Stories
Furochic: Renewing the Tradition of Furoshiki Jennifer Playford’s gift-wrapping products should come with a warning label. Consumers beware—the wrappings purchased for your gift are in danger of outshining the gifts inside! Playford’s resume can only belong to a devoted and busy artist. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Applied Arts, she worked for a toy company based out of Hong Kong where she designed a collection of clothes for a fashion doll similar to Barbie. After that, she was hired as a graphic designer for a Safari travel company which took her to Africa. She later lived in Toronto for five years, playing keyboards in a pop/rock band with her husband. On top of everything else, she added “loving mother” to her resume, with her daughter Ava and son Oliver. She began her freelance illustration career about ten years ago, but always did it on the side of her other jobs despite her love of the work. According to Playford, “Illustration has always been what I love to do the most and I wanted to start a business where I could apply my illustration talent and satisfy my entrepreneurial urge.” In the fall of 2006, she started Jenny Wren Paperie and has an extensive line of greeting cards featuring her illustrations and the Furochic line which was launched in May 2007. Furochic gift wrappings renew the tradition of furoshiki, literally translated as “bath spread.” Furoshiki was a technique used in the Edo Period of Japan to wrap clothes and toiletries when people traveled to and from public bath houses. This technique was later used as a way to present gifts in a more innovative and beautiful way. According to Playford, “I never buy wrapping paper and usually use fabric or magazine pages to wrap gifts so I thought wouldn’t it be great to market the idea of wrapping in cloth. I also have a great passion for textiles and have always wanted to apply my designs to fabric. I began to research on the internet whether anyone else was marketing cloth gift wrap and couldn’t find any other company that had the same idea. This is when I discovered the Japanese furoshiki cloth and loved the historical background to it. I have always been fascinated by Japanese art and design, especially textiles so it was a good match for me to discover the furoshiki cloth and I decided to use the name Furochic as a take on furoshiki.” In addition to giving gifts an extra-special touch, the Furochic gift-wrapping products are even more appealing in our “green” conscious world because of the reuseable and environmentally friendly quality of the furoshiki cloth. The connection between Playford’s art and Japan remains strong. She is currently designing a line of greeting cards that are inspired by Japanese paper. The new cards will be available in January 2008. She has also written a number of children’s stories which she is in the process of illustrating. The first two stories are also inspired by Japan, one being about a cherry blossom tree in Vancouver and the other about a kimono. Fortunately, it sounds as though we will be seeing much more of Playford’s Japanese-inspired creations in a variety of forms! November 2007 | |
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