality fabric, there are only looms for producing 30 cm width fabric, and weavers who possess skill to produce 30 cm width fabric. For instance, loom that weaves low-grade textile has only very short distance between warp beam and cloth fell (suspension), meaning its hold of warp is inadequate and it is more difficult to entwine weft with warp. Furthermore, there are virtually no weavers who weave Hikibaku for wide fabric. Therefore, machine setting for weaving with Hikibaku or knowhow for precise weaving are critically lacking.

Moreover, when weaving Hikibaku into Obi fabric, the movement of loom / weaver is only within 30 cm, but when weaving Hikibaku in wide fabric, it requires 3 times more movement, demanding considerable energy. Even though younger weavers are more fit and have more energy, because they do not have experience in hand-weaving Hikibaku, they make mistakes such as using wrong side of the strip or mixing up thread order. On the other hand, this process requires too much physical burden for older, experienced weavers. Thus, it was extremely difficult to find a weaver who has enough experience but still physically fit. Consequently, it resulted in long-term training of young weavers by experienced weavers, leading to succession of knowhow and future skill transfer.

5 Conclusion

Techniques of Nishjin-Ori were established through refinement after refinement since the 5th century. However, when it is not confined to Obi fabric but fused with a new platform, namely wide fabric, it is self-evident that it will show its strength in usages other than kimono. As the market for kimono, which exists only in Japan, continues to shrink, it is necessary to produce wide fabric that will be accepted in the world in order to pass on the Nishijin techniques. We believe that this is an important mission for us.

During the preparation of this paper, the fabric of Kano-ko was selected for the Maison D’exeption section, which only presents the companies with exceptional skills, of fabric fair Premiere Vision held at Paris, France. This presentation of our fabric drew interests from big fashion brands, and we intend to spread the charm and uniqueness of Nishjin-Ori to the world.