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Tomita
A craftsman stirring kozo fibre in a steaming vat
An artisan picking through fibre in cold water
A brush drawn across a sheet in the workshop
A wide brush laying paste across a sheet
A hand pressing crumpled washi flat
A sheet trimmed by hand against the wall
Squares of silver leaf laid by hand
A hand smoothing a sheet over a relief surface

Kozo · Kiri · Kingin · Ori

Materials & Craft

Four materials carry our collections, each worked by hand by specialist makers in Japan.

Oomomi, Art Wall Legend II: kozo washi crumpled by hand, close up in raking light
Artisans cleaning kozo fibre by hand in cold water
An artisan drawing colour across a long sheet of washi
Sheets of washi hanging to dry

Kozo

Washi, the paper of the mulberry, made in Inshu, Tottori. Kozo is the longest and strongest of its fibres, and the sheet holds together with no adhesive at all. In 1988 Tomita made Japan’s first washi wallcovering from it.

Discover Kozo

Kiri

Paulownia, sliced thin and laid by hand, so that the grain itself draws the pattern. Depending on its direction, the same wood reads light or dark: turn one piece against another and a pattern appears without any change of colour.

Discover Kiri
Yosegi, Art Wall Legend II: kiri parquetry in grey and charcoal, close up
Hiraoshi II, Art Wall Legend II: gold leaf laid flat, close up in raking light
Hands laying a sheet of gold leaf
A craftsman at the long table of the leaf workshop
Sheets of leaf, close up

Kingin

Gold and silver leaf, beaten to about a ten-thousandth of a millimetre and laid by hand, one sheet at a time. Smoked over sulphur, genuine silver turns from silver to red, to blue, to black.

Discover Kingin

Ori

Natural fibre, woven for the wall: linen, raffia, abaca and paper yarn. Some is woven entirely by hand in the Philippines, two to three metres in a day; some on the looms of Kyoto and the Tango district.

Discover Ori
TRI-5537, Ori: a study walled in a dark woven fibre, a lamp on the desk

Best judged in the hand.

Order cut samples of any design, or visit our showroom in Kyobashi.

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