Hideko Takahashi (b.1950) is part of a younger generation of Japanese designers working within what now could be considered a tradition of Japanese experimentation with textile forms and surfaces. Educated at the Otsuka Textile Design Institute, Takahashi has also studied and apprenticed with Junichi Arai, one of the pre-eminent textile designers of the last twenty years. She learned from Arai the importance of combining both the hand and advanced technology in textile design and production. Takahashi has focused her investigations and experimentations primarily in the medium of wool fiber and has transformed two-dimensional planes of wool into three-dimensional sculptural surfaces.