Playful wearable art from a 100-year-old establishment

A colorful townhouse sits on Takoyakushi-dori Street near Kyoto’s Karasuma Station, mixing the old with the avant-garde. This is the location of Katayama Bunzaburo Shoten, a tie-dye shop with over 100 years of history.Open the shop curtain and take a step inside, where you’ll find a range of tie-dyed products overflowing with innovative, beautiful forms. It almost feels like looking at a modern art installation. Rather than remain in the old traditional world of Japanese kimonos, Katayama Bunzaburo Shoten has been incorporating traditional tie-dying methods into a more modern medium for around 30 years.

“Our concept is wearable art, or rather, ‘dress-up art.’ I personally like modern art, so I’m often going to art museums,” says third generation company head Kazuo Katayama. Katayama’s earliest memories were touching the sample color cloths and books that his grandfather kept, which gave him a refined sense of color. Without having yet received a technical education in clothing, Katayama decided to do just that, attending fashion school in Kyoto in his teens. Upon graduating from university, he gained experience working in textiles, deepening his knowledge of western clothing. He then returned to the family business and was tasked with developing new products by his father, fully displaying his skills and sensibilities. These bold products have been shown in New York’s MoMA museum shop, and are beginning to catch the attention of people abroad with edgier sensibilities. Now, in addition to showing at exhibitions abroad several times a year, a storefront has opened in Ginza, Tokyo. The company is keeping its eye on new and interesting materials in order to further expand the potential for tie-dying. “Our mission is to have our products shown in locations where respected brands from overseas are also visible – to be seen as being on the same level as those brands. We strive to be excellent, and will always continue to innovate,” says Katayama.