The difference between a quest, an adventure, and a journey lies in the definition; a quest is to complete a task, an adventure is to follow where the heart desires, while a journey is to search for meaning along the way. A month has gone by, and Pable will recall our most exciting journeys back when we were in Japan for a while.
It was mid-June, and the humid and hot breeze of Japan’s summer brought along with it the spirit and curiosity of Pable’s Founder Aryenda Atma, her friend Arisa, and Dept’s Founder Eri. Right in the heart of Kyoto, resides Mr. Yasuo Kawabata, who has been managing a century old family business called Shin-Manyozome. Eri and Arisa were the ones who introduced Atma to Shin-Manyozome, and the three were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do a workshop with Mr. Kawabata that day.
The name Shin-Manyozome literally means “the new Manyo dye” after the name of Japan’s famous anthology of 8th century poems called the Manyoshu. The meaning of Manyoshu itself is “10.000 poems”, but experts have interpreted it differently; “a collection of poems that must be immortalized forever “, or “a collection of poetry for 10,000 generations”. The last one is very fitting for Shin-Manyozome, and here’s why.
Shin-Manyozome was founded in 1924 as a kimono shop called “Kyoto Kawaramachi Shoten”. Mr. Kawabata’s family has been selling stoles and providing dyeing services. In the dyeing industry, which relies heavily on Kyoto’s abundant water resources, it is essential to consider how to eliminate environmental pollution caused by waste liquids. Mr.Kawabata began a collaboration with Mitsuo Kimura, a professor at Mie University, to develop a new natural dyeing technique called “Shin-Manyozome”, and reintroduced the ancient art of using natural dye. At Shin-Manyozome, they place particular emphasis on replacing petroleum-based materials with plant-based alternatives that are more easily biodegradable.
Take a look at these pretty shades of color that were extracted 100% from nature. The ingredients Shin-Manyozome has been using are pagoda tree (produces off-white color), marigold (produces yellow), Indian madder (produces red), cochineal (produces pink), and logwood (produces light blue). Mr. Kawabata mentioned something that surprised Aryenda; he’s been using a tree native to Southeast-Asia that is found in many places including Indonesia, which is the angsana tree or sanakembang. The sap from sanakembang tree produces a beautiful red pigment.
However, handling sustainable business is not without challenges. Unpredictable weather changes are causing plants to decrease, some plant varieties are also starting to disappear, planting in unpredictable weather conditions is also a challenge in itself. Besides that, it’s also hard to get people’s attention because not everyone understands the concept of natural dyeing, especially when it comes to large-scale industries like the clothing industry, which demands consistent colors and standards. This is difficult to achieve with natural dyeing because the colors produced by plants can’t always be consistent, and natural factors influence the quality of the plants and the resulting colors.
Mr. Kawabata, at his age, tries to embrace every young generation to rethink that meaning – the meaning of life alongside nature. With his patience, Mr. Kawabata hopes that there will be significant changes in the way we wear our clothes today, encouraging the younger generation and the next to be more patient and appreciate traditional techniques so that they remain relevant. This is why the definition of Manyoshu is very fitting; seeing Shin-Manyozome as a poem, Mr. Kawabata is continuing a legacy to be passed down to the next 10.000 generations.
Aryenda, Arisa, and Eri joined Mr. Kawabata’s natural dyeing workshop. The first step is for Mr. Kawabata to allow participants to choose the size of the fabric; shawl or handkerchief. Next step is to choose the color, in which Aryenda chose gray and dark green to be combined. And then, the dyeing process began by dipping the fabrics into the dye, and repeating it at least 3 times to adjust the desired color density. Once finished, Mr. Kawabata helped to dip the fabrics in hot and cold water, then dried them before finally being able to take them home.
For Aryenda, this workshop did not just allow her to take a shawl home. Walking out of Mr. Kawabata workshop allowed her to let her catch meanings along the way; deep understanding of nature, and the redefining process of our habits as humans. By learning to dye a fabric one at a time with natural dye, this workshop taught her to enjoy the process of becoming. There’s nothing to rush under the roof of Mr. Kawabata’s workshop. This brought her to understand even more deeply that if we humans live side by side with nature and the essence of what it gives us, then everything that is unnaturally fast is irrelevant; especially fashion. This is not about one trip where you get to see and make a shawl or a handkerchief –this is about a revolution of the mind. That if we were to prioritize nature above everything, life gets to slow down and its meaning becomes clearer.
