I began teaching sashiko at canoha in 2018, and around the same time I started welcoming participants from overseas. At first, I offered the same sashiko fukin workshop to everyone. But overseas visitors kept asking me questions I did not expect: “Do you know BORO?” “Can you teach me how to make BORO?” “Where can I buy BORO?”

At the time, I barely understood what they meant. When I heard the Japanese word boro, the first thing that came to mind was a worn-out cleaning cloth—a boro-zōkin. So when someone told me how cool BORO was, I could not quite understand why. I was also surprised that many of these visitors were interested in Sashiko but were not especially interested in making a fukin. Their attention was on old cloth, patches, repair, denim, and visible stitches.

The word itself had also taken on a slightly different meaning overseas. In Japanese, boro or 襤褸 is a broad everyday word for worn, damaged, or ragged cloth and clothing. Overseas, however, “BORO” is often used almost like a category for old Japanese textiles that show layers of patching, stitching, repair, and long use. The two are connected, but they are not quite the same.

My own path to sashiko had nothing to do with repairing clothes. I had always enjoyed making things—accessories, knitting, sewing skirts, even baking. Around 2010, during a stressful period at work, I discovered SAORI weaving. I loved choosing colors and materials freely and simply moving my hands. After about three years, I even bought a loom to use at home.

I opened canoha in March 2017, originally as an accessory workshop. Around 2018, I wanted to add another kind of handwork and first tried embroidery. I enjoyed it, but the many stitches, colors, and techniques were not quite the quiet, repetitive handwork I was looking for. Then I remembered sashiko. I vaguely recalled trying it in elementary-school home economics, but otherwise I had almost forgotten it existed.

I bought an Olympus Kiku no Hana sashiko fukin kit and began almost as a complete beginner. It was quite an ambitious first choice. The stitching order was confused, the back was messy, and the cloth became distorted. Still, I finished it, and my first thought was: “I want the back of a sashiko fukin to look as beautiful as the front.” I was not trying to learn sashiko history. I was not trying to mend clothes. I certainly knew nothing about BORO. I simply wanted to stitch more beautifully.

Books and instructions did not answer all my questions, so I eventually found Yoko Yoshimura, known as hako, through Instagram. I contacted her, explained that I also ran a workshop, and asked whether she would still teach me. She welcomed me, and I travelled all the way to Kyushu for a private lesson. I asked everything I had been wondering about and learned a great deal. A few years later, hako came to Tokyo and held a sashiko workshop at canoha. It is still a happy memory for me.

At the time, the sashiko I was seeing in Japan felt closely connected to handmade daily life: fukin, coasters, potholders, placemats, pincushions, pouches, and other small objects. I hardly noticed words such as “mending,” “repair,” or “Visible Mending.” The one thing I knew was darning, and even that meant, in my mind, repairing a hole in a sock with yarn and a darning mushroom.

So while I was looking at fukin, some of the overseas participants coming to canoha were looking at old cloth, BORO, denim, and repair. Some had hardly ever held a needle before, yet they wanted to try Sashiko. A few told me they had already known about Sashiko since around 2015, and some said that using Sashiko for repair was already becoming popular where they lived. The same word—Sashiko—but a very different entrance.

When I looked into what had been happening overseas, the difference began to make more sense. Before I started welcoming international visitors, old Japanese repaired textiles were already being introduced in Europe under the name “BORO.” In 2013, BORO – THE FABRIC OF LIFE was held at Domaine de Boisbuchet in France, showing around fifty repeatedly repaired Japanese textiles, including bedding covers, clothing, and workwear. Japanese people involved in researching and presenting old textiles were also connected to the exhibition, so this was not simply a story of “people overseas discovering Japanese rags.” Japanese specialists and collectors, overseas collectors, curators, and design institutions all formed part of the way these textiles were presented beyond Japan.

Old repaired cloth was beginning to be viewed not only as evidence of everyday life, but also through the eyes of design and visual form. At around the same time, another current was visible. In Britain, Tom van Deijnen was already using the name “Visible Mending Programme” in 2013. Rather than hiding repairs, he enjoyed making them visible. He also thought about where a garment came from, how it had been worn, why someone wanted to repair it, and how the repair itself could become part of the garment’s history.

From here, this is canoha’s view. I do not think there was one reason BORO attracted attention overseas. Several things seem to have come together: old Japanese repaired textiles being seen from a new perspective of design and form; questions about mass production, mass consumption, and fast fashion; connections with denim and fashion; interest in making repairs visible rather than hiding them; and the internet and social media allowing images and ideas about handwork to travel quickly across borders.

This may help explain something that puzzled me in 2018. While I was in Japan looking at sashiko fukin, visitors were arriving at my small workshop from overseas already asking me about BORO.

But I still do not think BORO, Sashiko, and Visible Mending can be placed on one simple historical line. Japan already had forms of needlework in which repair and decoration overlapped, while BORO and Visible Mending were also being viewed and discussed overseas in new ways. Several histories seem to meet here, but I cannot yet explain their relationship in one sentence.

This brings me back to the question at the beginning. In the past, people often repaired because cloth was difficult to replace. Today, we can buy new clothing much more easily. We no longer always need to repair a garment simply to keep clothing available.

And yet, there are clothes we still want to repair.

From here, this is canoha’s view. From what I see, relatively few people mend mainly because of environmental concerns. Those concerns are certainly part of the wider conversation, but the reasons people actually pick up a needle often feel much more personal. A garment may have belonged to someone important. It may be something we wore years ago. We may love the fabric, the fit, or the quality of the tailoring. The same thing may no longer be available. It may hold a memory. We may enjoy adding a different color of thread and turning it into something unique. Or, as in my own case, we may simply enjoy sitting quietly and moving a needle.

I sometimes feel that older, carefully made clothes have wonderfully substantial fabric, while some inexpensive modern garments feel less reassuring in their fabric or construction. But I cannot simply conclude that old clothes were better. Material, thread, weave, construction, and even the fact that better-made old garments may be more likely to survive can all affect what we see today. This is something I still want to investigate.

What I can say is that my own journey to sashiko also began without necessity. I was stressed and wanted something I could lose myself in. I found weaving, opened canoha, tried embroidery, and eventually arrived at sashiko. My first fukin was messy, but I wanted to stitch it better. That wish took me to Kyushu, then to teaching sashiko, and eventually to visitors asking me, “Do you know BORO?” And now I find myself reading old documents and asking a completely different question: why have people stitched cloth at all? I have come quite a long way.

In the past, people often mended because they needed to keep cloth usable. Today, we may mend because we choose to keep a particular garment—and the memories, time, quality, and feelings connected to it.

I still cannot explain in one sentence how the Japanese word boro became the overseas category “BORO,” why BORO and Sashiko came to be spoken of so closely together, or exactly how they connect with Visible Mending. Researching these questions has not given me one final answer. It has given me more questions.

Perhaps that is the right place for the first series of the Sashiko Journal to end.