Fabric in Japanese
Nuno originally meant orimono (textiles) made of fibers from such plants as hemp&sbquo devil’s tongue and ramie&sbquo and was the general term for all textiles excluding those woven with silk and wool. Later on it included cotton and today it is a general term for textiles including silk. Originally&sbquo fu (Chinese reading for nuno) had a common meaning with fu (human skin)&sbquo and meant things that are so smooth and thin that they almost cling to the skin. Now&sbquo I’d like to define the two words orimono and its English counterpart textile from the point of view of design. First&sbquo in general&sbquo orimono is a general term for a surface with a certain width and length&sbquo made with a loom with a combination of two sets of threads?warp and weft?as its minimal unit. It is therefore appropriate to use textile to refer to the visual or tactile characteristics of this surface made up of the materials and combination of this warp and weft. Moreover&sbquo seven tactile terms?pliancy&sbquo crispness&sbquo fluffiness&sbquo hardness&sbquo drape&sbquo tension&sbquo and slickness?are sensuous expressions&sbquo and became the criteria for assessing the sensual quality of the textile. In the textile industry&sbquo which used to be Japan’s major industry&sbquo these criteria were physically instilled in artisans as a kind of professional intuition&sbquo but in design they are not yet defined as sensuous criteria. These sensations regarding the materials in textiles should be a significant theme for design that involves sensibility.