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Rōketsuzome, Kyoto, Japan
京都・右京区・西京極午塚町
During a stay in Kyoto in 2014, my wife and I went to 京ローケツ やまもと染工 to try our hands at Roketsuzome, a traditional Japanese wax-resist textile dyeing technique.
Rōketsuzome (蝋纈染め) is one of Kyoto’s traditional textile dyeing methods which is also known as wax-resist dyeing. Wax is applied on a cotton fabric to leave a design, and when the fabric is dyed in indigo, the area applied with wax blocks the dye and leaves the original fabric color.
It is a fun activity by which in less than three hours, visitors can create their own indigo-colored t-shirt (my choice), towel (my wife’s choice), or decorative item.
Upon entering the shop, we were greeted with an impressive display of indigo-dyed artifacts.
All photos shot with iPhone 5. Edited in Adobe Lightroom Classic.
Indigo-dyed textile items inside a traditional store and workshop in Kyoto, Japan.
Customers are free to create their own drawings from scratch, but the shop also has a lot of neat pre-drawn designs available for use, which comes in handy for less drawing-inclined folks like me. Their tables had lights inside, which made copying the design onto the t-shirt really easy.
A finished wax design that has been painted on a white t-shirt at a traditional indigo-dyeing shop in Kyoto, Japan.
After applying the wax to the t-shirt, the shop owner gave it a thorough soaking in indigo color.
Textile items are being given a soaking in indigo color at a traditional indigo-dyeing shop in Kyoto, Japan.
Afterwards, the item was boiled in soap to remove the wax. Then it got washed, tumble-dried, put on a clothes hanger for a bit (on the left is my t-shirt seen from the back side, and on the right is my wife’s towel), and then ironed.
Wax-resist indigo-colored textile items are hung out to dry at a traditional indigo-dyeing shop in Kyoto, Japan.
We still have those items; they are a nice reminder of this fun activity.
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