Classic Seigaiha Noren 'Seikai'

Cream noren curtain with the classic wave pattern in navy line, split down the middle

The wave pattern, exactly as it is. This noren is a cream ground printed with the overlapping scales of the seigaiha in fine navy concentric lines, the pattern drawn the way it has been drawn on Japanese cloth for a thousand years, at the standard scale, across both panels. There is nothing added and nothing taken away.

It is the classic of the collection, the noren every other wave curtain here is a variation on, and the one to buy first.

The name, Seikai, is the blue sea, the first half of the pattern's own name, and the curtain is the pattern.

The curtain is a lightweight woven polyester printed through, hemmed on all sides, with a rod channel sewn across the top and a split running from just below the channel to the hem, so it hangs as two panels that part when you walk through and fall closed behind you. It is photographed on a rod across a doorway at the same scale as every noren in the collection.

Hang it on a tension rod or a dowel through the channel, across a doorway, a kitchen entrance, a corridor, a window or a wall, at a height where the hem clears the head. In Japan it hangs at a shop door to say open and in a house to make one room into two. It moves in a draught and it is meant to.

The lines are the detail: each scale is six or seven fine navy arcs inside one another, evenly spaced, and the scales overlap by exactly half, which is what gives the pattern its calm. The navy is a single ink and the cream is unbleached.

Machine wash cool on a gentle cycle, hang to dry, and iron on low if the fold shows. The print is through the cloth and does not fade in an ordinary room; keep it out of direct sun if you want the colour to last for years.

From across a room it is a cream curtain with a navy scale pattern. From close the scales show their arcs, the arcs their spacing, and the overlap its precision. It is the noren for any doorway, which is what a classic is for.

Nine sizes, width by drop: 55 by 90, 65 by 100, 70 by 120, 80 by 130, 90 by 150, 95 by 160, 100 by 170, 110 by 180 and 120 by 200 cm. Measure the doorway and choose a width a few centimetres wider and a drop that clears the head; the split is in every size.