Twelve layers of court robe between them, and not one visible stitch on either.
In the 1730s a carpenter at the Kamo shrine in Kyoto carved a small figure out of leftover willow wood, cut grooves in it, and tucked scraps of the shrine’s brocade into the grooves. No stitching, no visible edge. The dolls were called Kamo dolls, and the technique travelled to Edo.
The body is not carved. It is moulded from paulownia sawdust bound with paste — tōso — which takes a groove cleanly and holds it. Then the cloth is pressed in, edge by edge, with a spatula. The verb is kimekomu, to push into place, and the craft is named after the verb rather than after the doll.
The body is moulded from paulownia sawdust and paste, not carved from a block.
Fine grooves are cut where every edge of cloth will disappear.
Cloth is pressed into the grooves with a spatula. This is the whole craft, and its name.
The face is painted last, with a brush of a few hairs.
What it means in the hand is that a kimekomi doll has no seams, no stitches and no hem anywhere on it. The clothes look worn rather than sewn.
The face goes on last, with a brush of a few hairs, and it is the part that decides whether the whole thing is any good.
A pair like this comes out for the third of March and goes away again within days. The rule that they must be put away promptly, or the daughter of the house will marry late, is superstition. It is also the reason sets of hina dolls survive three generations.
City work, not village work. Edo papier-mâché was made in the back streets for people who lived in rented rooms and had no space for anything large.
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.