Happy Holidays & Happy Green wrapping!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL!
Because of Clients like you we had a wonderful year at HIMANE. So we would like to say THANK YOU to you all for your dear support.
May 2012 brings us Joy, Health, Love & lot of Success.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.
A little bit of Green/Recycled wrapping tips!
This Holiday Seasons instead of using wrapping papers, use fabric remnants, old scarf, old table cloths that you no longer use by using the beautiful technique of Furoshiki for all gifts. Your family and friends will love you more and you will be doing them a huge favor as they wont need to drag that usual garbage full of papers and wilted bows to the dumpster.
The Furoshiki technique is a great way for the environment and less garbage in the landfill.
Here some great pictures and on how to use the Furoshiki techniques.
History of Furoshiki
Nara Period (Eighth Century): Starting in the eight century, a square piece of fabric called hokei-fuhaku was used to wrap special items of value, including clothing for Buddhist priests and elaborate minstrel costumes. The wrapping was called tsutsumi, and its main purpose was to protect and carry garments.Edo Period (1603-1868): As bathhouses increased in popularity, the square wrap became known as furoshiki: furo meaning "bath" and shiki meaning "to spread." Furoshiki were used to carry toiletries and clothing to the bathhouses and were also placed on the floor to act as bathmats. During this period, wealthy families commissioned bridal furoshiki of different sizes, decroated with their family crests and symbols of good luck.
1800s: When cotton was introduced from overseas, furoshiki began to be produced on a larger scale. At the same time, people of Japan were traveling more for pleasure, often selling goods along the way. Furoshiki were used for not only transporting the travelers' belongings but also their goods for sale.
1900s: At the turn of the twentieth century, the advances in textile production — mainly automated looms from overseas — made furoshiki even more accessible to the public. Furoshiki became mass-produced, and the tradition of using cloth to wrap gifts was established. Gifts wrapped with furoshiki would often be presented in person; the person giving the gift would unwrap and reveal the gift, and then keep the cloth to take home. The bridal furoshiki also became commonplace, and the bride used the large cloths for wrapping her belongings and the small cloths for wrapping gifts.
Post-World War II: After World War II, the Japanese became more highly influenced by American culture, resulting in the decline of furoshiki. The invention of the paper bag, followed by the plastic bag and the emergence of supermarkets across Japan in the 1970s, contirbuted to the disappearance of furoshiki. Plastic boxes and bags replaced furoshiki as a means of storage and for carrying goods. By the 1980s, the custom of using furoshiki to wrap gifts had declined almost to obscurity.
1990s - Present: When Japan's economic boom ended in the early 1990s, people began to reflect upon the disadvantages and waste in a disposable society. In 2006, Japan's then Minister of the Environment, Ms. Yuriko Koike, launched a campaign to encourage the use of furoshiki, instead of paper and plastic, and bring back the cultural tradition of wrapping and carryin gitems in fabric. She designed a furoshiki called the "Mottainai Furoshiki," mottainai, translating to "waste not, want not." The result has been a renewed and widespread interest in the tradition of tsutsumi and a flowering of creativity associated with it. Furoshiki are beginning to be seen outside of Japan as people worldwide embrace greener lifestyles and adapt different cultural solutions to their own ways of living.
HAVE A GREAT TIME FUROSHIKI WRAPPING!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
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