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Located on Kyoto's Muromachi-dori, Kondaya Genbey is a long-established manufacturer and purveyor of obi with a history stretching back over 280 years, created by the first generation in 1738. The current head of the company is the tenth-generation Genbey Yamaguchi; a formidable innovator he uses the skills passed down to him through the generations to create highly artistic new kimono and obi. In addition, he devotes himself to the resurrection and preservation of paper fabrics, koishimaru silk, and traditional dyeing techniques.
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Shihoko Fukumoto (b. 1945) is one of Japan’s foremost textile artists and a pioneering presence in the field of contemporary indigo dyeing. For more than four decades she has pursued a deep engagement with color, cloth, and the meditative qualities of natural dye, creating works that merge traditional techniques with a distinctly modern sensitivity. Born in Shimizu City and raised in Osaka, she first studied Western painting at Osaka City Kogei High School before earning her BFA from Kyoto City University of Arts. This early training in drawing and color theory has remained central to her approach to textile art. Fukumoto is known for indigo works that reveal glowing layers of blue, as if light were rising slowly from within the textile itself. Her compositions feel spacious and atmospheric, offering a quiet sense of depth that encourages slow looking. Rather than treating cloth as a flat surface, she engages it as a living material shaped by time, touch, and the subtle movement of dye through fiber. Her work often evokes the natural world, yet does so through abstraction, allowing texture and tone to suggest seasons, weather, or the passage of time.
