​PASSIONEER

Thread that refuses to be uniform, and is stronger for it. A phrase used when making a bold purchase. Weighing whether the price and the value of the piece are in balance. There are times when that equation simply doesn't hold. The passage of time. Memory. History. The tsumugi I work with. A rustic beauty, different from yuzen. Farmers spun cocoons too flawed to sell during the agricultural off-season, and wore the result as their own clothing. A humble but sturdy garment, on

The cashmere coat my grandmother left behind. Inside it, a new silk story begins. A silk fabric made for Western clothing. Perhaps a lining for a man's jacket —the kind you'd find in a finely tailored Italian coat.Laid across my palm, it has that smooth, liquid drape.That's silk, unmistakably. It was easy to imagine how it would look lined inside my grandmother's cashmere coat.The real gamble was using it for my son's haori.Could I line it fully? Wouldn't it be too heavy for

A grandmother's cashmere coat, its black wool exterior now lined with French vintage silk — a new life for both. 　 A French friend gave me a piece of silk.It had belonged to her grandmother, kept all these years. A geometric pattern, impossibly smooth, a sheen that moves like liquid.Ah — I can feel the silk's brilliance, its texture, right in my hands. Japanese silk thread, woven in Lyon, I believe. No proof at all. "My grandmother had this, but I don't know when it's from.I