East Kyoto · OkazakiNo.1016★★★Open in map →
Kyo-Yuzen
— Kyoto's painted kimono dyeing
Kyo-Yuzen is the painted and stencilled dyeing that gives Kyoto kimono their pictures. The city's crafts museum, in the basement of the Miyako Messe hall in Okazaki, sets it beside every other Kyoto trade in a single room.
- FromKyoto Station
- ~25 minSubway, one change
- Get off atHigashiyama Station (Kyoto Subway Tozai Line)
- On foot
- Kyo-Yuzen
Where it is
90 more notes in Kyoto · open the map →What to look for — in walking order
- Miyako Messethe city exhibition hall in Okazaki, with the museum a floor below ground
- 74CRAFTS WALLa wall carrying every traditional industry in the city, with touch panels and process films
- MOCAD Galleryshows mounted by the craft guilds of Kyoto, changing through the year
- 74CRAFTS EXHIBITIONmaterials, tools and process, with craftsmen demonstrating on scheduled days
- Museum Shopworked pieces and everyday goods from the same trades on the wall
How to actually get there
- Kyoto Station → Karasuma-Oike on the Karasuma Line, then change to the Tozai Line.
- Karasuma-Oike → Higashiyama Station on the Tozai Line, about 14 min of riding all told.
- Higashiyama Station exit 1 → Miyako Messe on foot, about 10 min north through Okazaki Park.
- Go down one floor from the entrance, then work from the wall display into the process rooms.
- Karasuma and Tozai subway lines from Kyoto Station
- Kyoto Station →(Karasuma Line to Karasuma-Oike, change to the Tozai Line)→ Higashiyama Station, about 14 min of riding with one change. The fare is 260 yen. From exit 1 it is roughly a 10 min walk north to the hall.
- Return from Higashiyama
- Take the Tozai Line back to Karasuma-Oike and change to the Karasuma Line for Kyoto Station. Trains keep running well into the evening, but the museum shuts long before that, so build the return around closing time rather than around the last train.
About the place
Yuzen is a resist dyeing method. Rice paste is laid in a thin line along the outline of a pattern, so the colours brushed inside it cannot bleed into each other. The paste is washed out at the end and the line stays behind in white, and that fine white contour is what marks the work as yuzen. Kyoto carries the craft two ways: painted by hand, or printed through a run of paper stencils cut one to a colour. The Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design gathers all 74 of the industries the city designates as traditional under one ceiling, so the dyeing stands next to Nishijin weaving, Kiyomizu ware and lacquer rather than on its own. Panels and short films follow each trade through its making.
How to enjoy it
The museum runs from 10:00 to 18:00 with the last entry at 17:30, so it slots either side of a walk through Okazaki rather than filling a day. Take the wall first to see how many trades the city still holds, then the process room. Once you know that the outline is laid in paste before any colour goes on, the white line in a finished yuzen robe reads differently.
Background & history
The name comes from Miyazaki Yuzensai, a fan painter working in Kyoto whose designs were in fashion during the Genroku era of 1688 to 1704. Townspeople had money and taste in those years, and his pictorial style was carried off the fan and onto the kosode robe. The stencil method came much later, in the Meiji period, once chemical dyes could be mixed into the paste and a pattern repeated instead of drawn afresh each time. Kyo-Yuzen was placed on the national register of traditional crafts in June 1976.
Before you go
- Cash
- Admission when last confirmed was 500 yen for adults including university students, and 400 yen for school and technical-college students; children below school age enter free. The subway accepts the nationally interoperable IC cards, ICOCA and Suica among them.
- Before you go
- Closing days are irregular and there is a break over the new year, so look at the calendar on the official site before setting out. Everything is underground, which makes this a sound plan for a wet day or a hot one in Okazaki.
- Another way
- From Kyoto Station there is also a one-seat ride: city bus route 5 to the Okazaki-koen Bijutsukan Heian-jingu-mae stop, then about 5 minutes on foot. It is slower than the subway but saves the change.
- After you get off
- From Higashiyama Station take exit 1 and walk north for about 10 minutes into Okazaki Park. Miyako Messe is the long low hall among the park's cultural buildings near Heian Shrine, and the museum is one floor below its entrance.