Vintage Japanese Jacket
Maker - Unknown
Era - Late 19th century to early 20th century
Fabric - Cotton katzome indigo and repaired with kasuri pieces
Acquired - by Second Sunrise in October 2017
This garment is kind of a mystery to us. We don't even know what to call it! According to our friend Petra who is specialized in antique garments from eastern Asia it looks like a Japanese Noragi, a workwear garment that was used by farmers and other not-so-wealthy people. This garment however is a bit shorter than a typical noragi is, so we are not exactly sure of its official name. We are going to call it a noragi for now, just to keep it simple!
This kind of garment is usually made of cotton, and our best guess it that this one is too. The short and tapered sleeves are characteristics that tell us that this is a garment for someone who does a lot of physical labor and does'nt want their clothing to interfere. The Noragis had to withstand heavy wear and people often used them until there was not much left of the original fabric, repairing them over and over again.
This noragi is a good example of the traditional practice called "Boro Boro", which refers to things that are tattered and repaired. The term has become very popular lately, and today it is used to refer to both antique obejcts and new textiles that are made in the same style that the old ones. In our opinion, a freshly produced garment that is assembled from scraps and made to look like an old one is not real boro, just as a reconstruction of an old pair of jeans can never actually -be- an old pair of jeans. Therefore, when we speak about boro textiles, we are referring to textiles from the northern part of Japan that were produced in between 1850-1950 and has been patched multiple times.
Are you of a different opinion? Feel free to set us right!
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Front view of the Noragi, where a darker band in the region of the wearers waist suggests that it was worn with some kind of belt.
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Back view of the Noragi with signs of heavy wear.
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Closeup of the collar that has been fastened with a simple running stitch.
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The fading of the fabric underneath the collar tells us that the collar has replaced an old one, or that it has been added to the garment after some years of wear. The hur of the collar fabric suggests a wink at the garment called "Hanten", a short padded winter coat. The collar of a hanten is often made of black sateen, and even if it's hard to tell of this collar has ever been black, it has definitely had a darker hue than it has today.
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On the centre back, the patch that replaced the fabric on the wearer's right shoulder has been patched again when it started to weaken. The second patch's stitching can be seen from the outside as a square, divided to two triangles by a fifth line of stitches. The fifth line adds extra strength to the mend.
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Apart from the collar, all the fabric that has been used is dyed in indigo blue. Most of them are patterned and here we see two different types of Katazome, a technique where rice paste is printed onto the fabric before it is dyed, which creates white markings after the fabric is dyed and the paste is scraped off.
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A closeup of the back shows the details of the centre back seam, sewn together with running stitches, and two patches. The one to the left is dyed solid blue, while the one in the center is patterned by weaving threads of different colors together. Its hard to see in the picture, but the fabric of the center patch has some shiny threads in it creating a separate grid pattern. The material is hard to guess, but if I had to, I would lay my bets on silk.
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Armpit view with more running stitches that fasten the patches to the inside of the garment.
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The cuffs of the sleeves have been mended with several layers of fabric. Starting from the left, the first two fabrics are made by preparing a weave with a couple of white threads in the warp, and then using all blue threads in the weft. The result looks much like a printed wabash pattern, but I repeat: this pattern is woven.
The patch that can be seen through a 0-shaped hole, also on the sleeve, has a pattern created with a technique that the Japanese call Kasuri. The pattern is created in a process that takes place before the fabric is dyed and woven. The white flecks are created by tying threads around the yarn before the dyeing process, which leaves white markings where the threads were tied. When the fabric is woven, the white flecks meet in the weave and the pattern appears.
This Noragi, or whatever it is, is now a part of our archive and we keep it as an inspirational piece.
Want to read about more vintage? See last week's post Here!