Textile of the Week: Chuusen (注染) 201114

As a dyer, I have my own preferred techniques, but I have always been fascinated by how the creative human mind has been able to come up with such a wide variety of methods to pattern cloth. Chuusen is one of the more modern techniques.

Until very recently, chuusen was the most common method empl0yed to dye lower and medium quality range yukata for traditional summer wear. Yukata are commonly seen worn by both men and women at summer festivals, such as Tanabata, or any casual summer outing. (They are never worn for formal or semi-formal wear at any time of the year.)

Young couple out for a stroll in matching yukata.

What distinguishes chuusen from other traditional techniques is its use of a vacuum table. I haven’t been able to find any documentation to corroborate stories of the origins of chuusen, but the tale commonly told in Japan is that the process originated in Scandinavia. Once developed, a profitable use could not be found and so it was abandoned, whereupon it was appropriated by traditional dyers in Japan to greatly speed up the process involved in producing inexpensive fabrics for mass consumption.

Let’s take a look at the process. The following images have been taken from an on-line video clip. Click on the first image below to view the movie, and then read on for a step-by-step description of what you have just observed:

On-line chuusen process video provided by NugooKamakura.

Ukiyo-e print depicting character wearing tenugui as a hachimaki head band.

As with most traditional textiles in Japan, the standard width of the fabric used for chuusen is 31cm to 36 cm (around 12″ – 14″).

The factory shown in the above clip is dyeing tenugui, an all purpose piece of cloth used as everything from a rag to wipe table tops, to sweat bands tied about a worker’s brow, to highly collected pieces of textile art.

The factory stocks a huge volume of sarashi cotton.

A long fiber, high quality cotton called sarashi is used for most tenugui and a little heavier fabric is used for yukata.

A stencil is prepared using smoked mulberry paper. In this case the artist is using a photocopy overlay and cutting through the copy and the stencil paper (shibugami) at the same time.

This artist is using hand-made mulberry paper, called shibugami, to create a stencil. (Most contemporary artists will use a synthetic version of this stencil paper.) Once the image is cut, it will be lacquered with netting and stapled to a frame.

Paste is prepared to act as a resist.

A huge bowl of paste is prepared for the project. The bowl has a blade at the bottom attached a motor to help the craftsman keep the paste churned and elastic.

The stencil is placed in position and the paste applied.

Using a large wooden spatula called a debabera, the paste is applied through the stencil to the cotton fabric below. This will be repeated many times as the fabric is folded back and forth over the previous layer of pasted cloth.

The white cotton is placed over the previous layer of wet paste.

As the layers build, columns of paste are formed through all the levels. Placing the stencil in precisely the same location each time is very exacting work  and crucial to achieving high image definition.

The dye is poured using a watering can.

Using a pitcher that looks like a watering can, the dye is poured over the surface of the fabric. Notice how a moat has been placed around the borders of the stacked cloth to prevent the dye from spilling over the edges.

How the dye flows through the layers with the help of the vacuum table.

A vacuum pump is beneath the table. When switched on it will quickly suck the dye through the cloth and away from the paste. This is the truly innovative step in the process. By pulling the excess dye away from the fabric as soon as possible, it allows the paste to stay wet throughout the entire procedure without degrading. If the dye lingered, it would dissolve away the paste and distort the paste-printed image.

I hope the diagram to the right helps you to visualize how the paste stacks up into pillar-like columns. Although only one color is shown being used in the movie, any number of colors may be employed. A distinctive blending of colors occurs where the boundaries overlap.

The top cloth has been removed to expose the image.

Once the top protective cloth has been removed, the design is clearly visible.

It seems to be a miner or hiker of some sort, although it could also be a battery-operated nose-hair clipper with legs. Add a fan and a cane and you’ve got quite a saucy dance routine… But in the right market, I’m sure it will be a hot seller!

Automated swishing device to remove the paste and excess dye.

The movie clip doesn’t show this, but normally at this stage the wet dyed/pasted cloth would be moved to a steam room so that the dyes may be set. From there it is taken to be washed, removing all the paste and the excess dye. (Isn’t this a cool apparatus they have to swish the fabric clean?)

Storefront with range of textiles visible. Click on this image for addresses in Japan carrying chuusen tenugui.

This done, the fabric is hung high overhead to dry and then it is off to the store shelves.

The piece shown in the various steps of this movie is most likely a commission piece. It is very common for established businesses with a more traditional frame of mind to hand out tenugui with their company logo or slogan printed along with an image of their product or some other seasonal depiction.

So, just a brief summary:
-fabric is laid out on a vacuum table
-paste is applied using a stencil, care is taken to lay the stencil in exactly the same spot each time
-vacuum pump is switched on and the dyes poured through
-fabric is steamed to set colors
-fabric is washed to remove paste and excess dye
-fabric is hung to dry

Using the vacuum pump allows the entire process to proceed quickly (and this is important) before the paste dissolves. [In most katazome processes, the paste must dry before the dyes are applied. The dry paste takes a while to reconstitute, so it is OK to remain wet for a short period while the artist works.] So boom, boom, boom…the fabric can be taken from one step to the next with no delay, allowing an entire bolt of cloth to be completed in one day, rather than the weeks that would normally be required.

For this week’s Textile of the Week, I have chosen a sample of cotton chuusen originally dyed to be used in a woman’s yukata.

Chuusen Sample 201114

Sample 201114-Chuusen $12 plus postage and tax ($12 even if purchased as part of a set. For more information about sets, click on this text.)

Above I mentioned how important it is to design the drawing to allow for a mirror image at the fold. This is a very good sample of that concept taken into account. I’ve added a red line to help you identify where the fold used to be. Notice how the wave lines have a nice curve even though they hit the fold at a right angle, and also how the petals of the flower have been arranged to keep a very natural look.

This is a detail of sample 201114 showing where the fold was in the cloth during the pasting and dyeing process.

In the diagram discussed earlier, you can see how the colors blend as the dyes were poured and suctioned through the fabric. Below is what it looks like in real life – notice the mingling of the colors as they are drawn through the weave.

Examples of how the dyes blend as they are pulled through to the vacuum table below.

Many of you may collect Japanese stencils. The katagami used in chuusen is a bit different in how the design is structured when compared to other types of katazome.

First of all, they tend to be much longer–exactly the same as the run of one length of cloth before being folded back on itself.

Second, because the fabric doubles back on itself, it can’t be used to repeat in the same manner as other stencils. Other stencils would be matched top to bottom and top to bottom as the stencil is repeatedly applied in a linear fashion. However, in chuusen, because of the fold, it is repeated in mirror image at each end. Therefore care must be taken to either avoid having any image touch the fold, as in the crane stencil above, or to make sure that any lines hit the edges perpendicular to the fold so as not to form a jarring “V” when the fabric is opened up. Notice how the stem on the flower stencil above hits the edge dead on.

One last image I would like to share:

Well Designed Chuusen Studio in Japan.

Oh, the clutter seen here makes me feel right at home!