Mingei

Mingei — the Japanese term for the handmade objects of ordinary life, and for the movement that recognised their beauty.

These are the working garments and carrying gear of rural Japan: mino, the straw rain capes handwoven from rice straw and bast fibre and worn in the fields; bandori, the decorated back pads that cushioned heavy loads through the deep snows of the north; and the packs they were made to carry. Most date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and were made by the households that used them, from whatever grew nearby.

Each piece is one of a kind and sold as found. Wear, repair and irregularity are not flaws — they are the record of the work these objects did.