Keeping the Craft of Clothing Alive | Why We Make Journey Wear in the Chikugo River Basin
We brought our striped Traveler’s Indigo Cape to the final judging of the 2026 Fukuoka Design Award. I had two minutes to present it.
Here’s a little of what I couldn’t fit into those two minutes.
Why do I want to keep making clothes here?
Keeping the skills to make clothes close to home
One piece stayed with me after the judges’ remarks. It was a wooden stand engraved with where the tree had grown, how old it was, and whose hands had worked on it. You could trace where it came from. What you did with it was up to you.
It made me think about the clothes we make.
In 2025, just 1.1% of the clothing supplied to the Japanese market was made in Japan, measured by number of items. About one garment in a hundred.
If goods stopped moving across borders again, could we still make the clothes we need? I want us to be able to.
That’s part of why we work with sewing workshops and skilled makers in the Kurume area. When you know the people who sew your clothes, it’s easier to see what it takes to keep that work going, and what we can pass on to the next generation.
From yarn to garment, hand to hand
Dye the yarn with indigo.
Weave it into Kurume kasuri, a traditional textile named for the city of Kurume.
Make the cloth into a piece of journey wear.
Each of these steps takes place here in the Chikugo River basin.
Local groundwater is used in both indigo dyeing and the making of Kurume kasuri. When a dye vat has reached the end of its working life, what’s left can be returned to the soil to nourish the fields.
Long before the word “sustainability” came into common use, people here were drawing on local water and returning what they could to the soil. When we make the cape, we use the full width of the woven cloth so there are no offcuts from cutting. We want to use every bit of the cloth someone took the time to weave.
The final shape is yours
Two pieces of cloth. Twelve buttons.
Drape it over your shoulders. Wrap it around your neck. Fasten the buttons differently and wear it like a shirt.
Its final shape is up to you.
Who dyed the yarn? Who wove the cloth? Who sewed it? I’d love to find a way to record that journey on the garment itself. I imagine embroidering the wearer’s name as the last step. From there, the cape becomes part of their story.
Thank you to the judges, the organizers, and everyone who stopped to feel the cloth for themselves.
It began with the water of this place and the hands of the people who work here.
From there, the journey is yours.
Explore the striped Traveler’s Indigo Cape
IKI LUCA | Journey Wear
From Kurume to the world.
Source for the domestic production share: Japan Textiles Importers Association, 2026 apparel market report, as reported by WWDJAPAN, June 25, 2026.
