Shimacho - stripe album. Keepsake of home weaving swatches composed by (Japanese) families to remember the cloth they've woven. ..Shimacho show us a very good cross section of the type of cloth which was being woven and worn in the 19th century, when most of these books were made. The preponderance of dark tones and subtle stripes is due to sumptuary laws: during the Edo period (1603- 1868) the government dictated what a person could wear. For the most part, common people had to dress in co...
