Omamori

Omamori amulet pouch in a brocade with gold characters and a knotted cord, each design carrying a different wish: health, luck, study, recovery and more, in twelve.

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About this piece

Brocade omamori charm pouch with a knotted cord, in twelve designs for twelve wishes

A small brocade pouch with a wish woven on it. This is the omamori, the amulet sold at every shrine and temple in Japan, a pouch in a woven brocade with a knotted cord at the top and the wish in gold characters down the front: health, luck, study, recovery, safety, success, each design a different wish and a different cloth, in twelve.

It is the smallest thing in the shop and one of the most given, and it hangs from a bag, a phone, a car mirror or a bedpost.

The name is the Japanese one, and it means a protector: the pouch is sealed, and inside it is a folded paper or a slip of wood with a prayer, and the rule is that you never open it.

The pouch is a brocade woven with a pattern and the characters in gold thread, folded and sewn into the rounded shrine shape, with a cord in a matching colour knotted through the top into a loop with a decorative knot. It is sealed at the base.

Carry it on a bag, a key ring, a phone or a rear-view mirror, which is where the Japanese carry theirs, or hang it by a bed or a desk. It is given at a new year, an exam, a birth, an illness or a journey, and the design is chosen for the wish. After a year the tradition is to return it to a shrine for a new one; outside Japan, it is kept.

The twelve designs are twelve wishes, and the characters name them: the purple and the red carry the wish for health, the white with gold the wish for luck and success, the cream with the crest the wish for recovery from illness, the pale blue a wish for the young. The cord and the knot are the same shape on all.

The knot is the detail: a decorative knot in the cord at the top of the pouch, the same on every shrine amulet in Japan, which closes the pouch and makes the loop. The characters are woven, not printed, and they glint.

From across a room it is a small bright pouch on a cord. From close the pouch shows its brocade, the characters their gold, and the knot its turns. It is the charm for a person who needs one, or knows someone who does.

Keep it dry; it is not washed. If the brocade frays at a corner, that is a year well carried.

One size, about the size of a matchbox, on a cord loop the length of a finger. Twelve designs; the option number picks the design and the wish.

What we sell, and what we don't

Japanese designs, made in Asia. Cotton, linen or polyester as stated on each piece, never silk. We say so on every page, because the alternative is selling you a word instead of a garment.

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