NIKE 公式オンラインストア

YARN BOMBING

HAPPENINGText: Yumico Miyagawa

You walk down the street on a nice sunny day, when, all of sudden, you notice that your town looks prettier than usual. The colors of the trees are no longer green and brown. Statues start wearing scarves and beanies. Bike racks now have their own feet. Yes. They have been tagged with beautiful knitted cozies.

Yarn Bombing

Yarn bombing is a type of graffiti or street art done with yarn and knitted materials. Its existence is still not that huge yet. However, it is rapidly growing.

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People in San Jose, CA started noticing a few years ago that their streets were all dressed up. Yarn bombing started in San Jose inspired a little bit by the idea of ‘graffiti’ and as a part of local street art events. The leader of the San Jose Yarnbombing group started recruiting folks to dress up the streets of downtown prior to big art events, leaving everything around all tagged up. Pedestrians, at first, thought it was kind of weird, however, they soon started liking the colorful and uniquely shaped cozies all around them. Especially, thanks to the freewheeling atmosphere of San Jose’s art events, no one had any complaints about this new unique shape of ‘graffiti.’

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Since that time, people have started tagging more knitted stuff all about town. Because of Yarn Bombing’s excellent debut in San Jose, it is not uncommon to see the vibrantly decorated trees and poles remaining untouched for months on end.

The next time that you visit v, you just might spy a little yarn bombing on the everyday things around you as you stroll through the city.

Text: Yumico Miyagawa
Photos: Michael Foley

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