The Hirota Tsumugi Blog
- 2019.01.07
- The Size of “Tanmono” Kimono Fabric Bolt
A Kimono fabric bolt, called “Tanmono”, is woven in ’38 ~41cm wide × 1250~80cm length (15 × 500 inches, or 0.43 × 14 yards) size.
The 38cm wide × 1250cm length is the necessary and sufficient size for making a suit of female kimono. (For a male kimono, the width needs to be a little bit longer, but the length is shorter than a female kimono).
A kimono fabric is divided into the 8 parts for tailoring a kimono, as below.
Compared to the complex pattern-cutting of Western clothes, it is so simple. Making a kimono is done by a minimum required fabric without any fabric leftover.
This is how the cut 8 parts construct a kimono.
This below is a Oshima tsumugi kimono silk fabric bolt for a female kimono.
It has the 39cm width, but both edges have about 1cm margins to sew up.
It is about 4.5㎡ in total.
The reason why kimono fabrics are 38~41cm wide is largely due to the structural limitation of a hand loom. A shuttle is passed right and left between weaver’s right and left hands, so that 40cm is the best length for throwing a shuttle to carefully weaving a fabric.
A floor hand loom, used for weaving a tsumugi fabric
Kimono would represent the Japanese tradition of handweaving and their spirit of making garments out of the precious fabric without any leftover that is carefully handwoven.