Shibori: an ancient art now revamped and revisited
This photo shows a shibori scarf produced by Eskayel, a design firm based in New York. The home-design purveyor is creating the look of shibori patterns using ink, water and watercolors, followed by digital printing techniques.
Hiroyuki Murase’s family has produced shibori fabrics for generations in Japan. Murase has founded the Germany-based Suzusan firm, which produces shibori shawls, award-winning lighting called Luminaires, and custom fabrics for high-end fashion designers like Christian Dior and Lacoste.
This photo shows the technique of making Tesuji Shibori after it’s dyed. Hiroyuki Murase, is the creative director at the Dusseldorf-based Suzusan and the 5th generation of a shibori-making family, that exemplifies both the 3-D possibilities of shibori and the bridge between traditional and new. Shibori, an ancient Japanese resist-dyeing technique, involves tying, stitching, or folding fabric in specific ways, then dyeing it. The stitching is then cut away, leaving patterns where the dye was not allowed to penetrate the fabric.
A OriShibori leather wall hanging. From tablecloths to duvet covers, iPhone cases to wallpaper and startling calf-skin wall hangings, the ancient Japanese resist-dying technique of shibori has gone mainstream. Vera Wang, Ralph Lauren, Eileen Fisher, Levi’s and innumerable fiber artists are breathing new life into the craft.
This photo shows Temawashigumo Shibori. The fabric once bound, sewed or otherwise manipulated, takes on a sculptural, three-dimensional, form.
OriShibori pillows. Oriana DiNella, who recently launched her own Web-based shibori line, OriShibori.com, including linen tableware, pillows and throws, and large leather wall hangings, are all made to order and hand-dyed in organic indigo.
Shibori lamp shades from the Suzusan Luminaires collection, Shizuku.
A OriShibori tablecloth, runner and napkin on a table.
Rolls of shibori fabric produced by Eskayel, a design firm based in New York. The home-design purveyor is creating the look of shibori patterns using ink, water and watercolors, followed by digital printing techniques.
NEW YORK – From tablecloths to duvet covers, iPhone cases to wallpaper and startling calf-skin wall hangings, the ancient Japanese resist-dying technique of shibori has gone mainstream. Vera Wang, Ralph Lauren, Eileen Fisher, Levi’s and innumerable fiber artists are breathing new life into the craft.
“The stillness and beauty of it really centers me,” said Oriana DiNella, who recently launched her own Web-based shibori line, including linen tableware, pillows and throws — and large leather wall hangings — all made to order and hand-dyed in organic indigo.
“It feels like a rebellion against the fashion movement, where everything seems so fast and disposable,” the New York-based designer explained.
Shibori is slow. It takes time, and has been around since about the 8th century.
The word comes from the Japanese shiboru, meaning “to wring, squeeze or press.”
The technique involves twisting, tying, crumpling, stitching or folding fabric – usually silk or cotton – in various ways, transforming the two-dimensional material into a sculptural, three-dimensional form. This sculptural shape is then traditionally dyed, originally using indigo, although a huge variety of colors and dyes are now used. Sometimes, the same fabric is then twisted in some other way and then dyed again. When the wrappings are removed, the folds and creases where the fabric resisted the dye form distinctive crinkled textures and patterns.
A sort of “memory on cloth,” Shibori also encompasses Issey Miyake’s revolutionary pleated clothing, fulling and felting, and other methods of transforming natural fabrics into 3-D shapes.
The work of Hiroyuki Murase exemplifies both the 3-D possibilities of shibori and the bridge between traditional and new. Murase grew up in Arimatsu, Japan, where shibori has been done using traditional techniques for 400 years. Today, his array of Luminaires lampshades and haute couture fabrics, designed for the likes of Christian Dior, are the cutting edge of modern shibori.
Murase’s family company, Suzusan, was founded there a century ago and has designed shibori fabrics for Miyake and other designers. Murase founded and is creative director at a separate company by the same name, Suzusan, in Dusseldorf, Germany.
But shibori is still most widely thought of as a sort of tie-dyeing.
Today’s incarnations are as different from their early Japanese predecessors as they are from the wild, tie-dyed pieces that became emblematic of the ’60s and ’70s.
There’s a sense of timelessness and calm to the modern shibori pieces, and also a renewed focus on workmanship and functionality.
“I love the bleeds, the fluidity of it. I love how the light shades of indigo can be so pale and watery and the navies can be such a deep, deep blue,” DiNella said.
Compared to the tie-dyes of a generation ago, she said, today’s shibori-inspired works feature patterns that are more careful, deliberate and traditional.
For those inclined to take on do-it-yourself projects, shibori has never been more accessible. It can be done easily at home using minimal equipment.
Despite widespread interest in shibori in the West, “we are still concerned with its survival in Japan,” explained Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, the organization’s president and co-founder.
“There used to be thousands and thousands of artists working on this. Now there are not so many people doing it using traditional techniques,” said Wada.
“Adapting shibori to something contemporary is the key to its survival,” she said. “When the big designers come out with it and young artists take it in new directions, then more people here and in Japan start to pay attention.”