”Netsuke” a necessity for Kimono
Kimono does not have a pocket where you can keep ”Sagemono (hanging stuff)” which you need to carry day to day such as ”Kinchaku (Small tied bag)” and ”Inro (Seal)”. For those occasions, ”Netsuke” is a must to have. ”Netsuke” is a fastener that prevents ”Sagemono” from falling by tying to it and clipping it to the ”Obi”(sash). Now a days, you can see people attaching a chain to the wallet and to the trousers, so if you can imagine that, this is not far off from it. In the old days, people were fashionable and gave additional design to ”Netsuke” and ”Sagemono”. Today, there are many collectors of ”Netsuke” even abroad. Ise Netsuke became super popular during the Edo period when visiting Ise Shrine became popular. It is said that many people bought it as a souvenir of visiting Ise and brought it home. There is even a story that the design of ”frog (return)” was the popular design.
Challenged carving ”Netsuke”
We visited Tadamine Nakagawa, who is a ”Netsuke” artist and also a chairman of International Netsuke Carvers Society. Nakagawa is a Director of the Ise Netsuke Carving Museum that was opened in 1993 and is active in maintaining the tradition to the next generation.
Nakata was charmed by his work and got to challenge carving. However, after continuing carving his hands started hurting and there was a scene when he got a massage from . Nakagawa….
Nakata asked at the end, ”Is a there modern design?” ”Yes, we are thinking of making those as well now, so we are making small things that you can hang on your cell phone too”, says Nakagawa with a challenging expression.
