Shibori - Textile Artistry
One of the important things you learn in Fashion School is textiles experimentation, many a happy hour was spent manipulating fabrics and dying fabrics. Shibori is the union of both experimentation which can create simple but beautiful art pieces or amazingly complex masterpieces.
Shibori derives from the root verb in japanese shiboru which means to wring, squeeze, press. It is like a sophisticated way of tie-dying and it also combines the use of other materials like pipes, wood and stone using resist-dye techniques.
In our world of fast-fashion, where prints are now digitalized, printed then forgotten in a couple of months, Shibori art is in it's stillness and ability to keep it's history yet stay relevant to the fast changing times makes it truly beautiful and timeless to me.
Shibori takes time. It takes effort and artistic thought. It is a process of centuries of experimentation that translated into artistical techiniques past down through each Shibori master's family line and now to the world and us.
Last month, I've decided to pick up this interested art again. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what I was doing or how it will turn out either. But the beauty about Shibori Art is that its part planning and part free form. Each piece is always different from the next and a joy to unfold.
Under shibori there are many different styles and techniques, for this experiment I work with Nui Shibori (Stitch resist technique) and Itajime Shibori (form resist techinque) and here are the beautiful results:
For Nui shibori, I stitch vertical lines down the fabric and then gathered and pulled them up. I was afraid the ink would seep in too much so I added an additional bounding around the gathered fabric. For the Itajime Shibori, I simply bought 2 blocks of wood from Daiso, tied it around my folded fabric so that just the edges would be dyed completely.
Nui shibori turn out very much like a tie-dyed effect and Itajime shibori gave me a cool checkered look! With this fabric I could make a table cloth, a small hankerchief or pouch. Do you guys have a keen interest to learn this? Or have you already done it before?
