Journal
Essays on Japanese textile history, craft, and the culture of ceremonial silk — alongside guides to caring for and living with ceremonial silk objects.
Welcome to The Silk Journal
There are objects in the world that carry more than beauty. A length of hand-woven silk, folded away in a Japanese tansu chest for fifty years. A Fukuro Obi that...
Welcome to The Silk Journal
There are objects in the world that carry more than beauty. A length of hand-woven silk, folded away in a Japanese tansu chest for fifty years. A Fukuro Obi that...
The Pillow That Remembers
The pieces that arrive at Renaras come from Japanese estates. Silk of this age and provenance has qualities nothing new can imitate: a depth of colour synthetic dyes cannot reach,...
The Pillow That Remembers
The pieces that arrive at Renaras come from Japanese estates. Silk of this age and provenance has qualities nothing new can imitate: a depth of colour synthetic dyes cannot reach,...
The Wardrobe That Holds $220 Billion Worth of F...
There is a wardrobe somewhere in Kyoto — cedar-lined, the way the old ones are — that has not been fully opened in twenty years. The woman who owned it...
The Wardrobe That Holds $220 Billion Worth of F...
There is a wardrobe somewhere in Kyoto — cedar-lined, the way the old ones are — that has not been fully opened in twenty years. The woman who owned it...
The Case for Lattice
Minimalist rooms have a specific vulnerability: they can tip from calm into cold. There is a threshold where "uncluttered" becomes "empty," where the eye, finding nothing to rest on, begins...
The Case for Lattice
Minimalist rooms have a specific vulnerability: they can tip from calm into cold. There is a threshold where "uncluttered" becomes "empty," where the eye, finding nothing to rest on, begins...
Two Runners in One
In Japanese aesthetics there is a concept called ura-omote — the hidden face and the visible face. Everything has both. The kimono's lining is as considered as its exterior. The...
Two Runners in One
In Japanese aesthetics there is a concept called ura-omote — the hidden face and the visible face. Everything has both. The kimono's lining is as considered as its exterior. The...
The Weight of Time
Pick up a piece of vintage Nishijin obi silk and you will notice the weight before you notice anything else. Not heaviness — it is silk, after all — but...
The Weight of Time
Pick up a piece of vintage Nishijin obi silk and you will notice the weight before you notice anything else. Not heaviness — it is silk, after all — but...