Atelier Shimura Fukumi Silk Scarf

100% Silk · Textile Design by Fukumi Shimura

• 01 Patterns taken from cloth fragments hand-woven over 70 years
• 02 Plant-dyed colors of the original cloth, reproduced in print on silk
• 03 A generous 35-inch square, each finished by hand

A silk scarf that carries the colors of plants

Tied at the neck or draped over the shoulders, a single square of this scarf brings deep, plant-derived color to whatever you wear. Each design is taken from a small piece of hand-woven, plant-dyed cloth and reproduced in print on lustrous 100% silk.

Designs drawn from Fukumi Shimura's hand-woven fragments

Fukumi Shimura, born in 1924, is a textile artist and essayist. In 1990 she was designated a Living National Treasure — the holder of an Important Intangible Cultural Property recognized by the Japanese government — for tsumugi, a hand-woven silk cloth made from yarn spun from silk floss. Over some 70 years of dyeing yarn with plants and weaving it by hand, she has kept the small leftover pieces of cloth, known in Japanese as kogire. Each scarf in this collection reproduces one of those fragments.

100% silk, finished by hand one scarf at a time

The scarf is made from carefully selected silk with a soft sheen, and skilled craftspeople finish each one by hand. At 35.4 inches square, it is large enough to wrap loosely around the neck or drape over the shoulders.

Ayamegusa — a check pattern in gromwell purple

A check pattern built on the deep purple of shikon, a dye made from the root of the gromwell plant. Ayamegusa is an old Japanese name for sweet flag (Acorus calamus). The word ayame is said to combine aya, "pattern," and me, "eye" — a trace of how people once saw the plant's neatly aligned leaves as a woven design.

Suo Yokojima — horizontal stripes in sappanwood crimson

Horizontal stripes (yokojima) built on the strong red of suō, a dye taken from sappanwood. atelier shimura regards this deep crimson as the summit of color — the red that emerges when blue and yellow are each heightened and brought together.

Odamaki — green from yellow and indigo

Yellow dyed with kariyasu grass, gardenia and the bark of the Amur cork tree, overlaid with indigo to create layered shades of green. Odamaki is the Japanese name for columbine: the flower was named after a spool of ramie thread, which its shape resembles.

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Specifications

Material: 100% silk
Size: 35.4 × 35.4 in (900 × 900 mm)
Colorways: Ayamegusa (purple) / Suo Yokojima (crimson) / Odamaki (green)
Textile design: Fukumi Shimura
Maker: atelier shimura
Made in Japan