BOOK - BORO -2008
Rags and tatters from the Far North of Japan

Only a few decades ago, Thoku (Aomori) was synonymous to most Japanese with dire poverty. A home to dirt poor farmers who, out of desperate necessity, created an astonishing textile aesthetic out of BORO = rags. The frozen north was too cold to grow cotton, so the local folk grew and wove hemp for clothing. The tiniest precious snippets were saved. They soaked worn-out old clothes in rice-rinsing water in order to loosen an pull out threads, stitching over ripped and ragged layers as thick as they could. Long before ' recycling ' was drummed into our heads, here were people whose loving frugality towards cloth was a genuine engrained in their lives - yet total forgotten today. The beauty and sheer compositional skills of these boro creations inspire the fashion and design circles everywhere.