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From the past, Japanese people have been adoring and getting joy out of beautiful colors of flowering plants, and through this, have polished their five senses. Their sharp senses have been utilized in various scenes like waka and kimono. Dyeing craftsman Sachio Yoshioka inherited the senses and extracts colors from plants just like ancient craftsmen in order to recapture the traditional beautiful, radiant Japanese colors.
Yoshioka is the 5th generation family head of "Somenotsukasa Yoshioka" built during the Edo period. This dyeing atelier is situated in a quiet town along Uji River in the Fushimi district in Kyoto. After graduating from university, Yoshioka got a job at a publishing company and then launched an art-book publishing firm. At first, Yoshioka's younger brother was going to go into the family business of running the dyeing atelier but his brother suddenly declined, so Yoshioka started to work as a dyeing craftsman 21 years ago.
Since chemical dye was imported from Europe in the early Meiji period, primary material of dye shifted from plant dye to chemical dye in Japan. Somenotsukasa Yoshioka adopted chemical dye from the 3rd generation but Yoshioka was attracted to the beauty of ancient color dyed with plants, which is perceived as a rare cultural property, so he eliminated all the chemical dye hoping to revive the ancient color in the modern age.
At the atelier, the work of dyeing silken threads to purple was being done. Lithospermi radix (purple plant roots), which eventually become dye, are pounded with a wooden hammer and softened in a millstone. They are then mixed with hot water to make a bath of dye. Bath of dye is transferred to a tub that is on the fire and then silken threads are soaked in there. Cultivation of lithospermi radix is hard, and dyeing takes a long time. But that deep purple which carries light is utterly beautiful. Japanese culture makes one's lifestyle coincide with the four seasons and the traditional colors that Japanese people's senses familiar with, cannot be changed, and are therefore the core elements of Japanese manufacturing.

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