Fabric shopping in Japan (Tokyo!)
Morning guys!!
Here I am again and this time I’m posting about our recent trip to Japan 🙂 Well, it was amazing, also very tiring as we saw so much and walked so much and traveled so much! Oh! And there is also a 10-hour-flight going there and 11 coming back so the jet lag is preeeetty intense if you are not used to travelling that much, well, even if you are 🙂
But, getting to the point, our route was something like this: Osaka-Nara-Koyasan-Kyoto-Kobe-Hakone-Kamakura-Nikko-Tokyo (if you want specific information please send me an email to hi@cocowawacrafts.com and will let you know more about it).
Some points were just a one day/half day thing and the two places where we spent more time were Kyoto and Tokyo (a bit too much in Tokyo I think…). Kyoto was a lovely city, easy to walk almost anywhere and more relaxed. Loved how women dressed their with comfy trousers (culotte style), loose dresses, lots if linen and lots of layers. We could also see many girls wearing kimonos! (check my IG feed).
I love this picture I took of these three Japanese girls wearing something as traditional as a kimono and checking how they looked on their phones 😃
Apart from the traditional kimonos and other incredible textile crafts that you see there, I went down to business searching for fabric stores (of course!).
In Kyoto I went to Nomura Tailor who have a shop right in the centre of the city and very close to the popular (and very tourist) food market Nishiki. And even though I didn’t buy anything there because I wanted to wait for Tokyo, there were lots of very nice fabrics, so many types of denim and a big selection of jerseys. If you just go to Kyoto, then Nomura is your place 😃
Moving to Tokyo, I went straight to THE PLACE, the one everybody talks about, Nippori Textile Town, located near the train station of the same name (Nippori) in North East Tokyo.
For those who live or have visited London, it is similar to Goldhawk Road but in my opinion the fabrics are nicer, the selection is much bigger and there also other shops that sell haberdashery or other materials like leather.
Pick up a map on any of the stores to know your way around
Even though there are many shops there, the star is Tomato which have several branches in the same street. There is one with four floors (or there were five? Don’t remember now) and on each floor there’s a different type of fabric: one for jerseys, another one for cottons, other for linings and so on.
Oh and don’t forget, you have to pick up yourself the bolt of fabric you want and take it to the counter for cutting. Also important, you have to pay and get your fabric cut on the same floor where you find it. We were told off because we ended up on the top floor with fabrics from everywhere! hehehe.
You can also find patterns and some books, although I bought mine on bookshops that you can find all around Tokyo (go to Jimbocho, a neighborhood full of lovely bookstores) AND! on one of the Tomato branches, I found lots of fabrics for a pound per metre (yay!).
Last but not least, here are the ones I bought there. Not many, but I have learned with time that the more fabric I buy, the more I end up giving away at fabric swaps, so now I tend to stick to the ones I really really like and no more (yes, it requires A LOT of retrain, hahaha.) From left to right: super soft cotton jersey with yellow dots; medium weight cotton almost like linen but with more body; medium weight cotton but lighter; and a very light fabric that feels like cotton lawn. I am still thinking about which projects to make with each but there will be a skirt, shirt and culottes there for sure 😃
And that’s all for now ladies! Hope you liked the post and see you again here very soon!
Happy sewing,
Ana
xx