“ikasu” means “revive” or “give second life” in Japanese. I re-create antique and vintage kimono and obi to give them second life as pieces of art.

The world, it seems to me, keeps moving faster.
What is new is given value, and what is old quietly comes to the end of its role.

Yet textiles keep all of it just as it was — the warmth of someone's hands, the air of a life lived, memories that were never put into words.

I grew up where things were not easy to come by. Food, clothes, tools — we used them until they wore away.

If something tore, we mended it; if a stain would not come out, the cloth became a cleaning rag; and even what had rotted went back into the earth to feed the next life.

Nothing was wasted. Nothing could be.

So for me, upcycling is not a decorative word.
It names a way of seeing — receiving something as not yet finished.

When having more and moving faster are what matters most, I think we lose our own space, little by little — the room to breathe.

It is a sad thing to lose that room and feel the strain of it. That is why I believe we need to stop now and then, and remember what it is to have enough.

My works are not made to assert anything. I hope they are simply there — something that catches your eye in the middle of an ordinary day, and lets you take a breath.