村山大島紬
Pronunciation: Murayama Oshima-tsumugi
Production area: Murayama City, Tokyo
Murayama Oshima-tsumugi is a silk textile woven with raw silk, known for its grayish-blue tones and modern designs often incorporating indigo or unique reds. It is a pre-dyed (Kasuri) silk fabric handwoven entirely by hand, involving as many as 40 distinct processes. In the Murayama region, striped cotton textiles began to be produced around 1688–1703. As techniques advanced, by 1804–1817 indigo-dyed cotton fabrics called “Murayama Konkasuri” were being woven. Alongside this, in Sunagawa Village, developed between 1596 and 1615, a thick cotton cloth known as “Sunagawa Futori” was woven for home use. These two traditions are considered the forerunners of Murayama Oshima-tsumugi. Unlike Oshima-tsumugi, which requires labor-intensive mud dyeing of silk, Murayama Oshima-tsumugi established the “Itajime” stencil-resist dyeing method, in which Kasuri threads are dyed using carved wooden boards. This innovation allowed the production of affordable Kimono with a texture similar to Oshima-tsumugi, making it widely popular among common people. Its most notable feature is the precision of its Kasuri patterns. Men’s Kimono feature extremely fine motifs that appear solid-colored from a distance, reflecting understated sophistication. Women’s Kimono, on the other hand, emphasize chic designs and subdued colors that suit all ages. Murayama Oshima-tsumugi was designated an Intangible Cultural Property by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in 1967, recognized as a Traditional Craft in 1975, and designated again by the Tokyo Governor in 1982.