Marbled Haori Kimono Jacket 'Ryusui'

Marbled ink in navy, cream, orange and gold, moving across the jacket like water

Marbling is what happens when you float ink on water and lay paper on it, and this haori is a piece of that. Navy, cream, rust and orange swirl across the cloth in long horizontal veins, with gold and white pulled through them, thicker and darker at the shoulders and warmer toward the hem, where the orange takes over. No two areas repeat. The sleeves carry their own currents. It is printed edge to edge with no band, no border and no motif, just the movement of the ink.

Japan has its own tradition of this, suminagashi, ink floated on water and lifted off with paper, older than the European kind and quieter. This print takes the technique and turns the colour up: the navy of ink, but also the orange of a persimmon and the cream of the paper.

The name, Ryusui, means flowing water, the pattern the marbling makes and the thing it was floated on.

It is printed, not marbled by hand, which is worth saying, because a hand-marbled jacket would be one of a kind and this one is repeatable. The print is taken from a single sheet and laid across the pattern pieces so the veins run continuously across the seams. The cloth is polyester with a smooth surface and a dry hand, chosen because a pattern with this many soft edges needs a ground that keeps them soft, and because a haori this light should hang rather than stand. Three-quarter sleeves, open front with a flat band, no fastening, hem at the hip.

At three metres it is colour moving sideways across a jacket. At thirty centimetres it is ink, with the feathered edges and the tiny breaks that floating ink makes when the water moves. It is the most painterly piece in the range and the one that looks least like anything else.

The cut is a short open haori, square at the shoulder and relaxed through the body. Over a white tee, the cream in the print links to the tee and the front stays light. Over black, the navy veins take over and the orange glows. It goes with black trousers, cream trousers, dark denim, and plain shoes. Nothing else patterned, because this is all the pattern a day can hold.

Sizes run from M to 5XL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.