1960s Japanese Yukata Bolt & Card - Yokozuna Taiho

In the past year or so, I have been very enamored with these bolts of indigo yukata material with photo cards attached to them from the 1960s.  Athletes, actors, singers, kabuki stars....they all adorned brilliant blue/indigo yukata and promoted many different styles from many different companies.  Right now I have a close to 30 of these bolts in my collection and there is something soothing and mystic about the patterns.  This particular bolt and card are made by the Tokyo Yukata Company (東京ゆかた) and feature a card of the Dai-Yokozuna Taiho attached to a neat "shell" patterned bolt.  The card has the number "110" on it.  I also own #103 and #113 with different wrestlers so it appears that this was a run of sumo cards in a larger group of bolts.  Would be neat to know if Tokyo Yukata made hundreds of other bolts....I'm always on the lookout.

Folded up, these bolts measure about 13" long, 6" wide and about 1.5" thick. 

Please stay safe out there with this ever rapidly-changing health environment!  Sayonara!

1960s Japanese Yukata Bolt & Card - Yokozuna Taiho

If you were a kid in the 1990s, you were likely decked out in denim.  This versatile fabric adorned rocks stars, high school kids, cowboys, and politicians.  There is probably no single fabric that identifies America better than denim.  In the 1960s, if you wanted to part of the "in" crowd in Japan, you covered yourself in a beautiful cotton indigo-print yukata during the summer time.  This style of yukata was seen all over Japan during this time and celebrities helped to promote and sell this fabric to the masses.  Being a necessary outfit for sumo wrestlers, they were part of the leading edge of this trend.  The great Yokozuna Taiho, as the face of sumo wrestling, was sought after by the major companies and to help sell the product they often included a photo card showing how the indigo print would look as worn.  I recently picked up this yukata bolt with one of Taiho's cards attached.  Yukata bolts are 100% pure cotton bulk fabric and the purchaser would then have to seam, hem, and sew to make the actual yukata.  Thousands of different patterns were produced so I am not sure what you would call this one, but it has a beautiful deep blue square "barbed wire" pattern with light grey cross hatching behind. This bolt has the "Main Dying Excellence Certificate" which looks like it was the quality seal given out by the company.  My fascination with these yukata/card combinations continues.