Itchiku Kubota’s vivid designs were influenced and inspired by his interest in the ever-changing effects of light that, as he once said, “plunges everything into endlessly changing colour.” For Shou/ Last Trace of Autumn in the Sky, he designed an evocative composition of colour, light, and energy that flows earthward through shafts of sunlight, turning the high mountain slopes into flower-like fields of gold that then reflect a palette of myriad hues back into the sky. In the lower part of the kimono, subtle tints enhance the lustrous beauty of the open areas where no tie- or resist dyeing has been done.