Sarasa; Coveted by the Edos Most Stylish

Sarasa textiles are prized for their vivid colours and intricate patterns. Striking yet refined, they have long been favoured for casual kimono and obi, bringing a distinctive richness to an ensemble.

In Japan, sarasa became especially popular during the Edo period, when it was treasured as a rare luxury. In this article, we explore the imaginative ways people of the time used and enjoyed it.

Sarasa: A Textile with a 4,000-Year History

Originating in India, sarasa is a type of patterned cotton textile with a history spanning more than four millennia. Fabric believed to be an early example has been discovered at Mohenjo-daro, a city that flourished around 2000 BCE.

Take a look at our current selection of Sarasa, and Sarasa inspired items

Indian Sarasa (Metropolitan Museum)

Indian dyers were among the earliest to master techniques for producing colourfast reds and purples, colours that were notoriously difficult to achieve. These methods are thought to have been established by the fifteenth century.

Their finely detailed patterns, brilliant colours and soft cotton ground made these textiles highly desirable abroad. Cotton was still rare in many of the markets they reached. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, sarasa began circulating through expanding international trade networks and became prized across Asia and Europe.

Sarasa reached Japan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Indian textiles began to be imported in greater quantities through trade with European merchants and Siam, present-day Thailand.

The written form of its name, however, remained unsettled. The now-standard characters 更紗 did not come into widespread use until the closing years of the Edo period. Before then, the word appeared in several forms, including 佐羅紗, 華布 and 皿紗.

Despite the Tokugawa shogunate’s restrictions on overseas trade, sarasa continued to enter Japan through Dejima in Nagasaki. Initially, it was favoured chiefly by feudal lords and other members of the elite. It was also fashioned into accessories for the tea ceremony, an important cultural pursuit among samurai. Fine examples of Indian sarasa imported up to about the 1760s came to be known as kowatari sarasa, literally “old imported sarasa,” and were particularly treasured.

As the economy flourished during the Edo period, sarasa found a growing audience among prosperous merchants. Specialist sarasa dyers known as shamuroshi emerged. At the same time, the expansion of domestic cotton cultivation supported the development of wa-sarasa, or Japanese sarasa. The textile was especially favoured by writers and connoisseurs, for whom wearing it may have signalled both discernment and status.

How, then, did people in Edo-period Japan incorporate sarasa into their lives?

Subtle Playfulness in Dress

Imported Indian sarasa was used mainly to make kosode robes and jinbaori surcoats. Paintings from the early Edo period depict figures dressed in sarasa kosode, suggesting that these rare, exotic patterns had already captured the public imagination.

In 1825, however, sarasa became subject to a sumptuary edict restricting luxury goods. When it could no longer be worn openly, people began using the fabric for hidden details, undergarments, juban underrobes, kimono linings and aigi, the kosode worn beneath an uchikake. With the ingenuity characteristic of Edo residents, they found discreet ways to enjoy fashion and vied with one another in expressions of iki, or understated chic.

Chintz underrobe decorated with checks in ikat dye - Integrated Collections Database of the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Sarasa as an Accessory

Sarasa was also used to make small personal accessories, including inrō, drawstring pouches, hayamichi coin purses and tobacco pouches. The specialist craftsmen who produced these items had to consider carefully which part of each textile fragment to showcase, as well as how best to pair it with the lining and metal fittings. A refined eye was essential to create pieces capable of impressing even the most discerning connoisseurs.

Pipe and Pipe Case with Tobacco Pouch（Metropolitan Museum of Art）

Sarasa for Tea

Sarasa was frequently used for tea ceremony accessories. Kobori Enshū, the celebrated tea master who served Tokugawa Ieyasu, was known for his particular fondness for the textile.

Japanese tea culture is often associated with powdered matcha and the formal practice of chanoyu, which had strong ties to samurai society. Sencha, prepared by steeping tea leaves in a kyūsu teapot, developed a particularly strong following among literati and artists. At sencha gatherings, sarasa appears to have been especially favoured for shifuku pouches used to protect tea utensils, as well as mats and fukusa cloths that formed part of the setting.

Mounting Sarasa Fragments to Create a Personal Collection

Album of prized textiles from the Maeda clan -  Integrated Collections Database of the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Offcuts left after sarasa had been fashioned into tea ceremony accessories and other small items were sometimes mounted on paper and assembled into tekagami, or textile sample albums. These collections may have reflected both an appreciation of sarasa’s painterly designs and the resourceful, waste-not ethos of Edo life. Resembling what we might now call scrapbooks, they suggest that sarasa was valued not simply as a fashionable textile, but as a work of art in its own right.

DIY Sarasa!? Textile Dyeing as a Pastime

As publishing culture flourished during the Edo period, numerous practical manuals appeared, presenting dyeing techniques that had once been closely guarded. Sarasa was no exception. Books such as Sarasa Benran (A Guide to Sarasa) and Sarasa Zufu (An Illustrated Compendium of Sarasa Designs) brought this knowledge to a wider audience. The latter remained in print into the Taisho period.

Written with amateur enthusiasts in mind, these books went beyond technical instruction. They offered practical advice on sourcing materials and achieving good results using accessible methods. Their contents suggest that some readers did indeed try sarasa dyeing for themselves.

Once a source of fascination and creative experimentation in Edo-period Japan, sarasa continues to appeal today. We invite you to explore sarasa kimono and obi and find a design that speaks to your own sense of style.

References Japanese Only
・吉岡幸雄『更紗』（京都書院美術双書）
・小笠原小枝・監修『更紗』（平凡社）
・丸山伸彦『江戸のきものと衣生活』（小学館）
・小笠原流煎茶道・高橋矩彦・編集『江戸更紗柄図鑑』（スタジオ タック クリエイティブ）