Look With Love noren

Japanese indigo noren made with the help of Fujisawa-san, a 3rd generation indigo and stencil master.

Noren are fabric dividers typically hung in the doorways of shops and restaurants in Japan but are also used to create new spaces in a room.

The process to create these noren was long and many staged and used only traditional indigo stencil and dyeing techniques. First I cut my design very carefully into a katagami (stencil) on special 7-layered paper. The katagami was then sent to an expert who applied layers of lacquer and a very fine mesh. Fujisawa san used the stencil to apply a rice resist paste to the fabric before various pre-treatments and eventually dyeing the fabric in a vat of natural, Japanese indigo.

Location: Tokyo, Japan
Year: 2019
Client: Personal project