What are katagami? Part  2

Katagami stencils  produced in Japan before the third quarter of the nineteenth century  frequently used human hair support grids instead of silk. Silk was discovered to not only be less invasive in the dye application and easier to manage, but it was less likely to warp during frequent use. In the 1870s,  by resting paper cut-outs on a silk grid stretched around a wooden  frame, the French used Japanese techniques to devise an early version of what is known today as the silk screen.

The majority of stencils surviving today are from the late Edo and Meiji periods, about 1789 to 1912, the golden era of stencil production.

Ironically, it is primarily the work of the stencil carver rather than the dyer which has survived to give us a record of popular textiles.