Itobashou plant and Bashofu textile close-ups (IMAGE)

Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University

Itobashou plant and Bashofu textile close-ups

Caption

Bashofu fibers are obtained from the Okinawan Itobashou banana plant.  The bottom right image is a zoomed-in portion at the white box in the upper image. The arrowhead on the close-up points to a handtied weaver’s knot. Unlike cotton fabrics, artisans manually tie the fibers in each of these knots by hand – and this is done 22,000 times for a single piece of kimono cloth. Scale bar on the upper photo is 10mm, lower is 1mm.

Credit

Koji Koizumi

Usage Restrictions

Credit must be given to the creator.

License

CC BY

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