I’m showing this understated, rather self-effacing sleeveless work coat today as a study in subtlety.   Because the format of blogs and because viewing websites is done on a small screen, I generally like to show punchier textiles that will read better on these fleeting, electronic media. But today I’m showing something very simple.

It’s a classic work coat, which I find to be extremely attractive, and it’s woven from hemp and cotton.  You’ll probably be able to see some cotton slubs which indicate this mix of fibers.

The surface texture is just beautiful.  And looking carefully at the back of this coat, shown below, it’s fairly evident that this was used for work as some of the surface cotton slubs are worn away in the center of the back. Perhaps the former owner of the coat carried burden?  Highly likely.

The cotton collar is not hand woven and is dyed black, probably a synthetic dye.  This tells us that this coat probably dates to the mid-twentieth century.  Also, this coat is missing sleeves, which doesn’t mean that it’s a sleeveless garment.  It simply means that the sleeves are not on the coat right now.  Sleeves and collars were often removed and re-attached during the lifetime of a garment, which often spanned generations.

Beautiful texture, isn’t it?

Since I specialize in indigo dyed cotton boro textiles, today I thought I would show a variation on this theme by posting images of a silk and cotton piece-constructed han juban, a half under-kimono.

In old Japan, many han juban were made by piecing together scraps of cloth and no doubt you’ve seen examples on this blog.  In this case, both indigo dyed cotton and silk fragments were pieced together using a very strident and noticeable stitching, much of it done using hemp thread.

On the above photo you can see how direct the stitching on this han juban is.

And above you will see a detail of the collar area: the bottom part of the collar is indigo dyed cotton and the top is of nice, 19th century katazome silk.

And the inside is very interesting, as well, with more examples of piece construction.

The back, too, has interesting details.

I think this piece probably dates to the Meiji era (1868-1912) and it measures  30″,76 cm from shoulder to hem x 48″, 122 cm from sleeve tip to sleeve tip.