Tsuyo Onodera is a Master Kimono maker who has worked in the kimono industry for more than sixty years. She established the Aizawa Sendai Kimono Making/Training School in the northern city of Sendai, Japan, where she still lives now. She was the head of school and hundreds of students became licensed kimono makers under her mentorship during their five-year apprenticeships living at the school. amu-arts.org/projects/kimono-making

Maki Aizawa, a daughter of Tsuyo, is an artist and designer based in California and Asuka in Japan. Kimono-making has long been a part of Maki’s life, and she cherishes the memories of a childhood living with the students of the Aizawa Sendai Kimono Making/Training School, surrounded by all things related to sewing kimonos by hand – a rich array of silks, brocades, cottons, pattern books, and special Japanese threads and needles. In 2021, Maki created her own brand, Kamiko that brought together a women’s collective of licensed kimono makers in the Tohoku region of Japan, to put a contemporary spin on kimono traditions, creating designs that can be incorporated into everyday life. Maki also leads a non-profit organization called Amu, which supports indigenous artists from Japan, and is currently writing a book on kimono making with artist Veronika Schaepers. makiaizawa.com

Together, Tsuyo and Maki, have created intensive kimono-making workshops through which they share with students the art of traditional kimono making. They are committed to preserving a kimono sewing tradition that is disappearing, and aspire to revitalize and celebrate the specialized hand skills and techniques of this tradition. At the heart of Tsuyo and Maki’s approach is to embrace the philosophy of minimizing waste and creating objects of enduring value, embodied in the kimono making tradition.