Woven in Kurashiki: The Story of Takeyari Canvas

• Features
• By Those That Know
• 12th September 2026
• 10 min read

Pick up a piece of canvas clothing from Seuvas and the first thing you notice is its substance. The cloth holds a shape. Its plain weave is clearly visible and its surface has the dry, slightly irregular character of natural cotton. It feels purposeful rather than precious. Then, as it is worn and washed, the structure relaxes. Creases settle around the body, the colour shifts and what began as a sturdy piece of cloth becomes increasingly personal.

This capacity for change is part of what makes canvas such a compelling clothing fabric. It is also the result of a much longer story, one rooted in the landscape and textile culture of Kurashiki in Japan’s Okayama Prefecture. For more than a century, one name stood at the centre of that story: Takeyari.

Cotton, salt and a weaving town

The history of canvas in Kurashiki begins, unusually, with land reclamation. Much of the low-lying ground around the city and the nearby Kojima district was once part of the Seto Inland Sea. From the Edo period onwards, sections of tidal land were drained and converted for agriculture. The salt remaining in the soil made the new ground difficult for rice cultivation, but cotton and rush grass were more tolerant of the conditions.¹

Cotton became the foundation of a local industry. Farmers grew it, households spun it and weavers turned it into durable cloth. The region became known for textiles including kokura-ori, a densely woven cotton traditionally used for obi sashes, as well as sanada-himo cords and, later, school uniforms, workwear, denim and canvas. Each trade supported the next. Skills in twisting strong yarn led naturally to heavier fabrics, while generations of sewing knowledge created the means to turn them into finished goods.

This concentration of expertise remains remarkable. Kurashiki is commonly credited with producing around 70 per cent of Japan’s domestic canvas.¹ The figure explains why the area is more than simply the place where Takeyari happened to be located. The company was part of an interdependent textile landscape built over centuries.

It was from this landscape that Takeyari emerged. In 1888, during the rapid industrial change of the Meiji era, Ishigoro and Ume Takeyari established a weaving business at the site that would remain associated with the family. The operation began with hand weaving. In 1903, its cloth was exhibited at Japan’s fifth National Industrial Exhibition and received a commendation from Prince Kan’in. Ishigoro and Ume’s eldest son formally established the Takeyari weaving factory in 1927 and began manufacturing canvas there.²

The history of the business mirrors the development of Japanese textile manufacturing itself: from hand production to mechanically powered looms, and eventually to a factory able to work with both old shuttle machinery and modern high-speed equipment. In 1989, the company adopted the name Takeyari Co., Ltd., but its identity remained that of a hataya, a specialist weaving house.

Canvas was never a single, fixed product. Across Kurashiki, it found its way into ship sails, horse tack, tents, tool bags, railway freight covers, conveyor belts, truck tarpaulins, gymnasium mats and filtration in the production of sake and soy sauce. It was also used for school bags and, eventually, luggage and household objects.³ The fabric’s reputation was earned in situations where failure had practical consequences.

That history matters. Long before Japanese canvas was appreciated internationally for its texture or turned into expensive bags and clothing, it was an industrial material valued for strength, breathability and resistance to wear.

The slow work of making canvas

Canvas is structurally simple. It is a plain weave, meaning each weft thread passes alternately over and under the warp. Its strength comes not from an elaborate pattern but from the density of the construction and the yarn used to create it.

At the beginning of the traditional Kurashiki process, between two and eight cotton yarns are brought together. These combined strands are twisted to increase their strength and reduce loose fibres. The number of yarns determines the eventual weight of the canvas. Unlike the ounce system familiar from denim, Japanese canvas is traditionally graded by number, with the number falling as the material becomes heavier. No. 11 is a comparatively versatile medium-weight cloth; No. 1 is exceptionally thick.⁴

Preparing the warp is an exacting job. Depending on the fabric, between 1,200 and 2,000 threads are wound in groups onto a drum and then transferred to a large beam for the loom. Their tension and alignment must remain consistent across the full width. The threads are subsequently passed by hand through the loom’s droppers, heddles and reed. A single misplaced thread can introduce a flaw, while cotton itself changes according to heat and humidity. The machine may provide the motion, but setting it up and keeping the cloth consistent depends on experienced hands.⁴

After weaving, a roll is inspected against the light for marks, broken yarns and irregularities. Defects are checked again and, where possible, repaired by hand before the canvas is approved. It is a sequence of industrial processes, but one in which judgement is present at every stage.

That meeting of machinery and judgement was clearest in the machines most closely associated with Takeyari: its Belgian Picanol shuttle looms. Introduced in 1958, they became increasingly rare as textile production moved towards faster looms. Takeyari maintained and repaired them for decades, preserving not only the machines but the practical knowledge required to operate them.⁵

A shuttle loom carries the weft back and forth across the full width of the cloth. It works slowly, at around one tenth of the speed of newer machinery, but that pace allows it to pack heavy yarns together without forcing the fabric into a lifeless uniformity. It also forms a clean, self-finished edge, or selvedge, as it turns the yarn at either side.

At Takeyari, the Picanols could weave extraordinarily dense No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 canvas that other Japanese mills were unable to reproduce. A loom might complete only 50 to 70 metres during an eight-hour day.⁴ A 2021 Kurashiki City profile reported 26 of the machines in operation, used alongside newer technology selected according to the demands of each cloth.³

The value of this slower process should not be reduced to nostalgia. An old loom is useful only when it produces a useful fabric. In Takeyari’s case, the result was a strong but expressive canvas: even in its raw state, the weave had depth, a recognisable surface and the capacity to become better through use.

From industrial cloth to clothing

For all its versatility, canvas had rarely been treated as a serious clothing material. The qualities that made it effective for tarpaulins and bags could make it stiff, heavy and difficult to shape around the body. That limitation became the starting point for Seuvas.

The brand grew from the sewing factory of Tatsuhiro Akashi in Kojima. Akashi came from a local manufacturing family: his grandfather produced school shirts, part of another industry for which Okayama is known. While the region’s denim had earned an international following, Akashi saw that its canvas tradition remained comparatively overlooked.⁶

Takeyari was located close to his factory and the two businesses shared an interest in finding new uses for the material. Akashi began with a two-person team, working with a local sewing specialist to test patterns, washing methods and finishes. The aim was not to make a canvas jacket that merely looked good on a rail. It had to move, soften and function as clothing.

Their experiments produced a garment-ready canvas and laid the foundation for Seuvas, a name formed from “sewing” and “canvas”.⁶ The brand combines the two traditions that define its home: Kurashiki canvas and the garment-making knowledge of Kojima.

Seuvas uses lighter 8oz and 10oz cloths alongside the No. 11 canvas associated with its earlier collection. Scouring and rinsing draw out texture and make the fabric more comfortable from the beginning, while repeated wear continues the process. The cuts are relaxed enough to give a substantial fabric room to move. Cotton thread, double-needle seams and restrained workwear shapes allow the cloth to remain the focus.

Details bring other Japanese crafts into the garments. Signature top buttons are made from Amakusa pottery stone by the ceramics studio +botao, each shaped and painted by hand. Natural and seasonal dyes, including matcha, coffee and logwood, add colour without obscuring the character of the weave.⁷

The result is not a reproduction of historical workwear. The 8oz Canvas Wing Collar Shirt Jacket sits between a shirt and a chore coat, while the 10oz Canvas 2 Tuck Trousers give the fabric a cleaner, more relaxed shape. Both show how canvas can provide structure without becoming armour.

The story has a difficult final chapter. Takeyari ended its canvas operation in January 2023, closing a 135-year chapter in Kurashiki’s manufacturing history.⁸ It is a significant loss, especially because the rarest machinery and the knowledge surrounding it cannot simply be recreated by placing an order with another factory.

Its influence, however, remains visible. It survives in the cloth that was woven, in the techniques shared across Kurashiki and in businesses such as Seuvas that learned to see an established material differently. Seuvas continues to place canvas at the centre of its identity, treating the fabric not as a historical curiosity but as something to cut, sew, dye, repair and wear.

That may be the most meaningful way for a textile tradition to endure. Canvas was developed to be useful. It does not need to be kept pristine, and its history is not diminished by a crease, a repair or a softened edge. The garment becomes more expressive as its original structure gives way to the habits of the wearer.

Takeyari’s machines helped turn thousands of individual cotton threads into a fabric strong enough for industry. Seuvas carries that achievement into everyday life, making clothes that invite the same thing canvas always has: continued use.

Explore the Seuvas collection at Those That Know.

Sources and notes

1. Japan National Tourism Organization, “Kurashiki and the Story of Fiber”. Covers the reclaimed landscape, salt-resistant cotton and Kurashiki’s share of Japanese canvas production.
2. Kurashiki Hampu, company history. Records the 1888 founding by Ishigoro and Ume Takeyari, the 1903 exhibition, later factory development and company name changes.
3. Kurashiki City, “Takeyari: At the Site of Making”, and SEUVAS, “Crafting a Community with Tatsuhiro Akashi”. These document the machinery, manufacturing setting and industrial uses of Okayama canvas.
4. Kojima Sanpo, “Canvas Manufacturing Process”. A step-by-step account of yarn combining, twisting, warping, drawing-in, weaving, inspection and finishing.
5. Japan Creative, “Takeyari × Faye Toogood”. Dates Takeyari’s introduction of the Belgian Picanol shuttle looms to 1958 and documents their continued maintenance and use.
6. SEUVAS, “Crafting a Community with Tatsuhiro Akashi”. The brand’s account of Akashi’s background, the early Takeyari collaboration and the development of garment-ready canvas.
7. SEUVAS, “Who We Are”. Describes the brand’s scouring process, cotton stitching, Amakusa pottery buttons and approach to low-volume production.
8. Unagi no Nedoko, Takeyari maker profile. Notes that Takeyari withdrew from its canvas business in January 2023. SEUVAS and current retail product pages continue to describe Takeyari canvas as central to the brand, but publicly available sources do not clarify whether current garments use cloth woven before the closure, held stock or another supply arrangement. Confirm this point with SEUVAS before publication if the article is to make a specific claim about present-day production.
9. Image credits: the featured winter view of Kurashiki comes from Takeyari’s official Instagram post of 12 January 2022; the stacked-canvas factory image comes from its post of 31 December 2021; and the loom image comes from its post of 26 December 2021.