Description

This elegant design is based on the tsujigahana flower pattern and the wheels of a goshoguruma, an ox cart used by the nobility during the Heian period (794-1185). The kimono is also beautifully decorated with pine trees, which are believed to bring good luck in Japan, using a technique called shibori.
Tsujigahana is not a depiction of a flower that exists in the world, but rather a reference to the shibori technique of tsujigahana. This technique disappeared about 300 years ago. Neither the origin of the name Tsujigahana nor its creator are known. Tsujigahana kimonos were popular with warlords during the Warring States Period (1467-1568), and famous warlords such as Kenshin Uesugi, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and Ieyasu Tokugawa have surviving kimonos of this style. For the past 70 years, many kimono artists have been working to recreate the tsujigahana technique from existing fabrics. Tsujigahana is a precious and sought-after pattern in Japan. Only a limited number of artists have used the shibori technique to express the Tsujigahana flower, and a single Tsujigahana flower is very expensive, costing more than 1 million yen. The Tsujigahana design on this piece is hand-painted.
The name Tsujigahana is well known throughout the world. In 1995, part of the work of the craftsman who reproduced the Tsujigahana was also exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution in the United States. This is the first time that the work of a living artist has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution.

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