Toshiharu HISATSUNE

Toshiharu Hisatsune is a renowned Kanazawa-based Kaga yuzen dyer with over 40 years of experience.  He is known for his technical mastery and commitment to natural dyes, extracting colors from various sources including grapes, berries and cherry blossoms.  Though natural dye derived from cherry tree wood just prior to blooming is fairly common in Japan, dye from cherry blossom petals is rare, since the blossoms are not known to produce strong color.  Hisatsune, however, has been successful in producing brilliant pink shades from petals that naturally fallen to the ground.  A lifelong innovator, he has successfully applied yuzen techniques to dyeing of wood, glass, gold leaf and recently developed ultra-think textiles in additional to traditional kimono silk. Hisatsune aims to transform the chemical-dye-dominated Kaga Yuzen process by reviving the natural dying culture that existed in Japan for hundreds of years, prior to the modern era. Working with university researchers, he is helping to  develop new natural dyes that produce exceptional color with significantly reduced drying time, another effort to revitalize Kaga Yuzen for the 21st century.

Yuzen is a unique, 400-year-old, labor-intensive textile dye process in which color is applied to fabrics using tiny brushes to produce solid colors, color gradation, or elaborate motifs. The result is a highly prized cloth with a rich artistic aesthetic, most often used in high-end kimono and accessories. The use of traditional, natural dyes in Yuzen declined drastically since the introduction of European chemical dyes in the late 1800s, during the industrial revolution.