Hand Painted Fabric Discovered in 1971 in Japan
Re-print of a vintage article
by Hope Dennis
Advertiser Fashion Writer
Published: Sunday, December 19, 1971
The Honolulu Advertiser
Honolulu, Hawaii
‘Tegaki’ designs exquisite
On one of his frequent business trips to Japan several months ago, Mortimer Feldman, president of Tori Richard, a Hawaiian garment firm, spotted some uniquely beautiful hand-painted yardage.
He discovered lengths of it in a small store on the outskirts of Kobe and with difficulty, finally located the source of the fabric.
“It was a small factory employing about 25 or 30 artists,” Feldman said, “They stretch the fabric, never more than 12 yards, on long bamboo poles and the artists walk up and down splashing and sloshing on the paint in a very free way.”
In a mood combining equal parts of “fear and enthusiasm,” Feldman bought the process and the entire output of the Kobe factory.
His enthusiasm was for the original, always – different designs of fabric; the fear was in anticipation of the massive problems those unique 12-yard lengths can represent to a garment manufacturer.
“Colors, color combination and design ideas can be similar, of course,“ Feldman said, “but actually nothing is ever repeated. This means every shirt, every dress, scarf or necktie will never be duplicated.
The project, now incorporated under the name “Tegaki”, which means “hand-print” in Japanese, is under the direction of William MacCrystal with Lei Wong, former model and better dress buyer, as designer.
Lei, who studied design in New York and Paris, has accepted the challenge of designing almost one-of-a-kind fashions.
“First of all, the clothes have to be utterly simple, not only to show off the exquisite fabric”, she said, “but to enable us to cut the same garment over and over in very different fabric designs.”
“Once you cut into this material there is no going back,” Lei said. “It will never be duplicated again. Once we did a dress and forgot to allow enough for a belt and buckle. There was no way to get more of that exact fabric.”
The Tegaki Line, which will retail beginning at about $65 for short dresses and $80 for long garments, will be previewed this week at the Tori Richard shops at Liberty House.
MacCrystal, who leaves next week to show the line to selected stores across the Mainland, also shares the mood of fear and enthusiasm.
“Every buyer who has seen it flips,” he said, “but with a limited production we could be sold out before we get out of New York. It is a unique product to sell when you think of how a buyer regularly buys, say, 500 shirts in carefully selected colors and patterns. When he orders from Tegaki he buys 500 shirts – period.
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Here's an example of Tegaki fabric used to make this dress. Scroll down to see two vintage 1970's newspaper advertisements.
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