Silk Fabric Shibori in Red and White

This is a piece of fabric from a kimono bolt in a wine red color with white accents. The shibori is finely done and very detailed, and this was a hand dyed technique that was used. Spots of the white silk shows through, and this is what forms the leaf design running up and down the fabric. The silk used is crisp and dense and high quality.

Size:

• Width : 13"

• Length : 43"

Detailed Design and Technique Notes

Shibori is what we in the West know as tie-die but, as with so very many things, the Japanese textile artisans excel at it and their version is usually intricate, extremely precise, of great skill and very time consuming to create. In Japan it is considered a highly prized textile. Shibori garments are incredibly expensive and much revered. An elaborate, entirely shibori kimono can take a whole year to make and the cost is therefore exorbitant. There are machine done shibori fabric now, but they are easy to spot, especially as the dots it creates are very regular (it is still rather expensive, though), and one sometimes sees prints done to look like shibori but they are completely flat, without the creped texture that the real thing has.

For use in traditional haori or kimono making, a shibori bolt is steam ironed before tailoring into a garment. If the silk is intended to be used as an obiage, the crepe texture is retained.