Long before the House of Windsor and millennia before fashion bloggers, the Japanese nobility were decorated with the most exquisite fashions - luxurious silk fabrics, richly embroidered with silk threads and gold work.
An exhibition of traditional Japanese embroidery will be held at Braemar Gallery in Springwood until July 7.
An exhibition of this intricate craft, which is over 1600 years old, is rarely seen outside of Japan. It featured not only in fashions of the court, but in gift-giving protocols and other customs. It has been made available to a wider audience in the form of embroidery pieces, each with rich stories.
An exhibition of this intricate craft, which is over 1600 years old, is rarely seen outside of Japan. It featured not only in fashions of the court, but in gift-giving protocols and other customs.
Dianne Conomos, a Mountains resident, has been studying traditional Japanese embroidery for over 15 years and is presenting 23 of her worked embroideries during the exhibition.
Entitled Captured by Silk Threads - A personal journey of a Traditional Japanese Embroiderer in Australia, the exhibition will only be shown once by the artist.
Conomos is one of about 600 people outside of Japan to study this art, thanks to the foresight of Iowa Saito who founded the Kurenai-Kai Embroidery School in the 1960s. Mr Saito feared the art and skill would be lost as Japan was turning more and more to the West for their ideas and trends.
Braemar Gallery will be welcoming Dennis Wilson, husband of the new Governor of NSW, Her Excellency, Margaret Beazley, to open the exhibition on Saturday, June 15 at 2pm.
Admission to the exhibition is free.