The photo above shows the central living area of a rural farmhouse on the border of Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures. The house was restored by Kenji Tsuchisawa who bought it as a rundown heap when he was only 20, after seeing a photograph of a traditional Japanese farmhouse on a Tokyo magazine cover. He bought the house before realizing it was situated just one village away from the house in the magazine. Many Japanese traditional farmhouses have now been restored and modernized, but the layout of these houses is so clever in terms of use of space and comfort that when they are updated, the original layout is often retained. It’s a house model being studied by North American and European architects aiming to produce smaller but more functional houses. Traditional Japanese houses are not large, but they seem larger than they are thanks to their well-thought-out layout, and their serene, warm version of minimalism makes them comfortable and functional. The use of natural materials and repeated colours makes the rooms feel balanced, and so does the fact that most objects have a real function. Decorative elements exist, but not to excess. When they are modernized, the main alteration is usually the replacement of the original exterior doors and windows, and trading the sliding shoji screen doors and windows for more sturdily framed glass doors, windows and skylights to let in more light and keep out the weather.

Both photos above show the traditional indoor fire pit known as an irori, which sometimes sits on a raised seating platform, though in the photo above the irori has been traded for a more efficient (and safer) wood stove. The beautiful half-frosting on the glass screen doors in the photo above provides some privacy from the fairly public courtyard for people seated inside. Photos are from a book I think is really worth buying: Japan Country Living: Spirit, Tradition, Style, by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Shin Kimura, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, 1993. Kimura’s work has also appeared in Met Home and Paris Vogue.

Above is a checkerboard textile of indigo-dyed hemp by Hiroyuki Shindo, on the verandah of his thatched house. It provides privacy (it appears opaque from outside, see here) and yet admits light and the view. Below, a functional modern kitchen produced by making only minor changes to the original.

The bottom photo shows a functioning scarecrows made of indigo-dyed hemp. The original book caption reads “The bold design of this piece of shibori-dyed hemp by Seizo Ishikawa, a farmer, seems at home working as a scarecrow by a newly harvested rice field.” The birds in Japan must have been accustomed to seeing farmers in real Japanese indigo yukatas, waving their arms. In the top photo, however, the proximity to the house suggests mainly the traditional Japanese method of drying kimono, yukata and other garments, but it probably conveniently doubled as a scarecrow. The target design is interesting, perhaps suggesting part of an eye? From the excellent book Japan Country Living: Spirit, Tradition, Style by Amy Sylvester Katoh, photographs by Shin Kimura, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Japan, 1993. Kimura’s work has also appeared in Met Home and Paris Vogue. Also see their excellent book Japan: The Art of Living.

Textile looms and computers share a common history; Babbage used punch cards in his Difference Engine after seeing a Jacquard loom at work. This carpet by Richard Hutten is called “Playing With Tradition” and it plays on the historical relationship of looms and computers by looking exactly like a digital image that has been pixel-stretched. Hutten has designed furniture and other products for Droog and Sawaya and Moroni, among others, and this rug was designed for I+I’s Strawberry Fields project. Some of the other pieces in that project are below, and at least two of them make use of computer imagery or computerized loom capabilities. This came to us down the winding path of blprnt (our resident digital expert and man about the studio, whose mom is also a weaver) via quasimondo via today and tomorrow.

The use of woven textiles in peasant interiors is so beautiful. The level of pride in the textiles is so evident, and that’s no doubt the result of the intimate connection people would have had not only with knowledge of the work and artistry involved, but also with the plants and animals from which the fibres came. These interiors are in Hungary (top) and Romania (two below), and they were found by just searching for “peasant house” on flickr. It’s a sad fact that most often when you find images of peasant interiors, they’re in folk museums. That goes for all of these photos. The photo below makes me want to hang a runner along the wall, and the seating platform in the Romanian room at bottom is great, the way it is covered in rugs and pillows.

Tweed often gets rediscovered by fashion in the fall, but lately it seems to actually be transcending the seasons, probably because it’s at the crossroads of so many of the current nostalgias: the neo-Victorian/Edwardian craze, the 1940s fashion trend, steampunk, the Golden Compass, and a dozen other cultural fixations. Maybe it answers to our longing for a (seemingly) simpler, more civil time? Or for something else? There must be a reason, because it’s absolutely everywhere.

Apparently tweed got its name by accident. It was originally known as “tweel” (Scots for “twill”) which is a diagonal rather than plain pattern weave (denim is also a twill). According to Wikipedia, around 1830 a London merchant received a letter from a textiles firm in the Scottish Borders about some tweels. “The London merchant misinterpreted the handwriting, understanding it to be a trade-name taken from the name of the River Tweed which flows through the Scottish Borders textile areas. Subsequently the goods were advertised as Tweed, [and] the name has remained so ever since.”

Tweed, Fall/Winter 2008 from here:

Tweed was actually first brought into fashion as women’s wear between 1890 and 1910 as fitted jackets over a long skirt. It was practical and also suggested a less froufrou look, and in fact it has been associated with powerful women or feminism in more than one era. Below, Lauren Bacall in 1944 in her first film, To Have and Have Not. Tweed suits in the 1940s coincided with the new independence and self-sufficiency of women in Europe and North America while men were off in the war.

More on the past and present of tweed:

Coco Chanel was the first to bring tweed into the world of haute couture. She introduced it in the 1920s but is most famous for her distinctive tweed Chanel jacket of the 1950s and 60s. These were not the menswear chic of Lauren Bacall, but of something softer. Gina Lollobrigida and friends in Chanel tweed, Fall/Winter Vogue 1964:

and Chanel Fall/Winter 2008:

And in popular culture, there’s Daniel Craig in tweed as Lord Asriel in The Golden Compass.

Also see a festival of tweed in the “steampunk” style here or in the NYT.

We keep looking at this photograph of a beautiful knit dress and scarf by Kelgwo in Chile. Usually natural knits don’t achieve this level of absolute chicness. Kelgwo’s ateliers are in Santiago and Chiloe Island where some of the traditional weaving orginates. “Kelgwo” is the name of a part of a traditional local loom as well as the name of a particular type of weaving. The atelier hopes to help revive traditional weaving in the region. First seen in their excellent Etsy shop.