From ikebana to tea ceremony, many of Japan's cultural arts are char-acterised by an outward simplicity which belies the preciseness of the craft. Perhaps one of the most representative of these such arts is the Edo Komon. Valued by the upper class during the rule of the shogun, Edo Komon is cloth from which the clothing of lords was once made. The fabric is deceptive to the eye - from a distance, it appears plain and unpatterned, but examination up close reveals intricate patterns formed by fine dots.

Although widely popular through-out the Edo Period, the demand for Edo Komon has declined in the last century, and there are now only a handful of artisans remaining in Japan with the skills to produce this fabric. In Fukushima Prefecture, Yukio Watanabe and his son Yukinori of Sukagawa City have been working to keep this tradition alive, continuing what has been the family busi-ness for the last century.

With competition from machine made fabrics proving tough, the Watanabes, like many other Edo Komon producers, have had to innovate to find new markets for their product. The fabric is tra-ditionally used in making kimono and yukata, and as the hand printed silk fabric is of high quality, a kimono usually ranges in price from 500,000 yen to 1,000,000 yen, approximately double the price of a garment made from ma-chine printed fabric. In diversify-ing their busi-ness, the pair have turned some of their focus to producing Edo Komon prints, which feature everything from landscapes to inspirational phrases. The framed panels, which retail from approximately 3,000 yen, have boosted business, with customers able to enjoy the subtlety of the art at a more afford-able price.

It is said that it takes ten years to master the art of Edo Komon. A delicate process requiring a steady hand and a good eye, one panel, measuring 6.5 me-tres in length, takes four to five days to complete. Over this time, several stages are carried out. The first stage involves the painting of the design onto the fab-ric. This is done using patterns made from paper thin slices of wood with in-tricate designs pricked into them using pins. The pattern is placed on top of the fabric and a blue paint made from rice powder is applied using a thin wooden scraper.

Once the paint is dry, the fabric is dyed the colour requested by the customer, steam dried at 100 degrees, then washed in cold water. This rinses out the original blue dye, leaving a pattern of white dots on the now coloured fabric. After drying the fabric once again, the craftsman starts the painstaking process of correct-ing imperfections in the pattern by hand. This is by far the most difficult stage of the process and it reveals the true skill of the craftsman. After being washed and dried one more time, the process is complete.

The Watanabes have been working hard to raise the profile of the Edo Komon in Fukushima, and in 1997, Yukio Watanabe was presented with the prestigious Fukushima Prefectural Traditional Crafts Award. The pair also appear regularly in national publications, and receive many of their orders for kimono through magazines. In a time where many of the techniques of old artisans have been lost over the decades, one hopes that the work of the Watanabes and their fellow craftsmen will ensure the Edo Komon lives on.