Before we get to the beauty that is Japanese boro, I feel that a bit of clarity is in order. "Boro" (pronounced bōrō or /boɾo/), the subject of this article, is a class of Japanese textiles. "Borough" (pronounced bûr′ō or /ˈbɝoʊ/) is a type of town or district like Brooklyn NY. Two distinct words. Two distinct pronunciations.
Now that we have that sorted...
Traditional Japanese boro is a class of textiles that have been repaired by people over time and often through generations. The word comes from boroboro, which simply means something worn or ragged. It’s a simple word, and it fits. Boro is fabric that was used in everyday life, then cared for to extend its life instead of being thrown away.
Boro grew out of rural life in Japan, especially during the Edo and Meiji periods, when cotton was valuable and not easy to replace. If a jacket wore thin, it wasn’t discarded, it was fixed. If a sleeve tore, it was patched, and if the fabric weakened in one spot, someone stitched over it to strengthen it. When that patch wore out, another one went right on top. Over time, the garment became heavier and more durable exactly where it needed to be, and the repairs added visible character.
I will always remember one of the first boro fragments I bought. It was small, but it felt thick and solid because so many layers had been stitched together over time. The patches formed this natural abstract pattern just from being repaired again and again. The indigo and grey had faded into a soft greenish tone that really caught my eye. That piece helped me understand what boro is really about.
At its core, Japanese boro is about keeping something going. It’s cloth that someone decided was worth saving, and then kept saving, stitch by stitch. And over time, that care becomes part of the story itself.
Most of the boro textiles we see today are indigo-dyed. Indigo was widely used in Japan and it held up well to work and washing. It was also practical and helped protect fabric from insects and everyday wear. Over time, indigo fades differently depending on how the cloth was used. You’ll see darker blues next to lighter ones with areas that were folded staying deeper in tone. And spots that caught the sun would often fade due to natural bleaching. Those shifts in color tell us stories about how the garment lived its life.
You’ll often hear boro mentioned alongside sashiko, and the two do belong together, but they aren’t the same thing. Sashiko is the stitching itself. You might recognize the stitching technique as those rows of running stitches that reinforce fabric and hold layers in place. Boro is what you’re left with after years of that stitching and the patches and reinforcements have built up. One is the act and the other is what happens when that act is repeated over and over.
Originally, boro wasn’t meant to be decorative. It came from necessity. Garments and textiles like farmers’ jackets, work pants, bedding, and futon covers were repaired because they needed to last another season, and then another. The beauty people notice now wasn’t planned; it developed slowly through use and repair.
That’s part of why it still resonates. You can see where the fabric thinned and where it was reinforced, and you can tell someone made the choice to mend it instead of letting it fall apart. Nothing is hidden. The work of the human hand is all right there on the surface.
In my studio, I work with textiles that have already had a life, and I don’t try to make them look new. I assemble, layer, and stitch everything by hand, but I leave the earlier repairs and signs of wear in place because that history is part of what drew me to the cloth in the first place. When I work with boro fragments, I’m not trying to recreate a historical garment. I’m responding to that long line of mending and keeping things in use, and each piece I bring into a new work has already been handled and repaired by someone else before it reached me. That earlier care doesn’t disappear. It becomes part of what I add to.
