Tsumugi (cloth)

Tsumugi (紬) is a traditional slub-woven silk fabric from Japan. It is a tabby weave material woven from yarn produced using silk noil, short-staple silk fibre (as opposed to material produced using longer, filament yarn silk fibres). The short silk fibres are degummed^[1] and, traditionally, the yarns are hand-joined to form a continuous length before weaving,^[2] a technique also used for cheaper bast fibres. Yarns are joined by twisting the ends to be joined in the same direction, then twisting both ends, bundled together, in the other direction, to make a two-ply yarn at the overlap.^[3] It might alternately be loosely handspun, with few twists per unit length.^[4] Because of this structure, tsumugi is rough-surfaced, soft and drapey, softening further with age.

Between 1910 and 1925 (late Taishō to Shōwa era), it became common to spin as well as weave silk noil by machine (see meisen for the technological developments that made this possible).^[5][6] This machine-spun meisen cloth largely displaced tsumugi as one of the cheapest silk fabrics. Prices dropped drastically, and silk materials and clothing was suddenly within the budget of most Japanese;^[6] stores also began to sell off-the-peg, ready-to-wear kimono at about this time.^[7]

Originally, tsumugi was homemade from domestic or wild-gathered silkworm cocoons that had been broken by hatching^[8] or were irregularly formed.^[4] Unlike the long-fiber silk, such cloth was permitted to peasants.^[9] Traditionally a peasant cloth, handmade tsumugi is very labour-intensive to produce, and has become expensive over time, valued as a luxury folk-craft.