Tsujigahana (辻ヶ花)

Tsujigahana: The title of a movie that Shochiku Co.,Ltd. released in 1972, starring Shima IWASHITA

A Japanese dyeing technique
It is explained in detail below.

Tsujigahana is a Japanese tie-dyeing technique, which was devised around from the Muromachi period to the Azuchi-Momoyama period.

When at its peak from Azuchi-Momoyama period to the early Edo period, tsujigahana developed complex and high-level techniques, such as nuishime shibori (the technique that makes patterns on cloth by tying some parts of it with strings before putting it in a dye) and takekawa shibori (the technique that makes patterns on cloth by tying some parts of it with strings and bamboo peels before putting it in a dye). These techniques enabled dyeing in various colors, so elaborate dyed goods were created. Also, these dyeing techniques contributed to the luxurious and splendid culture along with surihaku (a dyeing technique that uses foil applique) in the Azuchi-Momoyama period. In those days, tsujigahana was almost synonymous with the dyeing technique, they say.

However, when the technique "yuzen," which uses starch for preventing a dye from soaking into cloth, was devised and developed in the middle of the Edo period, tsujigahana rapidly went into decline and disappeared, because tsujigahana was inferior to yuzen in leeway and labor.

Tsujigahana is often called a phantom dyeing technique, because it rapidly went into decline and because it has no established theory about its name origin.

[Original Japanese]