What Is Chirimen? Japan's Crepe-Textured Silk, Explained

Run your hand over a piece of chirimen and you feel it before you see it. The surface is not flat. It has a fine, irregular pebbling that catches the light unevenly and gives the cloth a soft, slightly springy handle. That pebbling is called shibo in Japanese, and producing it is the whole point of the fabric.

Chirimen is usually translated as Japanese crepe. Here is what it is, how the texture is made, and where it comes from.

What chirimen is

Chirimen is a silk fabric with an unusual yarn arrangement. The warp — the threads running the length of the cloth — is left untwisted. The weft, running across, is twisted hard. The two are woven together in an ordinary plain weave.

Nothing dramatic has happened yet. The texture appears in the finishing. When the woven cloth is degummed — scoured to remove sericin, the gum present in raw silk — the hard-twisted weft is released and tries to contract. It cannot go anywhere, because it is locked into the weave, so it buckles the surface instead. The cloth shrinks, and the strain shows up as a fine, irregular ridging across the surface. That is shibo. The Tango Textile Industrial Association describes this process as the defining step of the fabric.

The texture is therefore built into the cloth during weaving and finishing, rather than pressed or printed onto the surface afterwards.

How much twist is involved

One producing region gives concrete numbers. In Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, the local crepe is made using a twisting method called hatchō nenshi. The producers there put roughly 2,000 to 4,000 turns of twist into every metre of weft yarn. Yarn carrying that much twist is difficult to handle, and the method is named and documented as a speciality of the region.

Where chirimen comes from

Tango chirimen

One of the regions most associated with chirimen is Tango, in the north of Kyoto Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan side. Kyoto Prefecture dates the start of the industry to 1720, when Kinuya Sahei and others learned weaving techniques in Nishijin, the textile district of Kyoto city, and brought them back north. Tango chirimen is designated a traditional craft by Kyoto Prefecture.

In 2017 the region's textile heritage was recognised more broadly: the "Tango Chirimen Corridor" was certified as a Japan Heritage story by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, covering the weaving towns along the coast.

Hama chirimen

The other is Hama chirimen, from Nagahama on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. Local accounts place its beginnings in the same period, roughly 1720 to 1750, with the technique arriving from Nishijin or from Tango. Nakamura Rinsuke and Inui Shōkurō are the names usually attached to its introduction, and the industry grew under the protection of the Hikone domain.

Hitokoshi, kodai, onishibo: the main types

Chirimen is not one texture. The size and character of the shibo depend on how the twisted weft is arranged, and the Tango association sets out the standard distinctions:

• Hitokoshi chirimen — a single strongly twisted weft yarn is used. The resulting shibo is small, and the cloth is soft.
• Kodai chirimen — two S-twisted and two Z-twisted yarns are alternated in the weft. The opposing twists produce a larger shibo. It is also called onishibo chirimen, literally "demon shibo", and sometimes futakoshi.

Is chirimen always silk?

Traditionally, yes. Chirimen is a silk fabric, and the degumming step that creates the shibo is specifically a silk process — it removes sericin, which only silk has.

The techniques have not stayed confined to silk, though. The Tango association notes that the region's techniques have been applied to fibres other than silk. Japanese fabric mills likewise describe crepe made in rayon and polyester alongside the silk original, so the word on a label does not by itself tell you the fibre.

The practical consequence for a buyer is simple: check the stated fibre content rather than inferring it from the word chirimen. That applies to what we sell as much as to anyone else's goods. The Orifu folding sheets described below are listed as rayon.

Chirimen zaiku: the craft of the offcut

Cutting a kimono leaves offcuts. In the late Edo period those offcuts became a craft in their own right. Chirimen zaiku is the practice of making small objects from leftover crepe: dolls, animals, flowers, drawstring pouches, little boxes. The results were used as scent bags, charms and containers for small treasures, and the skill was regarded as an accomplishment for women of samurai and merchant households.

It later became teaching material in girls' schools during the Meiji era, declined after the Second World War, and was taken up again from 1986 by the Japan Toy Museum in Himeji, which has since built a collection around it and run revival work.

Chirimen sheets made for folding

Cloth does not hold a crease the way paper does. Fold a piece of ordinary fabric and it springs back.

The Orifu sheets we stock get around that with a finishing step. Their maker describes them as Kyō-yuzen chirimen treated with a resin impregnation process, which is what allows the material to take and hold a fold despite being a textile. To be clear about what that does and does not tell you: these sheets are listed as rayon, not silk, and the description above is the maker's. We have not independently verified the weave, so read it as the product name it is sold under rather than as a claim about how the cloth was constructed. Each sheet measures 17 × 17 cm, is made in Japan, and is listed as rayon. They come three sheets to a pack, each pack with folding instructions for its own design:

• Orifu for Crane
• Orifu for Kabuto — the samurai helmet form
• Orifu for Shuriken — the throwing star
• Orifu for Flower
• Orifu for Box

Frequently asked questions

What does "chirimen" mean in English?

It is normally translated as Japanese crepe, or silk crepe. Chirimen is the cloth; shibo is the name for the pebbled texture on its surface.

What is shibo?

Shibo is the fine pebbled texture on the surface of chirimen. It appears when hard-twisted weft yarn contracts during finishing and buckles the cloth. It is produced in the weaving and finishing of the fabric rather than applied to the surface.

Where is chirimen made?

Two regions closely associated with it are Tango in northern Kyoto Prefecture and Nagahama in Shiga Prefecture. Both trace their crepe weaving to around the 1720s.

What is the difference between hitokoshi and onishibo?

Hitokoshi chirimen uses a single strongly twisted weft yarn and has a small shibo. Kodai chirimen, also called onishibo, alternates two S-twisted and two Z-twisted yarns and has a larger one.

How do you care for chirimen?

Carefully, and not in a washing machine. Japanese fabric retailers advise against home laundering for crepe in silk and rayon, because both are vulnerable to water and can shrink or lose colour, and they recommend dry cleaning instead. This is guidance for dress fabric; finished goods should follow whatever their own care label says.

Is chirimen used for anything besides clothing?

Yes. Chirimen zaiku, the craft of making small objects from crepe offcuts, dates to the late Edo period and covers dolls, animals, flowers, pouches and small boxes.

Can you fold chirimen like origami paper?

Ordinary cloth tends to spring back rather than keep a crease. Folding sheets such as Orifu are finished specifically so that the material takes a fold; their maker attributes this to a resin impregnation process applied to the fabric.

A note on sourcing

If you are buying anything described with the word chirimen, the two things worth checking are the stated fibre content and the producing region. Neither is hard to ask about, and both change what you are actually getting. The fibre content and country of production for the sheets above are stated on their product pages for the same reason.