The many and varied traditional handicrafts of Japan are officially recognised and protected and, owing to the folk art movement, are much in demand. Some enjoy status as a meibutsu or regional specialty. Each craft demands a set of specialized skills. Textile crafts, for example, include silk, hemp, and cotton, woven (after spinning and dyeing) in forms from timeless folk designs to complex court patterns. Village crafts evolving from ancient folk traditions also continued in weaving and indigo dyeing in HokkaidÅ by the Ainu peoples, whose distinctive designs had prehistoric prototypes, and by other remote farming families in northern Japan.
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“In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people.... The Japanese people are ... simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)