Cord Pattern Kimono 'Kumihimo'

Pale braided cords looped across black, the craft of the obi tie as a print

The pattern on this kimono is made of cords. Pale grey braids loop and cross over a black ground in panels and knots, interlaced the way the cords of a samurai's armour or the tie of an obi were braided, with lattice squares and diagonal nets between them, so the cloth reads as a dark surface with string laid across it. Up close it is intricate. From across a room it is a graphic black-and-grey print with a rhythm to it. The obi is plain grey, wide and flat.

It is the piece in the collection with a craft behind it rather than a picture. Every motif on it is a cord, and cords in Japan were never decoration: they held swords, tied boxes, closed kimono, and the braiding of them was an art with its own schools.

The name, Kumihimo, is that art, the braiding of fine cords by hand on a round stand, still practised in Kyoto and still used for the cord that ties a formal obi. The print is the cords without the stand.

It is printed, not woven, with the pale grey kept slightly soft so the braids look drawn rather than stamped. The cloth is polyester with a dry hand and a slight texture, chosen because black must stay black around pale line work, and because a kimono for the warm months should hang light.

The obi is included. Cross the fronts left over right, wrap the grey obi twice at the waist and knot it at the hip. On a print made of cords, the obi is the one real cord, and it belongs.

The cut is long, falling to the ankle, with wide square sleeves and the room to move. Worn at home it is a robe with a pattern you can trace with a finger. Worn out with black sandals it is an evening outfit that reads sharp and monochrome, and it goes with nothing else patterned.

At three metres it is black with grey movement. At thirty centimetres the braids show their strands, the lattices show their crossings, and the knots show how they were tied. It is a print to trace with a finger, and people will.

Sizes run from M to XL, by height. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.