Minimal Wave Noren Curtain 'Shitanami'

Cream noren curtain with a single blue wave rising across the bottom of both panels

One wave, at the bottom, and cream above it. This noren is a plain cream ground with a single wave in one flat blue rising across the bottom third of both panels, its crest curling into fingers of foam drawn as cream cut-outs, and the rest of the curtain left empty. It is the least printed noren in the collection and the most modern, and the empty space is the design.

It is the noren for a person who wants the wave and a lot of quiet.

The name, Shitanami, is the lower wave, the wave at the foot of the cloth, and the curtain is named for where it is.

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 cut-out is the detail: the foam is drawn as cream shapes inside the blue rather than white on top of it, so the wave reads as a stencil, and the blue is a single flat colour with no shading. The crest crosses the split.

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 blue at the bottom. From close the blue is a wave, the foam its cut-outs, and the cream its emptiness. It is the noren for a modern room and a person who likes space.

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.