Designer, Ten to Sen Moyo Seisakujo

Rieko Oka

space1-15, in Sapporo's Chuo ward, is a renovated apartment building where artists' shops have gathered together — and Room 306 is Ten to Sen Moyo Seisakujo's flagship store. The bright interior is lined with fabrics, cloth accessories, and sundries in clear, crisp colors. Influenced by a grandmother who was skilled with her hands and made everything herself, Oka majored in interior design at university, where she drew textile patterns for curtains and tablecloths. Then one day, a professor gave her some advice: "If you study wallpaper — something that, once applied, stays on a wall for a long time — you might understand the fundamentals of pattern-making." That advice led her to recreate 19th-century English wallpaper designs using woodblock printing. As she moved further into creating her own original wallpaper patterns, she found herself growing more and more absorbed.

The sense of translating a scene she's witnessed into a pattern inside her own mind is something she says is hard to put into words. When putting it down on paper, she borrows the strength of different materials — crayon for simple, expansive imagery; pencil, conversely, for layering delicate lines; watercolor for patterns that call for transparency or bleeding color; and paper-cutting as the master copy for sharp, clean lines. From concept and sketch to a finished piece of fabric takes anywhere from six months to a year — most of that time spent on fine adjustments to fit the pattern into the fabric's repeat, and coordination with the factory. Even so, she keeps building on the work, staying true to that very first impression that captured her heart.
Patterns are never far from her mind. "I want to keep making patterns going forward, and keep expanding the joy of searching for them," she told us.

Rieko Oka
Designer, Ten to Sen Moyo Seisakujo. Born in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Graduated from the Graduate School of Design at Hokkaido Tokai University. During her studies, she recreated William Morris wallpaper using woodblock printing, learning the structure and methods behind pattern-making. Building on that method, she went on to create her own original "Northern Wallpaper Patterns." She later expanded into the more familiar medium of fabric. She has also worked on designs for the original craft brand Hobra Hobbe and the lifestyle goods brand Kurashiki Ishō Keikaku.