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“ Matsusaka Momen ”

Matsusaka Mie

    japan map・Matsusaka

The city of Matsusaka is located near the Ise-jingu Shrine, the over two thousand years old shrine that is believed to be the origin of the Japanese Shintoism. The history of textile in Matsusaka is also pretty long, dating back to around 5th century, when foreigners from Chinese continent brought in the techniques of yarn spinning and weaving. There is also a shrine dedicated to the god of textile, and the textile produced there was dedicated to the Ise-jingu Shrine.
As the plantation of cotton plants started in the suburbs of Matsusaka, cotton textile industry also started to flourish, producing indigo-dyed textiles with stripes as fine as willow leaf veins called Ryujo-fu (literally, ‘willow twig textile’), which was a pattern brought in from northern Vietnam by traders. Infinite variations of color can be achieved by the dyeing methods, and numerous stripe patterns created were given titles, such as komochi-shima (literally ‘parent-stripe’) or daimyo-shima (‘feudal lord’s stripe’). These indigo stripes are still used as popular patterns when weaving Matsusaka Momen.