Home Front Textiles

As this month is the 70th anniversary of the Second World War  I thought it would be a good chance to bring out my collection of wartime home front textiles and ephemera. I'll  give  a talk and display  my collection here at the shop on Thursday 27th August  from 7pm until 8.30ish  (we'll have a cup of tea as well). The collection isn't huge but includes propaganda fabrics, senninbari amulet belts, fabric air raid helmets, a comfort doll, magazines, postcards etc.  If you'd like to come along  there's no charge but I don't have a lot of space so please send me an email or give me a call so I know how many are coming.

Late1930's undergarment fabric:

Detail of senninbari ('thousand people needle') amulet belt:

 Imon ningyo (comfort doll) designs by Nakahara Junichi:

Ikuko Miyazaki's Dolls (Imon ningyo part1)

I got back from Japan last week and have been busy catching up with all the jobs that need to be done here. I hope to be posting  more regularly again now.
One of the highlights of this trip was meeting  Ikuko Miyazaki a wonderful dollmaker from Okayama. Takashi had been researching imon ningyo dolls for me on the internet and came across Miyazaki-san's story of how her father's imon-ningyo inspired her lifelong passion for dollmaking. Takashi contacted her and she very generously invited our family  to visit.
 Imon ningyo are small  'comfort dolls' (aka 'mascot dolls') that were handstitched by Japanese women and girls during the war to send to soldiers in 'comfort bags'. Later in the war they were also carried by kamikaze pilots on their final missions. I've been fascinated by these dolls since I first read about them in a paper by Ellen Schattschneider* (Thank you to Victoria Eaves-Young who first introduced me to the article, knowing my interest in both sarubobo amulet dolls and wartime homefront textiles). Surviving dolls are now rare and it isn't easy even to find pictures and information.  In part 2 of this story I'll talk more about imon ningyo and show some of the original  patterns etc that Takashi has found and in part 3 I hope to share the story of another lovely woman we met on this trip who made imon ningyo as a high school student, one of which has survived. 
This is Miyazaki-san's father's imon ningyo:

It's about 20cm long  (many are much smaller) and like many of the dolls is a woman in wartime dress carrying a baby on her back.  Miyazaki-san found it in her father's desk drawer when she was ten and asked if she could play with it. He said 'no' without any explanation which confused her as she couldn't understand why a man would want a little doll like that. She asked her mother who told her that her father had received it in an imon bukuro (comfort bag) during the war and  had brought it back with him.  It may be hard to imagine how soldiers felt about receiving these dolls but the way that Miyazaki-san's father had treasured this for the rest of his life shows what importance the doll held for him. Miyazaki-san felt that it had been especially comforting to him because he had lost his mother as a young child.

This experience  inspired Miyazaki-san to begin making her own dolls, which she continues to do now. For the last 15 years she's been making art dolls based on the paintings of Austrian painter Egon Schiele, which she has exhibited  around Japan and in Prague.  These dolls are amazing! Some are larger than life and all are exquisitely made. I'm not sure how many she normally has around her house but she had put out even more to greet us in every hallway, through the window and even in the garden. The photos below are only a small sample.  It was an incredible welcome:

After  the earthquake and tsunami in March it didn't feel right to her to be enjoying the luxury of making her art dolls and so instead Miyazaki-san began making these lovely simple wrapped dolls to send to the survivors. They're based on Guatemalan worry dolls.

It was really a pleasure and a privilege to meet Miyazaki-san. She generously  welcomed the four of us into her home, shared the story of her father's imon ningyo and introduced us  (too modestly) to her own incredible works of art. She made us feel instantly at home and like we were old friends.  I know I will be meeting her again and am looking forward to seeing what she creates next.  If anyone is interested in seeing more of her dolls  her website (with some English) is http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~kmz/ 

*Ellen Schattschneider, 'The Bloodstained Doll: Violence and the Gift in Wartime Japan' in the Journal of Japanese Studies, 31:2, 2005

Child's boku-zukin

Today is the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and so I thought it might be an appropriate time to post a picture of this very special item from my collection. This is a small child's 'boku-zukin' fabric air raid helmet.  These hoods were standard wear for children during the extensive bombing in the final year or so of the war. They were  more commonly made from sturdy indigo cotton and a thicker wadding than this one which is very light and about the right size for a baby or toddler. It's made from a very fine striped silk from an adult's kimono with patches of two other fabrics in the lining.  The person who  made it - probably the child's mother - has gone to the trouble to add the decorative stitching  around the edge. The red tie which is made from a piece of a child's kimono is attached with a large herringbone stitch. There is something very poignant about the care that's gone into making this item which the mother must have known would offer  little protection if it was needed.