WEAVING NEW IDEAS
Reiko Sudo’s latest artwork builds on decades of textile design.
Reiko Sudo enthusiastically welcomes admirers while standing beneath a swarm of more than 300 koinobori (carp streamers) — colourful fabric windsocks resembling Japanese koi. The streamers are suspended as if swimming from the ceiling of the main gallery of the National Art Center in Tokyo. Each streamer is made of textiles designed by Sudo and her team at Nuno Corp, a company she owns and runs as artistic director. The internationally acclaimed designer is also a college professor and champion of both preservation and innovation in the Japanese textile industry.
The installation, a collaboration between Sudo, the French exhibition designer Adrien Gardere and the visual artist Seiichi Saito, represents a cross-section of some 2,500 designs produced by Nuno since 1984.
On a recent afternoon, Sudo was introducing visiting colleagues, approving selfies taken by friends, and fielding phone calls from her husband, who was on a school bus full of children who had just attended the show. Her energy never flagged.
Sudo was born in rural Ibaraki Prefecture. Her mother successfully ran the family building materials business while Sudo’s father wrote haiku poetry. Sudo has had little formal business training, yet she has skillfully combined commerce and creativity.
Now 64, Sudo is among a rare group of innovative female entrepreneurs who began work in 1980s Japan. While she maintains a low public profile, her name and work are renowned in international textile and design circles — with accolades including the Mainichi Design Prize (the ultimate design award in Japan), and an honorary degree from the University for the Creative Arts in the UK.
Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and The Craft Gallery, Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art. It has also been exhibited at other prestigious venues in New York, Paris and Washington.
Sudo’s response to accolades is typically modest. “I’m not sure I’ve thought about role models or what it means to be a Japanese entrepreneur. I’ve been too busy working and raising a family,” she mused quietly when asked about her early inspirations.
“While many women of my generation fought for position and recognition in corporate and creative fields Reiko Sudo is proud of the fact that the main Nuno shop still has the original sales fixtures from the 1980s.
dominated by men, I preferred to work in the background and to concentrate on my creative ideas while supporting Japanese artisans and textiles. I’m kind of shy and I don’t like to be out front. I feel more comfortable as part of a team.”
Luckily for Sudo, she met Junichi Arai at a Tokyo art gallery while still at Musashino Art University, where she was studying painting. Arai was a highly regarded craftsman who created fabrics for fashion superstars of the era, including Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Kansai Yamamoto.
“He had a dream of opening a shop in which he could sell textiles directly to consumers,” she said. “One day he suggested we open a shop in Tokyo together.
“I had a deep knowledge of the craft involved in weaving, but no business knowledge whatsoever.”
Arai had started Nuno in 1983 and Sudo joined the following year. They set up shop in the basement of the Axis Building, a fashionable retail centre in the Roppongi district, which remains the company’s main outlet. “I’m so proud that we still have the original furnishings and sales shelves from the shop,” she said.
In 1987 Arai began to have financial problems across his businesses and decided to leave Nuno. Sudo was devastated, as was Hiroshi Ishibashi, Nuno’s landlord. The Nuno store brought many people to the Axis Building and he did not want to see Sudo leave.
“He came to me one day and suggested I try keeping the store open, offering me financial terms that would allow us to keep the business going,” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe that someone would be that generous to me. It was amazing.”
With the support of Nuno’s original investors and
management, Sudo visited the artisans and craftspeople who produced Nuno’s fabrics, as well as franchises in Kyushu and Hokkaido. To her surprise she received only encouragement. “I was 32 years old and running a business on my own. I just wanted to try it and find out what kind of talent I had,” she said.
“I began by contemplating what it meant to be a true textile designer. I decided it was not just someone who is drawing and thinking about material. I also felt a responsibility to promote the artisans and craftspersons working in the industry and to introduce our Japanese weaving traditions to the world. … Once I decided that was my mission, I felt totally relaxed and confident.”
Thus Sudo began her multifaceted journey. Over the years she has steered Nuno into the development of a fashion line, collaboration with retail giants such as Muji of Japan and Knirps of Germany, and experimented with weaving, finishing and dyeing techniques utilising both old practices and new technologies.
Under Sudo’s guidance the Nuno team has pushed boundaries with an eclectic mix of materials ranging from silk to polyester, handmade paper to metals, and recycled plastic bottles to peacock feathers. Nuno has explored finishing methods using rust-dyeing, salt-shrinking and caustic burning, while exploring many dyeing techniques.
“The textiles are created as multipurpose fabrics, but not mass-produced,” Sudo said with pride. “Many are woven on the same looms as are used for traditional obi, the sashes worn with kimonos.
“Each member of our team contributes to the creative and business side of Nuno and each shines in their own way,” she said, citing designer Kazuhiro Ueno as an example.
“When New York’s Museum of Modern Art acquired some of our textiles for their permanent collection, I was so thrilled that his designs were selected too.”
Over the last 12 years Sudo has led the Nuno team in an ongoing large-scale interior design project using textiles for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Tokyo. She is also on Muji’s advisory board. “They are two of the projects of which I’m most proud,” she said.
“Most importantly, after the tragic earthquake and tsunami of 2011 in northern Japan, the Mandarin Oriental and Muji’s commitments to Nuno helped us to keep many artisans in business.”
Next up for Sudo and her team? “We are negotiating with museums in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and throughout Asia to exhibit the koinobori,” she explained. “I hope they can swim all over the world.”
I’m kind of shy and I don’t like to be out front. I feel more comfortable as part of a team REIKO SUDO