Sumo Maekake "Yokozuna" collaboration with Kinoshita Daimon [No. 1 dyeing]

>The ukiyo-e print of a  (grand champion) by Kinoshita Daimon, an ukiyo-e artist of sumo nishiki-e (color prints), has been dyed onto thick, high-quality No. 1 apron fabric.

It depicts the matches between the great yokozuna Tanikaze Kajinosuke of the Edo period and the fifth yokozuna Onogawa Kisaburo.

●About aprons

This apron is made from the thickest, highest quality No. 1 fabric. It is woven at Anything's own factory in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, on a 100-year-old Toyota shuttle loom.

Material: 100% cotton
Size: 67 cm x 47 cm (including tassel)
Waist strap: 260cm (fits waist sizes up to 95cm)
Packaging: Rimmed box

Care Instructions:

• Do not use bleach or fabric softener.
• Do not tumble dry.
• Do not wash with hot water.
• Please wash separately from white items to avoid dye transfer to other fabrics. Due to the nature of the fabric, it may shrink slightly after washing.

●Professor Kinoshita Daimon's profile

http://www.daimon-e.sakura.ne.jp/

Born in Teshikaga Town, Hokkaido in 1946.

He spent his childhood surrounded by forests and lakes such as Lake Mashu, Lake Kussharo, and Mount Io.
In the same year that Yokozuna Taiho, a senior at Teshikaga High School, won his 16th championship, he graduated from high school and moved to Tokyo, where he became an independent illustrator under the pen name "Mon Ami" at the age of 20. He worked as a pioneer among creators of fancy goods, focusing on the creation of character goods.

In 1980, he received a revelation while visiting the woodblock print workshop of Rong Hosai in Beijing, and decided to become an ukiyo-e artist, a tradition that had been discontinued for 80 years since the Meiji era. He taught himself the style of ukiyo-e (nishiki-e) from the works of his predecessors from the Edo period, and trained to become an artist who would inherit traditional ukiyo-e, following in the footsteps of the Katsukawa school, including Katsukawa Shunsho and Shun'ei.

When the Ryogoku Kokugikan Sumo Hall was completed in 1985, the Japan Sumo Association approved the restoration of sumo nishiki-e prints using the exact same techniques as in the Edo period, with the artist (Kinoshita Daimon) and the carvers and printers who were designated as Important Folk Cultural Properties by the Agency for Cultural Affairs working together with the publisher, the Kyoto Print Institute.

During the Kokugikan tournaments, several dozen woodblock prints are sold at a special shop next to the entrance. Nishikie prints have been donated by the association to many foreign dignitaries, including Prince Charles and Princess Diana as souvenirs of their viewing of the tournaments, then-Secretary of State Shultz for the American tournament, and then-Mayor Chirac for the Paris tournament.