FUROSHIKI WRAPPING
This festive season we’re using the traditional Japanese Furoshiki wrapping technique on our gifts, to try and curb unnecessary waste from wrapping paper and sellotape. Not only that, the wrap can double as an extra gift! Read on to discover a couple of the many ways you can do it.
This one is called Otsukai Tsutsumi, and we’d recommend using it for square or rectangular gifts, perfect for boxes or books. For this we’re using a 1980s Gerry Weber Silk Scarf, find it here.
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- Place gift in the center of the wrap. Take a corner from the wrap of the longest side of the gift.
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- Bring the corner over the gift and tuck it neatly underneath it on the other side.
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- Take the opposite corner and repeat.
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- Tuck the corner under the gift.
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- Take one of the remaining corners and fold the scarf from the corners of the gift to meet in the middle.
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- Hold in place and repeat on the opposite corner.
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- Bring each of these corners inward, to meet in the middle.
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- Tie the two edges in a double knot.
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- Decorate with flowers or festive foliage if you wish!
This next method, Hiro Tsutsumi, would be perfect for small, rectangular objects, or softer objects – we’ve done it with a bag of jewellery. We love this method as it leaves no loose ends! Here we used a smaller pocket square – the 1970s Liberty of London Silk Pocket Square, which you can find here.
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- Place the gift in one of the corners, with the gifts longest side facing the cloth corner.
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- Tuck the corner over the gift and roll it over.
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- Roll it until you’ve reached the centre of the wrap, like this.
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- Take one of corners of the folded side and bring it over the gift as far as it’ll go, towards the opposite corner.
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- Take the opposite corner from the one you started with and bring it over to the other side.
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- Keep wrapping it round so you end up with a long parcel, with one loose end. Turn it over so the opening of the loose end is facing you.
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- Take the remaining corner and bring to reach the opposite side. Almost there, it should now resemble a rectangle with a small corner of cloth left loose.
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- With the loose cloth, bring it over the top edge of the gift, and on the side facing you, there should be a fold. Tuck the remaining corner neatly under this fold.
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- And done!
Give it a go yourself! We have plenty of vintage scarves and pocket squares that would work great as Furoshiki wraps:
This 1980s Red Polka Dot, Rolled Edge Pocket Square would be perfect for smaller gifts. If you have novels or smaller hardbacks, this 1970s Brown Pierre Cardin Pocket Square is slightly bigger and would fit a book perfectly. Don’t want to fold using a silk scarf? This 1960s Navy Cotton Bandana would fold up your gift with ease.
Still looking for the perfect gift to wrap?
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- Vintage Menswear Mini Book
Here are three perfectly sized items for a Furoshiki wrap: 1960s Silver I-D Bracelet, F.W.Collins Brown Bridle Leather Belt, A Collection From The Vintage Showroom Book.