Quilting was a traditional Japanese textile technique, perhaps most famously used to make protective wear such as firemen’s jackets. In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Edo (now Tokyo), fires were an ever-present danger. Firefighters soaked their heavily sashiko-stitched (quilted) jackets and helmets with water for protection. They frequently also marked the indigo-dyed jackets’ outer panels with crests and writing to identify their unit and rank.