Something Boro’d, Something Blue: An Analysis of Japanese Repair Practices and Material Scarcity 

“When people refer to the ‘good old days,’ they are most likely reminiscing about the past with a warm sense of nostalgia. But I ask: Were those good old days really so good? To me, the phrase simply betrays a rather naïve notion of history as a gentle current of time with historical incidents floating along the surface, while we reminisce about them fondly, without even being aware of those who were barely getting by at the bottom.” 

-Tatsuichi Horikiri (The Stories Clothes Tell) 

Boro (ぼろ) refers to a class of historical Japanese textiles that have been patched, repaired, reinforced, or pieced together, often by hand, and at its most succinct can be described as “peasant cloth” (Fig. 1). The briefest accurate description would be that boro are pre-twentieth-century textiles, often but not always made of cotton, often but not always indigo-dyed, containing or composed of rectangular patches, and made by Japan’s lower classes, especially in colder and more isolated regions (Li 54). 

Figure 2

Bed Comforter, Dec 27, 2016, hemp warp, cotton weft, and stuffed with old work clothing, Amuse Museum, Tokyo. (Ide) © Keisuke Fukamizu, copyright: Visvim 2016. 

Boro has a complex history. At its simplest, parts of a garment could be composed of pieced-together off-cuts, extending fabric that would otherwise have been too small. Taken to the extreme, however, a multi-generational garment made from pieced-together off-cuts could be heavily repaired with patches layered over other patches—those patches themselves taken from other boro, each with their own patches and piecework. 

Rectangular patchwork, indigo dye, cotton, and bast fibres, as well as a labour-intensive nature, as noted above, are so consistent in boro because of the conditions that made them the only available options in an economy that, for the lower classes, was resource-poor but had a labour surplus (Nakamura 25). With the working class now cotton-clad and indigo-dyed, societal elites shifted their attention to fine ramie fibres dyed purple from rare roots. However, that purple was often faked by combining the red dye of sappanwood with indigo (Balfour-Paul 186). 

While grounded in social stratification, boro have a unique aesthetic appeal in their intricate handwork and laborious repair that contrasts strongly with modern fashion’s material abundance. The handwork and time spent created countless unique pieces, many lost to time as boro were often seen as a shameful display of poverty and discarded or hidden with the acquisition of new articles. Boro were not appreciated until long after their utility had disappeared, and renewed interest finally gave them a name they never previously had, from the onomatopoeia “boroboro,” which means something tattered or repaired (Schwartz-Clauss and Szczepanek). This is a naming convention that is also at odds with the casual usage of the word boro to mean “rags” (Horikiri xviii). 

While boro was introduced to English audiences through its contemporary global definition as art, in Japanese, the word has a longer history with more individual associations. Boro, as a word, has a unique imprint upon certain Japanese audiences: what boro they had seen and potentially possessed in their family, and a reconciliation with a currently shifting definition towards craftsmanship and sustainability, from a word that literally means “rags.” In The Stories Clothes Tell: Voices of Working Class Japan, author Tatsuichi Horikiri and translator Rieko Wagoner do not directly engage with the contemporary definition of boro. At the very least, they reject the dismissal and reduction of individual garments into a single category in an effort to highlight the individuality of each piece and reconcile their uniqueness with the working-class conditions that make them special. The boro in my possession has been worn from potentially generations of use, removed from its origin and its future interactions, and placed under my care—a situation that may disappoint an archivist such as Horikiri. 

Workers did not address their repaired cloths with the name boro, since the heavy repairs and details would not have been unique but standard practice for their contemporaries. 

The entity we now call boro is only so unique because it demonstrates how disparate groups suffered under the same systems and found the same solutions: the hand-stitched solutions of those who barely got by at the bottom by crafting and repairing garments with scraps. 

Boro Object Analysis

An object analysis of a boro in my possession (referred to throughout as “this boro” to distinguish it from other boro) follows as a companion to the history of boro, along with other contemporary examples. This boro was purchased from a vintage store in Toronto, Coffee and Clothing, where it was described as being made of indigo-dyed hemp and was dated to sometime during the Meiji era (1868- 1912), though no documentation was provided to prove authenticity. It is a rectangular sheet pieced together from three smaller rectangular pieces: one larger sheet and two others of matched widths that are in a slightly greener indigo hue than the large piece (Fig. 4 and 7). Both sides feature the selvedge (self-edge) characteristic of hand-loomed fabrics, where the weft yarns wrap around the edge and therefore do not require finishing to prevent unravelling (Fig. 5). The top and bottom edges are rolled twice and secured with a straight stitch, hiding the raw fabric edge within the roll. The seams connecting the pieces are similarly secured with a straight stitch but with a smaller stitch width, likely for strength. Though the raw fabric edges where the pieces are connected are left exposed, the seam allowance is folded away from the largest piece and secured by a top stitch with a longer stitch width, similar to the one securing the rolled edges (Fig. 7). 

Figure 4

Larsen, Eric, Boro front, 2023, digital photography, Toronto. 

The hemp yarns have a stiff, dry hand, though the areas closer to the centre have softened and lightened in colour with use. Signs of use can also be seen on the abraded surface, with threadbare sections and prominent pilling on both sides of the fabric. It has a plain weave and some mild slub consistent with hand-spun yarns. The loose yarns fray to reveal a slight silver sheen at the core, where the dye did not penetrate as effectively (Fig. 5 and 6). The threads holding the boro together are a darker charcoal colour, as opposed to the blue-green indigo of the rest of the piece, and are softer to the touch than the boro yarns, suggesting they may be cotton (Fig. 6). The threads are not knotted at the ends of seams, save for one, which is less of a knot and more of a ball that may have developed over time. Instead, the threads are secured with a single backstitch. Occasionally, two threads are knotted together in the middle of a seam, likely to join two threads that would otherwise have been too short (Fig. 6). 

The largest piece features two distinct areas of wear: one darker with less wear, and the other faded from abrasion. The wear so rectangular in shape, and the separation so stark, that it almost appears to be two separate pieces (Fig. 4). The smallest piece features a distinct rectangular fade pattern on the side without the seam allowance folded into it, and the last piece features the heaviest wear, including a threadbare section which connects to an undamaged section of the largest piece (Fig. 7). These fade patterns suggest that this fabric has been used in previous garments or is from a garment that has seen significant wear. Throughout the boro, there are stains in various shades of yellow, brown, and grey. There is no noticeable smell or odour coming from the textile, possibly due to age or preparation for resale. 

Boro, in general, are essentially defined by the state of their wear, with the often human-shaped wear patterns accentuated by rectangular patches and geometric patterns. However, this boro in particular exhibits a less clear wear pattern and, in its current form as a rectangle with finished edges the size of a handkerchief, an unclear intended use. By analyzing it through the framework with which Ellen Sampson uses to observe footwear in Worn: Footwear, Attachment and the Affects of Wear, we can explore the possible origins of its wear. In addition to Sampson’s work, Tatsuichi Horikiri in The Stories Clothes Tell: Voices of Working Class Japan provides invaluable insights into the living and working conditions of the working class through various garments and textiles, as well as interviews with their owners. Many examples feature patchwork and repair that are not labeled as boro, but the breadth of garments featured, their uses, and the ways in which they were repaired add nuance and individual histories often unmentioned in collections of boro where provenance is difficult to trace. 

THE BORO AS ARMOUR 

While “the empty shoe always alludes to its missing binary: the foot” (Sampson 76), this boro lacks a direct analog. However, its size could allude to the situations in which it may serve as armour. Being smaller in size, it is possible that it performed protective duties of a handheld nature, such as the protective layer between a hand and a rough farming tool or as an insulating layer between a hand and a hot cooking vessel. Sampson highlights the nature of a shoe to become polluted by wear, to be dirtied by the environment through use and the excretions of the user, and this boro, through its stains, pills, and holes, reflects that nature (Sampson 76). The use of this boro as armour is not as a garment or insulation from the cold. As the prevalence of cotton boro that are softer and more insulating indicate, hemp and other bast fibre boro, if still in use, would likely have moved away from applications where they were no longer preferable or ideal, and used instead as patches, netting, or coverings. 

An example of one such use comes from a textile featured in The Stories Clothes Tell: a mosquito net made of loosely woven hemp and featuring large panels pieced together from smaller ones. While this boro is too small to function as a traditional Japanese mosquito net (the featured net was a large square basket that reached from floor to ceiling and could fit up to four sleeping persons, similar to a large mesh tent), it could be used as a protective layer for exposed skin (Horikiri 39-42). It might have covered the back of the neck during outdoor work by being secured to a hat or head covering. Similarly, it could have been used as a window covering to allow for light and airflow while protecting inhabitants against bugs or wildlife. 

INTERACTION BETWEEN THE BODY, INDEBTEDNESS, AND BORO 

Sampson indicates that the shoe imprints onto the body just as the body imprints onto the shoe (Sampson 80-86). So, what do the imprints on this boro indicate of the bodies that used it? 

The pilling and staining on this boro are concentrated at the centre (Fig. 8). This could result from hands or materials rubbing against it, or from wrapping it around something. The holes that have formed within this boro may also indicate a repeated, specific use, as the majority are formed from broken warp (vertical) yarns. In the case of a window or neck covering, it may have received a repetitive strain from being secured at the top and pulled downward, leading to the sagging that this boro has in the centre when held upright. 

THE INCORPORATED BORO 

Sampson writes, “The shoe, as part of the bodily schema, holds a curious position: both incorporated into the self and materially separate from it,” acting as a mediator, intermediary, and filter through which the world is experienced (Sampson 92). Where the shoe serves this role for the foot, boro serves multifaceted and multidisciplinary roles, potentially being incorporated into any garment for any use. With the ability to filter the experiences of labour, sleep, and leisure through garments, bedding, and tools, boro overall had an almost unavoidable impact on the experience of the working class—not just as a reminder of class and scarcity, but as a connection to past and present family members and imprinted uses. Boro can partially achieve this through the breadth of its definition; a textile that evades strictly defined characteristics encourages almost limitless possibilities for attachment. Boro is essentially defined by its incorporation: scraps sewn into damaged garments to make them whole and incorporated into one another, becoming greater than the sum of their parts. However, each boro achieves an identity all its own through of its unique aesthetic and history. While boro as a category is contemporarily heralded as a sustainable expression of craftsmanship, the families that created them almost certainly had boro that they loved and boro they did not hesitate to discard at first opportunity. 

Since boro were created as a laborious solution to material scarcity, sentimental attachment to boro was not guaranteed. As a model for modern sustainability, boro serves as an imperfect template, as it is possible that less desirable materials were pieced together, yielding less desirable boro. These were likely the first to be replaced by boro of more desirable materials or disposed of as materials became more abundant and accessible. This boro, made of small panels of more irritable and less insulative hemp compared to softer and more comfortable cotton, may have been one of the first boro to be disposed of or replaced. Its incorporation into the bodies of new garments or into the routines or homes of the working class at eventually ended and found its way into my possession, possibly through disposal. 

Boro, for that reason, is an imperfect template for sustainability, and even historically ended in the generation of waste, such as this hemp boro, even if it is now perceived as collectible. 

While boro has thus far been treated as a unified concept, not everyone treats boro as a collective artform under that name. Horikiri, despite honouring a collection of heavily repaired garments, says, “I would never call the items in my collection boro (rags), no matter how worn out or dirty they may be, nor would I ever let anyone else call them that” (Horikiri 7). Although initially published in a magazine in the 1980s, before the unification of repaired textiles under the contemporary definition of boro, the translator of The Stories Clothes Tell, Reiko Wagoner, notes in the introduction that a 2002 Japanese publication addressed the disconnect between “boro” as a common word for rags and the heavily repaired textiles that now bear the same name (Horikiri xviii). While the translation of Horikiri’s work was published in 2016, the nuance with which the word boro is treated is unlike many other sources on the subject. A review of the book notes that not only is Horikiri’s “bottom-up history” a valuable academic text on Japan, but Wagoner’s translation shows considerable skill and accuracy in addressing the subject matter (Chaiklin 302-303). While incredibly subjective, Horikiri and Wagoner place increased value on the individual stories behind each piece rather than placing focus on the term “boro.” 

THE BORO THROUGH THE LENS OF WHAT’S THE USE? 

In What’s the Use?: On the Uses of Use, philosopher Sara Ahmed explores the many variations and technicalities of the word “use” in common language. Both Ahmed and Sampson draw attention to the idea that an object can disappear into use, become an extension of the self, or a serve as a necessary intermediary through which to experience the world (Ahmed 21, Sampson 73). Although boro today are being removed from active use for collection and preservation, this boro, and its particular state of use, can be assessed through Ahmed’s various labels for states of use, beginning with the most straightforward: an item in use. 

THIS BORO IN USE 

This boro is not currently in use in line with any of its original utilitarian purposes, neither as a garment nor as a textile, but rather as a collectible. Prior to my purchase of it, this boro was in use as a commodity. Using the definition of a commodity provided by Prabhat Patnaik in a volume of Social Scientist, Patnaik says of commodities that, “The true specificity of a commodity consists in the fact that while it is both a use value and an exchange value for the buyer, it ceases to be a use-value for the seller for whom it is pure exchange value, a pure representative of a certain sum of money (or command over other commodities)” (3-4). Use value speaks to the properties and values of an item that are not monetary, and this boro entered a market that trades in vintage goods, where it was assigned an exchange value. As this boro is hemp, and therefore would not have been a part of the cotton rag trade that generated many cotton boro, its entrance into a market for vintage goods was possibly the first time it had been in use within a capitalist system, and what often follows items that were in use is that they become out of use. 

The Boro Out of use

Boro is almost defined by how it refuses to be put out of use, with patches placed over other patches to keep garments in use in perpetuity. When technical advancements lead to an increased availability of textiles and boro started suggesting a status of poverty, boro were put out of use, discarded, or stored away. However, this boro, like many others, has been repurposed and put to use as a collectible or as a subject for preservation and appreciation. Unable to be put out of use through wearing, any situation in which it might lose value depends upon cultural values. To draw on Silas’ broken pot, which Ahmed alludes to, a clay pot that, once broken, is no longer in use but placed aside as a memorial; to see it refuse to be put out of use in the same fashion as boro would involve partially repairing the pot to continue to hold smaller amounts of water, refashioning it into digging tools and arrowheads, or grinding it into a paste for building blocks (Ahmed 32). In this sense, the pot, and boro in general, can be said to represent a queer use, with intended uses shifting between persons, garments, and tasks. As Ahmed says of queer use, “when things are used for purposes other than the ones for which they were intended, [they] still reference the qualities of things, queer use may linger on those qualities, rendering them all the more lively” (Ahmed 26).

THE BORO USED, OVERUSED, AND USED UP

The following definitions that Ahmed provides for use explore the stages beyond use. This boro is used, extensively used, and carries with it many signs of use such as holes, stains, and dye loss. It is perhaps overused, as it is comprised of scraps, becoming increasingly tattered and defined by the more worn parts of it that were discarded to allow it to live in its current form. In discussing the idea of a used table, Ahmed regards, “We might think of the scratches left behind from use not as signs of degradation or the loss of value but as a testimony. The table might testify to its own history” (Ahmed 37). Boro overall, as well as this boro, inhabit this space where being used can be seen as a value addition, proof of work, what some may call a patina, a positive sign of use. This contrasts with the previous example Ahmed provided of the table being worn down and over-exploited. While a table may still serve a functional purpose, this boro is at once used, overused, and used up. But what use could this boro provide to its new home once removed from the shop (Ahmed 38)? One option is as a collectible, appropriate for an item that is used, overused, and used up. 

There is an old Japanese saying that relates to the early twentieth-century Japanese philosophy of mottainai (no-waste): “You shouldn’t throw away any piece of cloth big enough to wrap three beans” (Li 54). While likely not meant to be taken literally, we can take it literally to speculate on a possible use for this boro as a net for gathering beans. This boro would be overused in the way that Ahmed defines it, used to the point that further use becomes more challenging (Ahmed 48-49). It features wear and holes that would make handling beans require additional care and caution; certain beans would certainly slip through. We can only hope that the creators of this boro harvested soybeans and not lentils. However, if the boro continued its use as a bean net, the holes could be patched up to allow for further use. 

What would it take, then, for a boro to become used up? If a boro could be used up, it would require extreme circumstances. Even the creators of this boro refused, up to a point, to put out of use a piece barely larger than my hand—a piece made of less insulating and coarser hemp rather than the more valuable cotton. If this boro was in use up to the late Meiji era, what situation would its creators have been in to hold onto it for so long, that up until 1912 a tattered hemp rectangle, stretched and beaten out of shape, was deemed irreplaceable? To restrict boro as a sign of inescapable poverty or extreme sentiment belies the fact that it was boro as a concept—textiles being overused themselves—that was ultimately used up. 

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Author Bio

Article Citation

MLA: Larsen, Eric. “Something Boro’d, Something Blue: An Analysis of Japanese Repair Practices and Material Scarcity.” Fashioning Sustainment, special issue of Fashion Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2024, 1-22. 10.38055/FST030102.

APA: Larsen, E. (2024). Something Boro’d, Something Blue: An Analysis of Japanese Repair Practices and Material Scarcity. Fashioning Sustainment, special issue of Fashion Studies, 3(1), 1-22. 10.38055/FST030102.

Chicago: Larsen, Eric. “Something Boro’d, Something Blue: An Analysis of Japanese Repair Practices and Material Scarcity.” Fashioning Sustainment, special issue of Fashion Studies 3, no. 1 (2024): 1-22. 10.38055/FST030102.