YUKATA
YUKATA are the Japanese casual summer kimono and TENUGUI are Japanese – style hand towels.
Most YUKATA and TENUGUI are made from expertly processed Combed Cotton (long, strong, yet softly spun absorbent base fibers) and are exceptionally cool and comfy on the skin.
Those two traditional cloth items are most commonly printed using the CHUSEN dye technique that allows the front and back of cloth to be dyed exactly the same.
At its core, CHUSEN is paste – resist dyeing characterized by a repeat pattern that is blocked out before the background color is filled in. What distinguishes CHUSEN from other paste - resist techniques is the use of a highly - specialized vacuum table that allows for complete color saturation of the background while preserving the integrity of the pattern’s exacting outline.
The discovery of the vacuum table isn’t entirely clear, but Japanese craftsmen saw an immediate and profitable use that allowed them to meld their hand- crafted artistry with time-saving technology.
This is very important as YUKATA and TENUGUI are often used as an advertising or public massage device the way T-shirts are in the West.
Both have still kept their highly collectable traditional patterns some of which are the worlds original EMOJI.