Made in Kyoto, Designed by Zusetsu
Hello everyone! We are beyond excited to announce
our first ever Zusetsu original furoshiki, Snowflower! As a furoshiki store, we always dreamed of one day having our very own, unique furoshiki. We also knew that our furoshiki would need to be absolutely perfect and truly represent who we are. It took more than a year of hard work, but we couldn't be more proud of our Snowflower❤️
The design and the name hold so much meaning to us. Most importantly, Snowflower is made in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. Our furoshiki is screen-printed by hand, using the traditional techniques passed down by generations. In this blog, we'll share our Snowflower journey - from the prototypes to the final product.
We hope you fall in love with Snowflower the way we did too x
Meet the Designer
Cathy in the poppy and daisy fields near our home in the Cotswolds
Hi, I'm Cathy! I'm the founder of Zusetsu and the designer behind our new Zusetsu Snowflower Furoshiki. I’m a children’s book illustrator with over 30 years experience of illustrating books for children’s publishers, educational publishers, and magazines here in the UK and also Europe and the USA 😊
When I began Zusetsu, my dream was to make a connection with the incredibly skillful artisans based in Kyoto and further afield in Japan, and to provide a platform for their products.
I love how artisan skills have been honed to the highest level and passed down through the generations. I love the high quality of the furoshiki print and textiles that we stock instore, and as I learned more about the processes I was keen to design our first Zusetsu furoshiki.
The Inspiration: the Cherry Orchard
We have a very beloved cherry orchard that we walk to across the fields, and every winter we look forward to the trees flowering once more.
We begin to walk that way, and look for the progress of the buds.
The white-flowering trees look like snow, especially as the petals scatter to the ground.
The Design: From Sketch to Print
Cathy picked up some of the fallen blossoms and made sketches of them, which over time evolved into our sakura design.
Sketches of the cherry blossom
Next, Cathy used our original Japanese colour palette with which to paint the sakura petals.
A screenshot of our Snowflower furoshiki being designed with a Japanese palette!
We experimented with a lot of different variations of this cherry blossom design and created various prototypes. It was very important to us that we get the right colour combinations and to see how the design would look when tied as a gift wrap.
This was our first prototype design!
We ultimately decided to keep the design elegant and understated, with scattered cherry blossoms in two shades of pink on a snow white ground. This truly brings out the beauty of the textured shantung fabric :)
The beautifully textured cotton of Kyoto furoshiki
The Creation: Screen-Printing in Kyoto
It was important to us that our furoshiki is authentic and of the same high quality as the other Kyoto furoshiki that we stock. We partnered with Mashu, a professional furoshiki screen-printing company in Kyoto, to create our design in the traditional way.
Our artwork has been transposed onto two screens, and the artwork is applied traditionally, by hand.
Isn’t it amazing how the cloth is laid out on these huge horizontal supports, and how each furoshiki screen is applied individually, one after the other!
They very kindly sent us these photos of our first furoshiki being created, and they took my breath away!
We are very much looking forward to visiting the workshop in Kyoto in the future!
The Name: Snowflower
Yukki with Snowflower :)
Now all that was left was to name our dear furoshiki! This was an easy decision as Cathy always knew she wanted to name the furoshiki after Yukki, her Zusetsu partner :) Yukki's name in Japanese means "snow flower". This name truly suits our furoshiki as while sakura are typically regarded as spring motifs, we also wanted to capture a snowy, quiet Japanese winter scene with a few delicate flower petals in the snow. The simple yet elegant design makes it perfect for winter gifts as well as weddings too x
The Finished Product!
If you can't tell, we are thrilled to bits with how our furoshiki turned out. We are so excited to launch it here in our Zusetsu online store!
You can find it instore here!