A Length of Shirakage Shibori: Swooping Tatewaku

early twentieth century
50" x 12 1/2", 127 cm x 31.5 cm

This is an attractive length that shows a difficult shibori technique called shirakage: to create a design on cloth using this technique the artisan must hide all the undyed cloth and expose only what is intended to be dyed before immersing the entire bolt in the dye bath.

This requires tremendous skill and experience.

The pattern on this length is just great and fairly unusual. Its a swooping, meandering form of the traditional tatewaku pattern which is often rendered as undulating but parallel lines. These lines are not parallel and this in intentional.

This length is in good condition save for some ingrained creases from its former life as part of yukata or an unlined, summer kimono.

Very nice looking and quite unusual.

Recommended.