A furoshiki is a square of cloth. That is all it is: cotton or silk, hemmed on four sides, anywhere from about 45 centimetres across for a lunch box to over a metre for a futon. With a few knots it becomes a shopping bag, a gift wrap, a bottle carrier, a backpack or a tablecloth, and when the job is done it folds flat into a pocket. Japan has used it for centuries, and it is enjoying a quiet revival for a reason that has nothing to do with nostalgia.

Where the name comes from

Furo means bath and shiki means to spread. The usual account is that in the Edo period, bathhouse customers stood on a cloth while undressing and used it to bundle their clothes, so the cloth people spread at the bath took its name from the bath. Wrapping cloths themselves are older; the Shosoin treasure house in Nara, sealed in the eighth century, holds cloths used to wrap objects. The word furoshiki is the Edo-period name for a habit that was already there.

By the nineteenth century a furoshiki was how most things in Japan were carried: merchants’ goods, a traveller’s clothes, a gift to a neighbour. The paper bag and the plastic bag pushed it aside in the twentieth. It came back into view in 2006, when the environment minister, Yuriko Koike, promoted the furoshiki as an alternative to plastic bags, and again after 2020, when Japan began charging for plastic bags in shops.

The knots

Everything a furoshiki does comes from two knots. The ma-musubi is a square knot, a right-over-left tie followed by a left-over-right, which holds under load and unties with a pull. The hitotsu-musubi is a single overhand knot, used to make a handle or a loop.

With those two, a few wraps cover nearly every daily need. The otsukai-tsutsumi, the basic carry, folds the corners over a box and ties two of them on top. The bin-tsutsumi wraps a bottle so it can be carried by a handle. The hira-tsutsumi folds the cloth around a flat gift without any knot showing on top, which is the one used for formal presents. Two square knots on opposite corners make a bag with handles, big enough for shopping.

None of these take more than thirty seconds once learned, and there is a reason they are taught as a set of wraps rather than a single way: the same cloth is meant to change shape with the thing it carries.

One cloth, in place of a cupboard

This is where furoshiki belongs in a smaller home. Most households own a drawer of bags: gift bags kept for reuse, tote bags from events, a roll of wrapping paper, a box of ribbons, the plastic bags inside another plastic bag. Each one does a single job.

A furoshiki does all of them. A gift goes out wrapped in cloth, and the cloth itself is part of the gift, or comes back. Shopping goes into a cloth tied in the car park and untied at home. The lunch box travels in it and sits on it at lunch. The cloth lives folded in a bag or a coat pocket, and the drawer of bags can mostly go.

That is the same question danshari asks of every object: what does this do, and is there something already in the house that does it? Mottainai, the Japanese regret at waste, adds the other half. Wrapping paper is used once and torn. A furoshiki is used for years and then, like a tenugui, finishes its life as a cleaning cloth.

Choosing one

A 70 centimetre square is the most useful size for a first furoshiki: large enough for a shopping load or a wine bottle, small enough to wrap a book. Cotton is easier to tie than silk and washes with the laundry. Patterns are traditionally seasonal or symbolic, and a plain or two-tone cloth is the most flexible for gifts, since it suits any occasion.

Start with one. Carry it for a month in the bag you already use, and tie it whenever a plastic bag would otherwise be offered. After a month it is clear which of the bags in the drawer are still needed, and the answer is usually very few.

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This article is part of a series exploring Japanese philosophy and intentional living:

• Mottainai: The Japanese Word for Waste That Is Not About Money
• Danshari: A Clear-Eyed Guide to the Japanese Three-Step Practice Behind Marie Kondo
• Shuno: Why Japanese Storage Begins with Owning Less