Sample books

These days I am seriously limiting my own collection - simply because I don't have enough space for large textiles. But I always seem to be able to find room for more ephemera and books - including old sample books.  In previous posts  I've shown some of my old homemade  'shima-cho' sample books. The ones I'm showing this time are examples from commercial sample books and cards.

The first one are cottons on a  simple fold out sheet from 1911:

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are from a book of textile samples from 1924:

 

 

 

Some of the samples have had samples cut from them:

 

 

Some men's kimono fabrics from a sample book dated 1930-31:

 

 

 

Some dye colour samples dated 1902, from near our home in Ehime prefecture:

 

 

 

 

And finally a colour sample card for silk kimono threads and machine threads. This is undated but possibly from  just after the war:

 



 

 



 

 

 



 





 



 

 

In Store...

I've been  puting out a few new things including these old unused Japanese plastic buckles and buttons.  Some of them are not very good quality (and are priced accordingly) but they all have a lovely old retro character:

 

 

 

 

This is an old Meiji era banko yaki (banko ware) sweet bowl with a crab design on one side. I'll be putting it on the website as well. Old banko yaki is wonderfully whimsical and doesn't fit the images that a lot of people have of Japanese ceramics. Its character speaks for itself:

 

 

I just put out a roll of this cotton shibori:

 

 

 

Some old 'soroban' abacuses. These have a lovely character just to keep as objects. When I first went to Japan one of our English students gave me soroban lessons but I never became proficient at it - at all.  I had some very young (maybe 5 or 6yo)  students later on who also learned soroban and I was impressed with how quick they were at mental arithmetic. My husband Takashi still regularly uses a soroban for doing the accounts for his business:

 

 



 

 

 



 



 

1950's 'style'

We just acquired this selection of  1950's clothing patterns cut from newspaper. They're  sorted into  large envelopes neatly labelled  by brush:  'Boys' Patterns', 'Children - Adults - Pants ('pantsu')', 'Women's collar patterns' , 'Children - Adults - Pants ('zubon') patterns'.  There are any number of patterns in each envelope.

 

There is also a smaller envelope made from an old poster titled 'style collection' which holds cuttings from magazines. It's an interesting glimpse into 1950's taste (click on any of the pictures to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

A couple of pages of summer hairstyles by Nakahara Junichi:

 

And some autumn hairstyles:

 

 

 

It looks like there might have been plans for a family wedding:

 

 

This wedding cake looks delicious compared to the huge fake  (rubber?) monstrosities that were the vogue by the time I first went to Japan in the 80's.  At the first wedding I  ever went to the 'cake' must have been at least twelve foot tall. It's a very long time since I've been to a Japanese wedding so I don't know if that's still what they do but I hope it's fad that is dying out!

 

 

At typical  Japanese weddings the bride changes her outfit up to six times. Four seemed standard in our area: a white kimono for the ceremony, a brightly coloured kimono, a western wedding dress and then a voluminous 'cocktail dress'.  These bridal outfits from the 50's are very elegant:

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 



 



 

In Store...

I'm not doing nearly as well keeping the blog up to date as I'd hoped! Here are some photos from around the shop:

 

I'm just making up some more bags of silk shibori remnants (these are available through my online shop):

 

 

I've just started stocking these Japanese zips with bronze pulls which are great for all sorts of small bags and purses. They especially look  good with old indigo or other fabrics with a bit of character (also on my website):

 

 

I've also added some more nice bright colours to our range of Olympus sashiko threads  (will add these colours to the website soon)

 

A couple of new titles for our book selection:

 

 

 A lovely large old Imari bowl:

 

 

We still have lots of these old silk machine threads for $1 each!

 

 

Antique 'daifukucho' accounting books:

 





 

 

 



 





Edo Sugoroku (?)

This is a fairly recent addition to our collection and has nothing at all to do with textiles...but we couldn't resist it. It's an Edo period Buddhist illustration and we think it might be a suguroku, a traditional type of board game. Similar Buddhist sugoroku were common in this period.  But if anyone has any other thoughts please let me know, I'm interested in any opinions. It's difficult to read the text but it shows the path of an adult life, with the skeleton forms a constant reminder of our mortality. The skeleton illustrations are amazing and I love the dark sense of humour.

 

 

Some pleasures of life:

 

 

More intimate pleasures of life:

 

 

Things going less well:

 



 

Death and a funeral pyre:

 



 





And our final fate....

 

 

*For information on the history of sugoroku see 'Sugoroku Prints' by Yamamoto Masakatsu in 'Daruma Japanese Art & Antiques Magazine, Issue 51



 

 



In Store....

I'm always adding new fabric to the shop. I love this old lining fabric:

 

This is a beautiful piece of  indigo katazome with a wonderful handwoven texture:

 

 

A stunning double-width shibori lining silk:

 

 

Cheery yukata cotton on the roll:

 

 



And a couple of kimono silks on the roll:

 

 

 

I've got some new indigo quilting fabrics but there will be a limited supply of these - some of our other quilting fabrics in traditional patterns will run out even sooner. Unfortunately our supplier says they're just not popular anymore. I'm not sure why because they're timeless patterns and always popular in the shop:

 

 

Today I'm putting out some more small kokeshi dolls:

 

 

Including some 'creative kokeshi':

 

 

I love this Arimatsu shibori yukata:

 

 

This is a very sweet 'Momotaro'  netsuke: