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Japanese Cultural Topic No.41
"Noto-Joｆu" Noto weaving |
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| This time I introduce Noto-Jofu which is very famous weaving in the Noto area. I visited Noto-Jyofu hall to see exhibits and work.
Noto-Jofu has a long history. About 2,000 years ago, a princess of Zushin emperor stayed there and introduced weaving at first. In the Edo period, the weaving technique had developed with new ones from Oumi (Shiga prefecture). In the early stages of Showa, the amount of production was number one. In 1960, it was identified as intangible cultural heritage of Ishikawa prefecture.
I visited this place at the lunch break. But I was explained carefully abou Noto-Jofu. There are many weaving machines. They are so old that some of them are needed to be fixed sometimes. Originally this area has been active. Since cheap products of weaving imported from foreign countries, the amount of the weaving factories were falling off. In the modern times, most of Noto-Jofu are made by machines. There are a few workers who weave them by hand. The clothiers are only Noto-Jofu hall and one in Hakui city.
In addtion to the air permeability and lightness of hemp fabric, Noto-Jofu has a characteristic of soft touch. In fact it must be very nice to wear in the humid summer. I saw the production process, it took a really long time. Roughly there are over 30 processes. Skilled workers need to make it about 3 days. The most difficult points are to make patterns with warp and weft. If you have some time, |
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| | Written by Masataka |
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