In her books and in her Tokyo shop, called Blue & White, she honors the basic frugality of Japanese farm life that shaped rustic domestic objects now treasured for their beauty as well as their practicality.
"Many of the pieces are rustic carpenter-built objects made as they were needed," he said.
It embraces the traditional antiques trade (fine china, silver, jewellery, paintings), collectors (stamps, coins, postcards), the fast-growing vintage crowd, fans of rustic, primitive and everyday objects, and decor and design types, looking for unusual bits of furniture or quirky accent pieces.
Two kinds are on view: high-end pieces made by truly skilled craftsmen and more informal objects, ranging from rustic to endearingly primitive.
Other designers have been inspired by vernacular objects: Formafantasma by rustic Sicilian ceramics; Liliana Ovalle by discarded clothing; and Alejandro Aravena by the bundles of cloth that the Ayoreo Indians in Paraguay turn into makeshift seats.
The artists' common ground included minimal forms combined with conceptual irreverence and a sense of rustic chic regarding materials and objects that was complemented by the centuries-old Italian buildings in which their work was often exhibited and photographed.
But amid the welter of taxidermy, rustic furniture and period artifacts are objects that explore the dark side of so-called sportsmanship.
Koichi Yanagi will bring a 17th-century portrait of Sen no Rikyu, a revered 16th-century tea master, along with tea-ceremony objects, including an elegantly rustic 16th-century tea bowl so famous it has a name: Iwai.
Reclaimed objects give the décor a rustic edge: a slab of persimmon tree felled by Hurricane Irene has been turned into a high-top table in the bar, and wine barrel staves serve a variety of purposes.
