Japanese Indigo Dye

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Shalisha Witherspoon

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The many unique scarves made by my classmates using Japanese Indigo Dye!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NGHVjKoW9Q

Wow! It’s already the end of the 2nd week! Time sure does fly by (when you’re having fun of course)! So far, I’m really enjoying my time in Japan! Not only am I learning a whole lot about the language, but I’m also learning a lot about the ancient culture and customs. This week, I got the chance to participate in an old traditional technique from ancient Japan; Japanese Indigo Dye (Aizome). Aizome is the process of fermentation of natural lye. Unlike fabrics that are manufactured with chemical dyes, the authentic dyed fabric does not fade, even after washing! According to our Aizome instructor, the more you wash the fabric, the more the indigo dye will soak deeper into the threads, which make it tougher and long-lasting!

What I found interesting was that all of the colors were derived from nature; blue from indigo of course; yellow is made by boiling grass; brown from the trees; red from red root; and more interesting, brown could be made from cinnamon, which would leave the fabric smelling like fresh cinnamon for life!

For our workshop, we got to dye scarves. The process for dying was quite simple, and very fun! I chose to dye mine’s yellow because it’s my favorite color! Even though the samples were red, blue, yellow, and brown, there were a lot of combinations that you could make because you could mix the colors and even make tie-dye (if you were confident)! To dye,  you first had to wash, then leave in the boiling dye pot for 5 minutes, wash again, dip in “magic water” (really lye) for another 5 minutes, and repeat for deeper and brighter colors. Everyone’s scarves were different and unique!

It was a great experience and one of my favorite excursions! One of the best parts was that we got to make the scarves in Kyoto’s country side; a totally different experience from the city. We were so close to the mountains and the scenery was so natural! I will treasure my scarf as a memento of a great experience!

Shalisha Witherspoon

Konnichiwa! My name is Shalisha Witherspoon, and I'm currently a senior majoring in IT (Software development track) and minoring in Japanese Language and Literature at Florida International University (FIU) I also work at FIU as an Undergraduate Researcher for the High Performance Database Research Center. I'm one of six children, and I happen to be a twin! I was also homeschooled my entire life. My interests include drawing, video games, programming, and above all, Japanese! Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated with Japanese culture thanks to TV and comic books. As my interest grew, I learned to draw in the Japanese art style and created my own comics. Soon afterwards, I began researching Japanese history and culture, and finally, I began studying the language. After formally studying Japanese for 2 years, I will finally fulfill a life-long dream and study Japanese in Japan this summer! The school I will be attending is Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, where I will complete my Japanese language studies and take a culture class fully in Japanese! Even better, I will be going abroad with my identical twin sister! This will be my first time out of the country, so I'm grateful to have been blessed to experience this amazing opportunity with my twin! I hope to one day work for a software company in Japan, particularly Nintendo since I'm studying game programming and have grown up playing their games; studying abroad will help me get one step closer to reaching that goal! I look forward to sharing my amazing experience in Japan!