Arimatsu: Shibori town

“Some places remain in your heart forever”

Arimatsu is a Japanese old town, situated about 20 minutes away from Nagoya city by train. This town is known for its shibori heritage.

This is the town where I spent 2 months living in 2019. I was invited by my SENSEI to go learn sukumo and shibori techniques there.

It was a really amazing experience! We met a couple of years ago in a workshop, and I was shocked when she invited me to go to Arimatsu and learn more from her. I felt really honored and excited about this proposal.

On September 19’ I arrived to Arimatsu. I had been to this town before, but I never imagine myself living there.

The first days I was in company of my French friends from “LEAF collective”, but 7 days later they left, and I found myself alone and immerse in the Japanese culture.

All my classes were in Japanese. My SENSEI and my classmates could only spoke few English. It was a different and amazing experience, where I realized words aren’t always necessary.

In this sign, we can see the name of ARIMATSU written in ” Hiragana”. It was made using shibori techniques // A photo of me on the second image. I love that you can find signs like this all around town.

WHAT IS SHIBORI ?

Shibori is a Japanese resist dyeing technique, which produces patterns on fabric.

It involves folding, sewing, wrapping, twisting and binding the cloth. It creates a resist pattern which is revealed post-dyeing.

In Japan, the earliest known example of cloth dyed with a shibori technique dates from the 8th century.

It’s very similar to conventional tie-dyeing methods from the 60`s. But tie-dye is much simpler and much faster to produce.

Shibori uses a more straightforward technique and it is usually dyed in one color only.

HISTORY OF ARIMATSU

Arimatsu was established in 1608 and has a history of over 400 years. It was part of the TOKAIDO ROAD. Historic road that connected Kyoto and Osaka with EDO (Tokyo).

The Tokaido road was 488 km (303 miles) and ran mostly along the Pacific coast of the island of Honshu.

Over 400 years ago Shogun Tokugawa Leyasu created one unified country and he Chose EDO (Tokyo) to become the new capital country.

He demanded that the lords should travel form various regions in Japan to EDO. To prove the allegiance to him.

For people traveling along Tokaido, the government decided to create 53 stations, where they could find food, water and shelter. The local lords supported the establishment of towns and villages and encourage the residents to develop local products to sell. Arimatsu was one of this stops.

The local craft became known as Arimatsu shibori. These cotton shibori textiles were attractive, practical and accesible, compared to the expensive silk shibori made in Kyoto.

Over the centuries, these techniques were passed from generation to generation.