It was a little over a year ago that I went to see “The Inca Empire: 100 Years Since the ‘Discovery’ of Machu Picchu”, an exhibition held in Kyoto. There were many kinds of objects on display, from everyday tools such as pottery to mummies, but as always, my eyes were drawn most strongly to the textiles.
Ever since then, I had been thinking, “I want to make something with an Inca-like feeling!” And at last, I made one. I call it the T-shirt “El Dorado.”
▼ This is the front.
▼ And this is the back.
On both sides, I added gold-colored foil in reference to El Dorado, the legendary land of gold. That said, it is washable gold-colored foil for textile dyeing, not real gold⋯😅
▼ The areas where the gold-colored foil was applied.
The background pattern is a crack-like design created with batik dyeing. Of course, I also sewed the T-shirt itself, so I used a slightly unusual variegated thread for the stitching.
▼ The background pattern and the variegated thread used for sewing.
This T-shirt took a great deal of time and effort to make, but I think I was able to express something of the atmosphere of El Dorado — the mythical land of gold hidden in the vast earth that nurtured civilizations such as the Inca Empire, the Maya, and the Aztec. I hope to keep making more fun pieces like this.