DESIGN

Kokontozai: KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts — Japanese Umbrella

『カーサブルータス』2024年8月号より

August 7, 2024 | Design | KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts | photo_Keisuke Fukamizu hair & make-up_Masako Osuga editor_Masae Wako　translation_ Mika Yoshida & David G. Imber

Searching all of Japan for handcrafted items that express its heart and soul, our proprietor, KASHIYUKA, presents things that bring a bit of luxury to everyday life. Her quest this time took her to Tokushima. Here she was introduced to Mima-wagasa; umbrellas handcrafted of bamboo, thread, and washi paper in the section of town called Udatsu-no-Machi, the retail district of olden times, where traditional buildings still line the main street.

Wakimachi, Mima City in Tokushima prefecture has flourished as a center of commerce, specifically trade in indigo, from the 17th century on. Buildings line the main part of town, separated by somewhat ornate walls called udatsu. These structures worked as fire brakes, so that a fire in one spot wouldn’t set the town ablaze. The walls were costly, and only the most prestigious and successful merchants could afford them, thus, they came to represent wealth. KASHIYUKA picked up a sample of the town’s most characteristic craft, the Mima-wagasa. This traditional umbrella is made by just one studio on the island of Shikoku. “The decorative threading on the inside is so lovely!” she exclaimed.

The sound of raindrops on an umbrella is exceptionally soothing; can you imagine the sound if the canopy were made of traditional Japanese paper?

“The original umbrella that came to Japan from China in the sixth century, then called a tengai, was a fixed object that couldn’t be opened or closed. In the Heian period [extending from about the ninth to 13th centuries] these had the function of being held over people of high status to prevent evil and misfortune from falling upon them. It was not until the Azuchi-Momoyama period [the latter half of the 1500s] that a structure and parts were invented in Japan to convert the object into one that could be opened and closed, and expressly made to resist rain. This is what is known as the wagasa, the traditional Japanese umbrella.” So explained Mr. Sumitomo Satoshi of the Mirai-Kobo/Mima-shi Dentōkōgei Taiken-kan, a “traditional craft experience center”, in the city of Mima in Tokushima prefecture.

Purchase No. 75【Japanese Umbrella】Crafted of bamboo and paper, it speaks of protection.

Thus, the umbrella had its origin in Japan not as a tool to resist rain, but as a talisman to protect the individual standing beneath its canopy from evil. “From the start of the Meiji restoration [late 19th century], merchants in the city of Mima began hiring umbrella crafters from Osaka to make umbrellas using the local bamboo and washi craft paper. This became the Mima-wagasa. At their height, some 900,000 were being produced annually. But times changed, and they fell out of use by the 1950s.”

Mr. Sumitomo and several like-minded associates volunteered to learn the skills required from the few remaining craftspeople left to share them, with the aim of reviving the craft. In this, they perform all the functions themselves, from splitting the bamboo ribs to constructing the umbrella, assembling the working parts and applying the washi.