Japanese textile designer, Junichi Arai (b.1932), said that the
crucial problem for contemporary textile makers is choosing and
blending the myriad of available materials, tools, and
technologies. He explains that history should be the maker’s
guide, as there have been passionate efforts dedicated to making
better fibers, textiles, and garments. Arai has lived by this
credo of history. Born to a sixth generation mill-owning family
and living in Kiryu, an important center for textile production
in Japan for more than 400 years, Arai was surrounded by
textiles being woven for kimonos and obis. His deep reverence
for traditional weaving techniques, and the capabilities that
only the hand (and mind) can provide in the craft of making
textiles, has made Arai the maker of the most technically
innovative fabrics in the last 30 years. Crocodile represents
his more recent work and 20-year experimentation with the
material polyphenylene sulfide, a highly flame-resistant cloth
that is used to make filters for coal boile