Collection No. 37 / 2025
The Annual Archive · 1987–Present
Collections
Each year the atelier releases a single numbered collection. No piece is reproduced. No piece is reprinted. What you see below is the complete record of Madonna Sugamo’s work — arranged, as in the Kyoto Museum of Textile Arts, by number and year.
You have arrived at the archive. Acquisition is by private inquiry only.
A Note on Numbering
Why every Madonna Sugamo piece carries a number.
The atelier produces fewer than one hundred and eighty numbered pieces each calendar year — kimono, obi, and the small jewels that accompany them. The figure is not a marketing line. It is the practical ceiling of what twenty-three artisans can dye, stitch, finish, and sign by hand, working from a single studio overlooking the Imperial Palace gardens in Tokyo.
Every garment leaves the atelier stamped with a lot number, a dye lot, and the signature of the master responsible for its final pressing. Kimonos from the same dye bath share a lot number even when they belong to different numbered pieces — a quiet record of which indigo, which persimmon, which morning of which year entered the silk.
The result is a structural scarcity. Past capsule collections have sold through in under five hours. The current waitlist for bespoke commissions stretches fourteen months into 2027. Numbering is the atelier’s way of being honest about how slowly, and how deliberately, a piece must be made before it can be worn.
Now Showing · The Current Collection
Collection No. 37 / 2025
168 numbered pieces Six dye lots · Six master signatures
A study in late-autumn persimmon against deep katayama indigo, drawn from the family’s sixth-generation yuzen archive and finished by hand over the long winter of 2024–25.
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No. 37–041 2025 -
No. 37–092 2025 -
No. 37–128 2025 -
No. 37–159 2025
The Maker’s Hand
Signatures appearing on Collection No. 37.
The atelier is twenty-three people, all working from a single Tokyo floor. Four of the names below belong to artists designated Living National Treasures of Japan.
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Kobayashi Ren
Yuzen Master & Living National Treasure
With the atelier — 34 years
Painted the November Maples signature across forty-one hours of hand-brushing on Piece No. 37–128.
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Sasaki Toshiko
Senior Indigo Dyer
With the atelier — 29 years
Prepared the katayama indigo vats for dye lot K-25 / III, a six-week fermentation begun in October 2024.
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Yamada Hiro
Master Weaver & Living National Treasure
With the atelier — 41 years
Wove the persimmon obi cloth on a wooden shuttle loom in the atelier’s third-floor studio over fourteen days.
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Ide Yoshie
Master Jeweler & Living National Treasure
With the atelier — 22 years
Forged and set the 24-piece Momiji brooch edition, each leaf finished and signed by hand.
Prior Volumes
The archive, by number and year.
A selection of six recent collections, kept here for returning clients and the curators who follow the work. Earlier volumes are documented in the Journal.
A piece is finished not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more should be.
Madonna Sugamo · Founder’s Notebook, 1994