FISHSKINLAB - BUNKA GLOBAL FASHION

BUNKA GLOBAL FASHION

Every year around the end of June, Bunka Gakuen University organizes a graduate school seminar for all the graduate students in the university. The seminar usually lasts for three days, and while aimed at providing the students in their graduate year with the opportunity to present their research in progress, it also aims to deepen the bonds between all the students through providing a space for cultural and academic exchange. For the second years, the seminar acts as a space to share the results of their thesis research with the other students in the graduate school. The academic exchange is aimed to encourage the students to re-evaluate their own research while listening to the presentations of their peers. The weekend-long stay is also colored by several workshops, organised by the students themselves. These workshops make the weekend at Hokuryūkan a bit less academic and formal, and provides the students with an opportunity to explore Japan in a setting that is different from Tokyo.

On July 6, 2018, Elisa Palomino, designer and lecturer at Central St. Martins took the first year Bunka Global Fashion MA students to visit the Indigo atelier of the Noguchi family, a 7th generation family of Indigo dyers. The atelier has a longstanding tradition: the vats of indigo used at the atelier were put in just after the big earthquake in 1923, and suffered no damage in March 2011. The Noguchi family has been living in the house, dyeing fabric for almost 180 years. They used to have their stencils done by someone else, but a couple generations back the business started shrinking and they started doing it themselves. We visited the atelier with the first year students, who were asked to bring some of their own fabric or threads that they wanted to have dyed. The students were free to use whatever technique they wanted in dyeing their fabric, this was done through using several shibori methods. We also tried the dyeing of stencils on fish skin so students could witness the fish skins dyeing process.

Bunka Gakuen University Graduate school seminar at the Indigo atelier of the Noguchi family