Interiors: Wed white and blue

Treasures of traditional Japanese design, blue and white are the perfect foil for Tokyo's sweltering summers. Martin Webb dips into the coolest color combination around.

"From the blue and white streamers that helped lure the Sun Goddess Amaterasu out of the cave where she hid in anger at her brother … to the blue and white Imari porcelains that were staples in the Dutch East India Company's trade with Europe, blue and white have long been the colors Japan has made its name with throughout the world."

So writes Amy Sylvester Katoh, owner of Azabu Juban's Blue and White interior emporium and an expat celebrity who has been expounding the aesthetic advantages of this transcendent color combination for more than 10 years. Katoh's book, "Blue and White Japan," just published in paperback, celebrates these two colors and offers easy tips for bringing this crisp and cool combo into your home.

Perhaps Kyushu's Imari porcelain or noren, the split curtains that decorate shop doorways, are the most apparent displays of the juxtaposition of blue and white in Japan, but Katoh's careful study reveals how deeply these two colors permeate this nation's sense of beauty and embody the spirit of summer—"azure waves wash over … white sand; cotton-ball clouds drift across cobalt skies."

Pure and simple
Katoh has been living in Japan for more than 30 years, since she was 20. Having developed a fascination with things blue and white at an early stage, she has amassed an impressive collection of objets d'art, trinkets and pieces of Japanese craftsmanship. Katoh's own home and those of her collaborators (for the most part craftspeople and artists) are the subjects of her book's enchanting photographs. The inspirational interiors she features are, without exception, part of grand dwellings that have taken a great deal of time, thought and money to complete.

For Katoh, however, it is the frugal, everyday element of blue and white that is most comforting and soothing. "When I first arrived in Japan, I was struck by the constant presence of blue and white," she says. "It was the basic color combination of ordinary life, of down-to-earth Japan. Workmen wore tied cotton towels with simple designs stenciled in indigo; teapots, plates and cups all bore cobalt motifs. The colors were inextricably homely and comforting."

It is this passion for the purity and simplicity of blue and white that led Katoh to open shop and pursue her love of sometsuke (blue and white underglaze porcelain). But filling your own home with similar showpieces doesn't require purchasing an expensive antique vase for ostentatious display. Having captured so perfectly the essence of Japanese simplicity, or wabi (elegant refinement), the enduring scheme of white and blue has been applied to a multitude of everyday objects and fittings used around the home and at work.

Color comes home
From the simple symmetry of an Arita-yaki soba cup to indigo-patterned zabuton cushions or tsutsugaki pillows, it is possible to incorporate this color scheme of the moment into everyday household rituals. For dyed or printed fabric, Sei, situated in Omotesando's Hanae Mori Building, is a treasure trove of handcrafted Japanese textiles with designs both intricate and bold, all in traditional indigo. These gorgeous fabrics can be put to use as covers, drapes, throws or even worn.

To take a sense of Japanese serenity with you wherever you go, wearable white and blue is available at Kugatsu Toka, the retail outlet for a young crafts collective based in Tokyo and Gunma. This store's comforting house robes, cushions and Western wear with a hip indigo twist also work well with any blue and white interior.

Katoh says some of the best opportunities to incorporate blue and white into daily living are in the kitchen and at the dining table. She suggests flea markets as a great place to pick up tableware bargains and interesting pieces. Trinkets like soba cups, vases, bowls and dishes are also readily available at local stores in any shitamachi, but Les Yeux Noirs in Nishi Ogikubo is the place to find older pieces with history and character. The genki owners of this friendly little store, in one of Tokyo's best districts for antique shopping, have assembled a vast collection of blue and white pottery that, with a little inspiration, can easily become part of an inspiring interior.

Of course, for the seminal one-stop blue and white shop, head to Katoh's own store, where the author and designer herself is often on hand to offer expert guidance on a blue-and-white home makeover.

With roots reaching back to the early 1600s and across Asia, blue and white is deeply embedded in Japanese design and craft traditions. Harnessing its strength and purity can be purely a matter of finding beauty in the everyday items of yesteryear or, as is the case for Katoh, it can become a journey into the world of Japanese crafts.

If you're looking to add a touch of wabi to your contemporary Tokyo home, Katoh has this bit of advice: "Keep blue and white as the unifying force, and aesthetic harmony will prevail."

Photo credit: ©Tuttle publishing/Yutaka Satoh

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