Pip Steel on boro: the high value Japanese textile art born from poverty

Boro is the Japanese tradition of mending and patching fabric over generations, born in rural farming and fishing communities where nothing could be wasted. The repairs were always done on the back of the cloth, never meant to be seen, and pieces were sometimes built up across seven or eight layers of fabric over decades. Pip Steel stumbled across it while sourcing recycled indigo cotton online, and has since built a collection spanning pieces from the 1860s to the 1950s, acquired entirely without visiting Japan.