TENMOKU COTTON

Mottled and granular. Irregular and uneven, deep and still.
And steeped in timeless beauty – just like an ancient tea bowl.

A layered dialogue between ceramics and clothing – one durable, the other fluid – lies at the heart of an experimental new series by HaaT. TENMOKU COTTON explores the spaces that lie between these two worlds – and unravels their points of connection, with a collection rooted in imperfection, materiality and timeless textural expression.

A clue into its creative heart lies in its name: the starting point is tenmoku, a centuries-old style of tea bowl, originally brought to Japan from China by Zen Buddhist monks as early as the 12th century. A cornerstone of tea ceremony, tenmoku ceramics are distinguished by the deep beauty of the glaze. High firing temperatures and rich iron content combine to evoke a unique surface atmosphere, often mottled with irregular spots and streaks, always imbued with a timeless sense of depth.

For TENMOKU COTTON, this technique was transferred from textiles to ceramics. A special two-step finishing process was created for clothing, inspired by the singular beauty – imperfect, organic, irregular, textured – of glazed tenmoku ceramics.

The creative synthesis begins at its material root. The textile uses a yarn with cotton fibers encased in an elastic polyurethane core, for both the warp and weft. This stretch yarn is woven into the fabric at varying ratios – resulting in a seemingly endless spectrum of textural depth and surface irregularities.

Clothing is sewn (this series includes a vest, top, jacket, skirt and dress); and the garments then dyed to create unique surface textures. This is followed by a surface bleaching process, aimed at producing tonal variations reflecting the nuanced depth of tenmoku.

The end result is clothing with unique textural surfaces – three-dimensional, abstract, softly sculptural. The fabric is further imbued with layered tones of light beige, brown and black, mirroring the shifting shades of soil. Anchored in hand　craftsmanship and the uncontrollable energy of nature, each piece is resolutely unique – just like tenmoku ceramics.

The new TENMOKU COTTON series forms part of HaaT’s wider creative study for 26SS, which translates into textiles Japan’s rich living heritage of ceramics and porcelein – from the treasured form of centuries-old national treasure ceramics to mingei folk craft pieces created for everyday use made by anonymous artisans.

Earth, pigments, glazes, tones, patterns, techniques: HaaT transcends form, weaving threads of connection rooted in the timeless beauty of crafted objects that can be touched, seen and lived with – whether it’s a tea bowl or a dress.