33 kimono, banana fiber by Samiro Yunoki 1974

Samiro Yunoki was born in Tokyo in 1922. He was inspired to become a dyer by Sōetsu Yanagi’s essay “Kogei no michi (The Way of Craft)” and a stencil-dyed calendar by Keisuke Serizawa.
This kimono was produced in 1974, 2 years after the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Osaka was established. Yunoki used basho-fu (banana fiber cloth) which has long been woven in Okinawa prefecture and the Amami islands, Kagoshima prefecture. He dyed the basho-fu using the chusen pour-dyeing technique, in which a vacuum compressor pulls the dye evenly into the cloth. With distinctive lively designs and vivid colors, Yunoki, fires the viewer’s imagination in both subtle and humorous ways. The natural fiber, bold color and lively, rhythmic design join forces perfectly to fire the viewer’s imagination.