Since my kimono shopping experience with my friend Hiroko, I have been obsessed with shibori. This one is the all-over shibori,
and there is a special term for it in Japanese that means "baby deer" - very appropriate. I visited John's studio and he showed me this beautiful kimono while I was picking out fabric for my wedding dress! You can sort of tell that the silk fabric has this raised pattern where it has been bound and dyed by hand, giving it a bumpy texture all over. The style is a "furisode" (long-sleeved) kimono, and they usually have elaborate, conspicuous colors and patterns because they are worn by young, unmarried (read: eligible) women. This one is not only special because of its beautiful handiwork but there is a great story behind it. It has never, ever been worn. After incredible amounts of intensive labor on the part of the seamstress, the dyer, the painter, etc., the seamstress who put it all together was told that she had made a mistake and had sewn it together improperly. The designs did not match at the seam as they should. The kimono dealer would not buy it, and the seamstress had no choice but to keep it for many years before selling it to a private collector at a discounted price. This collector, a dyer and artist named
John Marshall, examined the kimono after buying it and realized that the seamstress had never made a mistake at all - as a dyer, he recognized a mistake that people in the dying profession make all the time - the dyer of the kimono had not lined up the seams properly - the seamstress was not to blame at all! Now, the seamstress is long-since retired and she is in her late 80's. John told her relatives what he had found, and has left it up to them whether to tell the seamstress. I hope that John puts this one in a show someday, so that people can hear the story and see this beautiful kimono!
