The obi that does not come undone. That is the whole reputation.
In 1235 a Hakata merchant named Mitsuda Yasozaemon sailed to Song China with the monk Enni Ben’en. He came back six years later with a way of weaving, and his family spent the next two centuries making it denser.
What they arrived at is a silk with an extraordinary number of warp threads and a thick weft beaten hard into them. The result is stiff, slightly ribbed, and it holds a knot. A Hakata obi creaks faintly as you tie it, and then it stays where you put it all day. Anyone who has worn kimono knows exactly how rare that is.
Silk thread is dyed first. Nothing is printed on afterwards.
Thousands of warp threads are laid — far more than an ordinary cloth needs.
The weft is beaten hard into the dense warp, so the pattern is raised.
Finished stiff. A Hakata obi creaks when it is tied, and then it does not slip.
From 1600 the Kuroda lords of Fukuoka sent a bolt of it to the shogun every year as tribute. The word for that offering is kenjō, and the striped pattern they sent — two Buddhist ritual implements repeated down the cloth — has been called kenjō ever since.
It is the craft of this city. We can walk to it.
The house is in Fukuoka, and Hakata is the older merchant half of it — the side of the river with the markets, the shrines and the workshops. Of everything in these rooms, this is the only craft made within walking distance.
Pieces are found one at a time, in Japan, and photographed before they are listed. Tell us what you are looking for, and we will write when something arrives that answers it.
We write when there is something to write about — some months twice, some months not at all.
Noted. We will write when something arrives.