Misao Jo – Saori Founder (1913-2018)
“All flowers are beautiful, even though each individual flower is different in form and color. Because of this difference, “all are good”.
Because everything has the same life, life cannot be measured by a yardstick. It is this individuality that makes everything meaningful and the uniqueness of each thread that creates the tapestry of life.”
Misao Jo
What is Saori?
Saori is a hand weaving approach that emphasises and prioritises creativity and free expression. No rules, no fear – just pure absorption and immersion into weaving and working with yarn and threads. This ‘non-technique’ is meditative in nature and aims to build a clearer expression of your human self from the process itself and the resulting handwoven cloth.
The founder of Saori was an exceptional woman. Misao Jo was born in 1913 in Osaka, Japan and sadly passed away at 104 years old on 10 January, 2018. Misao initiated her Saori journey at the age of 57 after studying and teaching Ikebana and rearing a family. Also exceptional are her sons, and internationally Kenzo Jo has developed and continues to refine the Saori looms and equipment. He is an inventive, creative and passionate person. Traits which stream through the Saori philosophy.
Saori name use
SAORI is the name used as the trademark and service mark of a mission-driven brand, which is officially registered in Japan and Australia in order to protect the common interest shared by the entire SAORI community. The use of the name and any aspect of SAORI must always be done with official written permission from Japan, and also in a way to be respectful to the founder family, their family organizations, their affiliated business entities and others in the SAORI community.
Is Saori easy to do?
Anyone can enjoy Saori with exceptional results. In fact, the less you know about weaving the easier it will be to explore. You can create a completely unique handwoven textiles for clothing, bags, scarves, banners etc. Textiles can also be created with a group. The Saori looms are small, portable and foldable. They are designed to free the hands to select colours, create patterns and develop ideas of your own.
How is Saori different to conventional weaving?
In contrast to the methodical approaches in conventional weaving the Saori weaving philosophy encourages and alerts us to the creative abilities in all of us. It is a free style of weaving based on plain weave with 2 shafts. However the Saori looms are true floor looms with a counterbalance action and this allows easy and often quite quick weaving to produce yardage or long lengths of fabric. Most conventional small looms require you to hand operate levers every row as well as weaving. Saori looms are all foot powered ease. Each loom has a bobbin winder onboard and uses a boat shuttle for a smoother more efficient weave rhythm.
There are no technical things to remember and you don’t even have to know how to wind a warp if you use the pre-wound warps from Saori. In fact you don’t even have to know what a warp is to enjoy Saori. Of course if you want to know more you can. Handweaving has an enormously rich and extensive history with many byways. Saori is one of these many ways of weaving, enjoying and creating unique cloth.
Saori weaving is also an arts and meditative practice in itself for those who would like to draw on this aspect as a creative impetus for enjoyment and focus.
Why does Saori clothing look so unique and beautiful?
Saori cloth is always unique because different people, like you, weave themselves into the work in different ways. The unique cloth gives energy to the clothing designs and the focus is on unique wearability.
Saori clothing is exhilarating to create and wear. This is mainly because the heart of a person was involved in its production. Every thread was selected and woven by hand. This creates a base foundation for unique clothes.
Saori originates from Japan. This is the home of the unique kimono, origami and fashion designers like Issy Miyake and Junichi Arai so it is naturally going to be inventive!
The clothing has minimal or no waste in making up garments. This adds to inventive design features while avoiding any unnecessary waste. The fabric doesn’t have to be cut but can be used in squares and rectangles and draped directly onto the body – like couture fashion – then sewn into a unique garment. The main idea is to WEAVE, keep weaving and don’t over plan the outcome…until you are ready to create the garment or textile work.
For those of us who need at pattern start to work from Saori and other companies have published several books with clothing patterns. Any of these patterns can be adapted and modified to your own designs or ways of working.
Who does Saori weaving?
Saori is practiced extensively worldwide by people with disabilities, art therapists, in hospitals, for meditative sessions, in schools, for corporate team building, by textile and fashion designers, handweavers, artists and crafters…or anyone wanting to experience it. Saori weaving is a freeing approach to handweaving and is built on the idea that all humans are creative and we’re all invited to weave to our own rhythm, based on our style, personalities or experiences in life. Rather than first approaching weaving with ideas of structure and set up, we start from the creation stage and focus on plain weave structure to weave ourselves into the cloth with texture, colour and irregularity. Saori weaving, its approach and simple steps can be applied to any weaving on any loom, however the Saori floor looms are designed to take full advantage of the ability to weave lengths of cloth in the Saori way. The Saori loom is also fundamental to many of the creative techniques that are not possible easily on other looms.
Saori has a global network of trained teachers, registered studios and authorised product dealers. Curiousweaver Studio is one of three authorised dealers and trained Saori teachers in Australia.
The SAORI Philosophy in 4 steps
1. Consider the differences between machines and people.
2. Let’s adventure beyond our imagination.
3. Let’s look out through eyes that shine.
4. Let’s learn from everyone in the group.
“SA” of SAORI has the same meaning as the first syllable of the word “SAI” which is found in Zen vocabulary. It means everything has its own individual dignity. And the “ORI” means weaving.
Curiousweaver (Kaz Madigan) is an authorized dealer and registered studio for SAORI Weaving Products in Australia. Kaz is a registered Saori teacher. For more information please contact here.