Yūzen Origami Paper

These patterned papers are called chiyogami and sometimes also referred to as yūzen, because their colourful designs often resemble the elaborate patterns of kimono dyed with the kyo-yūzen dyeing technique. The repetitive patterns feature classic Japanese motifs, often auspicious in meaning and hand-printed using silkscreens and vivid bright colours.

Origami, the well-known Japanese art form of paper-folding has a wide range of applications from creating decorations through to packaging and engineering inventions such as the Miura fold that’s used for deploying solar panels for space satellites. The best-known origami design, orizuru (lit. ‘folded crane’) is also used to wish for good fortune, recovery from disease, long life and peace by folding one-thousand orizuru and stringing them together.