FAB-ric

Nuno

There’s fabric, and then there’s fabric in the truest sense of fabulous – out of this world, extraordinary, almost unreal. This is the work of Reiko Sudo, CEO of Nuno, the textile corporation founded in 1984 and at which she’s also served as Artistic Director from 1987.

Famed for its groundbreaking and innovative cloths, Nuno’s complex techniques are often as unique as the components within them, thereby more than justifying their places in some of the world’s finest permanent collections like London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Nuno specialises in not only traditional techniques like stenciling, silk-screening, the felting of wool and silk, and the weaving and printing of banana, cotton and abaca fibre, but also in sophisticated technologies that have revolutionised the textile industry, where natural yarns and synthetic fibres are blended, heated, patinated with rust, spun, woven with washi paper or even newspaper, threaded with metals and blasted with flames.

The result is an ever-changing collection of ultra-modern, graphic and colourful fabrics available by the bolt or ready made into hats, scarves, skirts, umbrellas, totes, bags and contemporary spins on traditional Japanese two-toe ‘tabi’ socks. A visit to the Roppongi store is a not only a study in cool, contemporary living, but a window into the technology of the future. And just in case you were wondering, ‘nuno’ in Japanese means ‘fabric’. Makes sense!