YORK Art Gallery will host Britain’s first major Japanese sashiko textiles exhibition.

Between tomorrow and January 24, the gallery will exhibit traditional and contemporary textiles and garments, fashioned to decorate and protect the wearer both physically and spiritually.

This opening show of a subsequent national tour aims to present a sense of time and place in which these works were created.

The exhibition will look at the lives of the women who made sashiko, which, up until the mid-20th century, was traditional Japanese work wear in fishing and farming areas.

The exhibition, chosen by textile artist Michele Walker, is supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, the Arts Council Yorkshire, Japan Airlines, Renaissance Yorkshire, The Japan Foundation and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.