A Beautiful Length of Zanshi Ori: Cohesive Kasuri Passages

early twentieth century
61" x 13 1/2", 155 cm x 34 cm

Zanshi ori is cloth that is woven from threads either leftover from home production of yarn making, or from broken threads that were purchased from local commercial weavers.  Usually the weft is fed with these random threads while generally the warp is regulated producing an irregular horizontal 'striping'; if home threads are used, knotted slubs can often be seen.

In this case, on this beautifully textured and colored length of zanshi ori we see fixed, warp-based white stripes. Against this is fed random, leftover weft yarns which create erratic bands of striping going up the length of the cloth.

One of the most alluring things about the random bands of striping that travel up the length of the cloth is that there are passages where leftover kasuri or ikat yarns come together to form a pattern, in effect these areas are moments of order within chaos.

Seeing these passages of weaving "clarity" amid the randomness of the rest of the length is a visual delight.

This is a very good looking length of zanshi ori in still good, used condition.