Japanese Ceremonial Silk Table Placemats

Japanese ceremonial silk table placemats, reimagined from obi.

Renaras designs and reimagines existing Japanese ceremonial silk into contemporary pieces for daily life — this is our mottainai: the bringing of new imagination into a living tradition. Woven once for moments of significance, brought into the home with the same care that went into its making.

Each placemat in this collection is cut from a Japanese ceremonial silk obi — woven for weddings, tea ceremonies, and formal occasions, and finished at our Amsterdam atelier into a single setting at the table. A single obi yields only a few placemats, and the silk leads the composition — where motifs fall, where the weave shifts, where kinpaku gold leaf catches the light beneath a plate or teacup. Each piece is hand-finished with a linen-weight cotton backing so it lies flat under porcelain, glass or cast iron. No metal touches the visible silk.

Each placemat is singular. Once the original silk is cut, the composition does not return.

One silk. One story. One piece. Never repeated.