焔Maison HomuraShop
3035
五 · Cloth — Fukuoka

Hakata-ori

The obi that does not come undone. That is the whole reputation.

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Hakata-ori — Fukuoka
Fukuoka · Woven here since 1241

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.

Hakata-ori — from the left
From the left

None on the shelf right now. We find these one at a time. Leave your email and we will write the day a Hakata-ori arrives — nothing else.

On the shelf now, from other workshops

Not this story's piece: new work from Japan's workshops that can be ordered today.

See every new piece
If you would like one

Would you like one like this?

Pieces like this come and go, and most of what the house finds never goes online.

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How it works
  1. Write to the house. A person in Fukuoka replies, usually within a day or two.
  2. When a piece is agreed, the house sends you a private payment link, and you pay by card.
  3. It ships from Japan.

Find one like this

Pick a budget and who it is for — that is enough. We write back with photographs, condition and a price.

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Hakata-ori — at the workshop
At the workshop
How it is made
  1. 糸染めItozome

    Silk thread is dyed first. Nothing is printed on afterwards.

  2. 整経Seikei

    Thousands of warp threads are laid — far more than an ordinary cloth needs.

  3. 製織Seishoku

    The weft is beaten hard into the dense warp, so the pattern is raised.

  4. 仕上げShiage

    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.

Hakata-ori — from the right
From the right
Walk around it
Hakata-ori — FrontHakata-ori — LeftHakata-ori — BackHakata-ori — Right
Notes
Fibre
Silk, yarn-dyed before weaving
The pattern
Dokko and hanazara — ritual implements, not flowers
Why kenjō
Sent to the shogun as tribute from 1600
The test
A knot that holds all day
About the place

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.

Hakata · Papier-mâché toys →Ask us to find one →The Southern Islands · By region →

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