Today, indigo-dyed cotton cloth and clothing are emblematic of Japanese folk traditions. But cotton is not indigenous to Japan, and for most of Japan’s history, rural clothing was made from available plant fibers: paper mulberry, ramie, nettle, hemp, and wisteria. Cotton, which was originally introduced through Korea and China, was first cultivated in the warmer,...

The decoration of this coffee pot, with its solid ground of cobalt blue, is of a type known as “bleu persan”, after a style of Persian ceramics imported to Europe in the late seventeenth century. Cobalt is one of the few compounds capable of withstanding high kiln temperatures, and consequently is the ideal medium for...

Over the next two weeks on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, students from an interdisciplinary graduate-level course on the Triennial taught by the Triennial curatorial team blog their impressions and inspirations of the current exhibition,‘Why Design Now?’.     If there is one design on view at the 2010 Triennial that affects the lives of every...