Koyaguchi pile fabric

The name Koyaguchi Pile points first to place: former Koyaguchi-cho, now Koyaguchi-cho in Hashimoto City, and the surrounding production area of Hashimoto, Kudoyama, and Katsuragi. Wakayama's account also places the textile district around former Koyaguchi and Katsuragi, an area once busy with people traveling to Mount Koya.

The work is shared among local specialists. Weaving, knitting, fabric dyeing, yarn dyeing, printing, and cutting sit within the same regional textile network, so a fabric can move through several hands before it becomes a finished surface. The name has regional collective trademark status, but the useful meaning for readers is concrete: it marks a local group of technicians, machines, and finishing steps around Koyaguchi.

A pile fabric is made by putting pile yarn into a woven base or knitted ground, so the surface rises instead of lying flat. Koyaguchi Pile is described through that raised structure, along with softness, stretch, abrasion resistance, and durability. Those qualities are felt most clearly where cloth meets the body or a room: bedding, clothing, bags, curtains, cushions, and seat covers.

Hashimoto City also emphasizes that the fibers shed little, and that the fabric is sturdy and long-lasting. That claim becomes visible in everyday objects listed for the material: blankets, sheets, kotatsu bedding, sofa covers, tablecloths, slippers, cosmetic puffs, stuffed toys, vehicle seats, and industrial goods such as filters and paint rollers.

The local textile line begins with Kawakami cotton in the Edo period. In the Meiji period, the area developed Kawakami flannel, a raised cloth valued for warmth and a pleasant touch against the skin. In 1877, Maeda Yasuke devised saiori, a method in which plain woven cloth is cut, turned into chenille-like strips, and woven again; this became one of the prototypes for Koyaguchi Pile.

Calling this tradition meaningful only works when the material changes are named. Cotton cloth became raised flannel; woven cloth became narrow strips; those strips returned to the loom as weft. Later changes included seal weaving associated with Nishiyama Sadakichi in the Taisho period, German double-pile looms in the early Showa period, synthetic fibers, and new knitting methods.

Saiori explains the word reweaving in a tactile way. A cloth is woven first, then cut into narrow strips that resemble chenille yarn. Those strips are used as weft and woven again, so the finished textile carries the result of two weaving stages rather than a single flat pass.

The process gives color, pattern, and raised texture a place inside the fabric structure. At the pile-weaving museum in Hashimoto's Koyaguchi-cho, visitors can see work-process displays and saiori pieces, and a reservation-based reweaving experience takes about two hours. Handling the strips makes the Koyaguchi surface easier to understand than any abstract description of texture.

Modern Koyaguchi Pile is not made by one machine alone. Double-pile looms weave upper and lower grounds at the same time, then cut the pile yarn between them to create raised surfaces. Pile meriyasu knits pile yarn into knitted fabric; Raschel, sinker pile, and sliver knit methods create other widths, loops, and long-pile effects.

After the cloth is made, the district's fabric dyeing, yarn dyeing, printing, and cutting add color, pattern, and finish. This is how one pile structure can become a short, dense surface for a seat, a soft face for bedding, a longer texture for eco-fur, or a functional material for filters and other industrial uses.

The range of Koyaguchi Pile is easiest to grasp through objects. Apparel uses include men's, women's, and children's clothing, along with hats and bags. Bedding includes blankets, sheets, kotatsu futons, futons, and lap blankets. Interior uses include chair upholstery, sofa covers, tablecloths, curtains, slippers, mats, and cushions.

The same raised cloth also appears in vehicle seats and mats for Shinkansen trains, local trains, buses, and cars. Hashimoto City and the regional association list household goods, toys, care goods, paint rollers, filters, sports-related materials, artificial turf, and LCD television-related materials. The fabric family's identity therefore sits in repeated touch: worn, sat on, laid over, brushed against, and built into tools.

Hashimoto City's pile-weaving museum opened to mark the 110th anniversary of pile weaving. Its displays show pile fabric, saiori work processes, and reweaving pieces, giving visitors a concrete view of how strips, yarn, machines, and finished cloth relate to one another.

The reweaving experience takes about two hours by reservation. In that setting, Koyaguchi Pile is not only a name on a textile label; it is a sequence of local actions in Koyaguchi-cho, where cloth is cut, guided back through a loom, and returned as a raised fabric with body and touch.