by Jun Homma
Quite some time ago, I bought two pieces of fabric offcuts from a kimono shop. These were the remainders from obi sashes.
Attracted by the vivid colours and patterns, I bought the material with no clear idea of what I would make with it. I hung it on the side of the bookshelf in my study.
The pieces are artificial silk but they are designed to seem like real silk Nishijin-ori brocade which is found in luxury kimonos or obi sashes. The gold and silver threads are woven to create abstract patterns. Other ways to weave silk include Chirimen crepe with a very fine, uneven surface that is pleasant to the touch, and Tsumugi pongee whose strong fabric is made from waste silk cocoons. Tsuzure-ori meanwhile has a thick silk weave with artistic picturesque patterns seen on wall hangings and the long drop curtains in theatres.
Offcuts of these silk and artificial silk weaves provide excellent material for handicraft enthusiasts. Pouches, handbags, cushion covers, corsages, hair ornaments, kimonos for dolls and small stuffed animals with unique ethnic fabric patterns. Some people sew patchwork tablecloths, luncheon mats and tapestries, others, small stuffed objects and hanging from threads. These mobiles celebrate New Year celebrations and the annual Girls’ Festival on 3rd March. Also popular is the remaking older kimonos into western style outfits.
I bought my material from a kimono tailoring shop. It closed quite a long time ago, when made-to-order kimonos, which used to be worn as everyday dress, went out of fashion.
My father, who was born in 1926, talks of his younger days in the countryside. The school uniform was cotton kimonos and clogs. He was the only one among his primary school classmates to wear Western clothes and shiny shoes. He recalls the embarrassment of standing out in this way.
His family ran a filature, a place where silk is extracted from silkworm cocoons. These cocoons were bought from farmers round about and the silk yarn sent to the port of Yokohama for overseas markets.
After the Great Depression, international sales of Japanese silk yarns suddenly dropped. The local filatures went bankrupt and eventually disappeared along with the mulberry fields. A few Japanese silk mills were able to survive by installing advanced automatic reeling machines instead of employing female labourers. My father told me that the accounts of his family’s factory were mixed with the household accounts and used freely, so no depreciation was possible.
The family fell into such financial difficulty that my father was on the verge of leaving education all together, until his grandfather somehow secured the tuition fees. Secondary grade education near home was focused on specialist agriculture and not his hoped-for preparation for university. Excellent grades caused my father to be selected as a special student, reducing the burden of tuition fees. However, the family’s continuing financial difficulties affected his transfer to university, and as events of the Second World War went against Japan, his studies were further interrupted by labour mobilisation. Students including my father were mobilised as trainee soldiers, but this was less than three months before the war would end.
In the chaotic post-war period he took and passed the National Civil Service exam and was employed by the National Personnel Authority, where he ended up studying the job classification system. On retirement, he set up a business based on his university study. He is proud of this achievement but there remains a nagging regret that, as the heir of the proprietor, he was not able to re-establish the family’s silk business. Times had moved on, however, and the days of Japan’s silk industry were over. It seems to me, that my father had chosen a business career that suited him relatively well, which he had achieved through his own efforts.
Eighty years have passed since the end of the war. The Japanese lifestyle has rapidly westernised, or rather, Americanised. Much has changed compared to when my father was a child.
I have never seen a pupil wearing a kimono to school. Even when I was a teenager there was a tendency to view traditional clothing disparagingly. Seen as old-fashioned, it was only when Japan gained economic confidence that the cultural value of the kimono was reassessed. By then, however, silk kimonos had become a luxury item worn only on special occasions.
The coming-of-age ceremony in Japan is an opportunity to dress in traditional attire. Groups of young ladies wearing furisodes gather at ceremonies organised by each local authority. Most young women do not want to miss this rare opportunity, although few young males are interested in wearing haori and hakama, the formal attire for them. Suits are now the norm.
Some of the young women buy new furisodes and obi sashes for the day, others inherit the garments from their mothers. Still others, like my daughter, buy them from second-hand kimono shops. The majority opt for rental. Rental kimonos and obi are reasonably priced, and the time and worry of cleaning after use is reduced, so these shops thrive today. While artificial silk kimonos and obi are reasonably priced, real silk kimonos are in high demand for the quality of their print, colours, design, texture and lustre. For a wrapped furisode not to come loose during wear, a stiff obi is tightly wound round the body and tied in a three-dimensional form. This is a specialist skill. Beauty salons offering kimono dressing services with hair setting are fully booked on the ceremonial days.
After repeatedly wear, rental kimonos and obis end up on the reused clothes market or are re-made as offcuts sold in fabric shops and online. I like to window shopping online for kimono offcuts and imagine what could be made from the material.
As I look at the two pieces of kimono offcuts in my study I wonder about sewing some Barbie evening dresses. But I hesitate, because I also feel it would be a shame to apply scissors to these beautiful weaves. And, I wonder if my sewing skills will be up to it.
(Copyright Jun Homma, 2026)
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NOTES by the writer:
The top photograph shows two pieces of 70 cm x 50 cm offcuts in my study. Each package is printed as “Obi fabric. 100% rayon with gold and silver thread”. The weave on the right has a flowing water pattern designed with swirling curves, scattered with three types of plants, pine branches, bamboo leaves and plum blossoms on it, woven into the design. Streaming water is an auspicious pattern of removing dirt, while the set of three types of plants, evergreens and flower bloom in early spring, are a celebratory pattern symbolising strength to endure the cold of harsh winter. The weave on the left is not a traditional design, probably based on the artist’s contemporary taste.
The bottom photograph shows some traditional handicrafts made of offcuts in my house. The dolls’ kimonos and artificial Chilimen cushion covers are my mother’s work. She enjoyed sewing in between her busy civil servant duties, often making dresses for herself and me. I admit to rarely putting the sewing skills I learned at school to use as she did. A padded cloth picture in the frame is made by my mother-in-law. The mobiles are my father’s souvenirs from Shizuoka for his granddaughter.
The furisode is a formal kimono for young unmarried women, characterized by long sleeves extending to the feet, worn with a thick obi tied in a variety of ways at the back.
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