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Several important studies of Japonisme in fashion have considered the design and cultural influence of Japanese kimonos on the art and fashionable world. However, there is much more to discuss when it comes to how the kimono trend as a phenomenon actually correlated with the beliefs, thoughts and spirit of the time. Using Max Nordau's Degeneration as a critical starting point, this article intends to explore what the adoption and the representation of kimonos could mean concerning the Victorian idea of progress and degeneration of human bodies by analysing the radical use of kimonos in the artworks by a Decadent artist, Aubrey Beardsley, and the adoption of kimono-related gowns among mainstream fashion. While the artistic representations of Japanese kimonos cover up the wearers' bodies to stress ambiguity, 'kimonos' that were widely accepted by upper- and upper-middle-class women were greatly modified to recreate the hourglass silhouette that most Victorians were accustomed to seeing. This article shows the power of kimonos to allow Victorian bodies to escape, transform and hide from the conventional norms of the period, which proposes an entirely new direction of studies of Japonisme in fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan’s kimono has seen a gradual revitalization since the 2000s. Especially the renewed interest in antique and meisen kimono has been of major importance. Responding to this, meisen creators in Chichibu have actively started processes of meisen’s reevaluation and re-interpretation through storytelling. Research focusing on the activities and storytelling by Chichibu’s weavers and craftspeople in revitalizing meisen has remained limited, and therefore this research focuses on a case study of weaving studio Arakei Orimono, together with other key players who helped develop and sustain the popularity of meisen in the area. This paper takes up a content and narrative analysis conducted from the framework of storytelling and meaning-making, making use of material gathered through observations, newspapers, magazine articles, testimonials, websites, blogs, Facebook, Instagram, and interviews. The interviews in this research were conducted using an oral history approach. This paper argues that the usage of stories to analyze processes of making has led the meisen craftspeople in Chichibu to develop new insights into how to understand and redefine their craft in new ways, allowing them to reflect on their making processes and the meaning of their activities, contributing to the further revitalization of meisen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of postwar Japanese and international fiction has seen an expanding corpus of texts revolving around kimono. Many works, while tapping into the intricacies of sartorial traditions, contain actualized narratives of young girls and women experiencing or remembering kimono in prewar, postwar, and contemporary Japan. In these stories, the kimono—ever persisting, at times resisting—helps the protagonist to discover self-confidence and agency as they deal with loss, social expectations, family, and national history. This article focuses on Hayashi Mariko's short story collection Stories about Kimono (Kimono o meguru monogatari, 1997) and her more recent novel The Imperial Visit to Ohara: The Story of an Obi-Making Family (Ohara gokō: Obi ni ikita kazoku no monogatari, 2014b). These two narratives work within all of these parameters and illustrate how authors can write consistently about the multiple meanings within kimono. Through analyzing how Hayashi describes kimono outfits and their implications, this article also explores how, as a literary device, the kimono connects with the concept of reality effect; emphasizes the power of the feminine gaze in Japanese literature; and reveals how the limits between fiction and reality can be broken down. When inspired by the specific mode of dress that is kimono, writers can prompt new inspirations for women to create their own stories with it, discarding the cliché of 'yamato nadeshiko' (lit: Japanese pink carnations, used to evoke Japanese demure, feminine beauty) to explore darker and/or more embodied experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to qualitatively/historically examine and compare the characteristics of China's traditional "Hanfu" and Japan's traditional "Kimono" garments. A survey model was adopted based on a literature review of these traditional garment characteristics. In the findings, it is explained that the Chinese Han traditional garment hanfu has not been able to preserve its features until today. With the help of sources and visuals, it is stated that the kimono, which is derived from hanfu, has not undergone changes in cultural exchanges, unlike China, and thus many basic elements of the original hanfu have been preserved. Hanfu, the traditional dress of the Chinese before the 17th century, includes all kinds of traditional clothing worn by the Han Chinese ethnic group. The teachings of Confucius, which enlightened Chinese society for thousands of years, recognized the hanfu as a very important part of Chinese ceremony and ritual. This traditional garment has a history as long as the history of the Han Chinese. The hanfu, with its ethnic and aesthetic characteristics, was eradicated in the 17th century due to repression by the Manchu invaders. When the Manchus ruled China during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), they thought that they would have great difficulty ruling the Han Chinese. Thus, all Han Chinese in the Manchu system were forced to wear a garment called "Gipao". Over time, the traditional Han Chinese dress, the hanfu, was completely replaced by Manchu-style clothing. Today, the historical Chinese hanfu is usually only worn at festivals, religious ceremonies and movies. The hanfu is usually wide and long-sleeved. The hanfu is a long garment because in ancient Chinese thought it was impolite to show the feet. The kimono has been recognized as a traditional Japanese garment since the 12th century, although it was adapted from the hanfu. Historically, the hanfu has had a significant influence on the traditional costumes and styles of many other Asian countries. Wearing the kimono, like wearing the hanfu, signifies both the spirit and the garment. Passed down from generation to generation, traditional kimonos, with their fabric characteristics and patterns, express the age, social status and style of the wearer. From the 1600s onwards, Japan had a period of two hundred and fifty years in which it closed its doors to all foreigners. During this period, the Japanese continued to focus on their own tradition and art, advancing the art of kimono patterning and weaving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses orbifold signatures for the 17 wallpaper patterns. Fabric is created using each of the wallpaper patterns and sewn into a fashion show kimono. The resulting reversible wallpaper jacket has orbifold signatures on each of the patterns and 10 samples of folded orbifolds as embellishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the Japan Research Association for Textile End-Uses / Sen'i Seihin Shohi Kagaku is the property of Japan Research Association for Textile End-Uses / Sen'i Seihin Shohi Kagaku and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article is concerned with a Japanese wedding uchikake kimono, c. 1800–1850, acquired by distinguished Polish collector Feliks 'Manggha' Jasieński in 1900, the nuanced issues surrounding its multiple representations in Polish painting and photography during the period 1900–1908, and the multifarious meanings with which the garment was imbued. The uchikake's original features exerted a seminal formal influence upon its representations. The interpretive process was also informed by perceptions concerning the woman's status in society and marriage in Japan and in the West, Western and Japanese artistic traditions, as well as current Japonisme in art and fashion. In each of its representations, the uchikake also conveyed personal meanings important to the artist/wearer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kimono (a traditional Japanese garment worn by women) has played an important role in Japanese indigenous cultural origins. Ecological and sustainable ideas have inherently existed in kimono culture within this lifestyle. Since the United Nations announced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the Japanese government has focused on creating healthy spaces with a sustainable direction in mind. However, textile-related product recycling rates were relatively low in Japan at the time. This empirical study used SDGs as a conceptual framework to examine Japanese college students’ perceptions of kimono upcycling practices and challenges. A mixed method was used to analyze the data. An open-ended questionnaire was distributed to college students in June 2019 in Liberal Arts at a national women’s university (n=155). The findings showed that interest in kimono upcycling moderately correlated to those and an interest in western garments upcycling (.578; p

Kimono (a traditional Japanese garment worn by women) has played an important role in Japanese indigenous cultural origins. Ecological and sustainable ideas have inherently existed in kimono culture within this lifestyle. Since the United Nations announced the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the Japanese government has focused on creating healthy spaces with a sustainable direction in mind. However, textile-related product recycling rates were relatively low in Japan at the time. This empirical study used SDGs as a conceptual framework to examine Japanese college students’ perceptions of kimono upcycling practices and challenges. A mixed method was used to analyze the data. An open-ended questionnaire was distributed to college students in June 2019 in Liberal Arts at a national women’s university (n=155). The findings showed that interest in kimono upcycling moderately correlated to those and an interest in western garments upcycling (.578; p

This article investigates a fashion trend during the first half of the 2010's for a garment that looked little like the indigenous kimono, was often designed and manufactured in centers other than Japan and was largely intended for consumption outside of Japan, but none-the-less was marketed as kimono. Rather than reflecting on the ways in which this trend could be viewed as another example of cultural appropriation in the fashion industry or demonstrative of the fashion industry's attempt to maximize profit by flooding the market with endless variations of these garments that resonate rather tired Orientalized stereotypes, this article examines how the ways in which the kimono has been transformed as it moves through time and across borders resonate with this trend and seeks to better understand the political, social, cultural and economic drivers behind such transformations. It also brings to light new developments in this garment's cultural meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Museum: Museum & Regional Studies is the property of National Museum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article addresses several issues concerning a Japanese fan and the kimonos found in the collection of Ivan Skušek from Slovene Ethnographic Museum. They belonged to Ivan Skušek’s Japanese wife Marija Tsuneko Skušek, and were after her death donated to the museum together with other objects from the Skušek collection. With analysing these items and researching the life of Marija Tsuneko Skušek the article discusses the roles these objects had in transmitting Japanese culture to Slovene audience with a focus on the Japanese dances as one way of transmission. During her life in Ljubljana, Marija Skušek in one way adopted to the Slovene society very quickly, but on the other hand she presented Japanese culture and her identity in several lectures along with Japanese songs, dances and a tea ceremony. With researching the roles and values of these object in the museum collection, the article also discusses the importance of understanding not only the physical appearance of the items and their life, but also the wider background of items and collection, focusing also on the owner of these items in the relation to the collector. It is also important to stress how these objects transformed from daily objects of use to rarefied art after they were handed over to the museum, and within this process their value also changed.

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) was a Dutch Realist artist, whose works chronicle urban life in Amsterdam. But his paintings of a young woman, collapsed on a divan and wrapped in a luxuriant kimono, secured his reputation as an exponent of European Japonisme. The so-called 'Kimono Girls', completed between 1893 and 1896, are compelling evocations of female leisure, subsumed within an exotic melange of vivid color and pattern. More importantly, they are an amalgamation of several cultural contexts that characterized the volatile nineteenth century. European Japonisme, the revival of Dutch painterly traditions, medical dogma, and the beginnings of organized feminism come together in these works, making them both compelling and subversive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the kimono to emphasize the role of Japanese material culture in the development of an Asian-inspired taste in fashion of New Spain. From that idea, it shows that some Nipponese products contributed to the occurrence of an achinado code in dress since the seventeenth century, and that was consolidated during the following century. The adoption of a connected history perspective, as well as the use of written and pictorial documents, allowed us to identify its pioneering role in that tendency as well as in its American diffusion. At the same time, we recognized the intersected points of view between Asia, Europe and America to adapt and change the meaning of that garment, until it becomes a dressing gown.

The objective of this research was to create museum texts and educational materials for a textiles section of a major year-long university museum exhibit focused on exploring Japanese culture and aesthetics through works of fine and applied art. Little background information about the textiles was available. A sample of historical Japanese kimono, yukata, and obi in a university collection was examined using material culture and semiotics research methods. The motifs present in the textiles were identified and explored for how the motifs represent values relevant to Japanese cultural practices throughout time. In particular, motifs were analyzed for their noted conveyance of a society’s religious and cultural values. Motifs were predominantly botanical, emphasizing the respect for nature within Japanese culture. Other motif categories present included geometric, animals/insects, cultural/everyday objects, and landscape motifs. 104 individual motifs were identified. Symbolic meanings were examined and interpreted alongside present materials, colors, and techniques. The use of material culture and semiotics research methods for analyzing Japanese textiles is mapped in this study.

The everchanging world of the geisha (or geiko, as they are known in Kyoto) has always been a topic of great interest for artists, researchers, men of leisure who could appreciate the beauty of the "flower district," or even those affiliated with the various businesses that create and support the beauty embodied by the maiko and geiko. The current paper presents some preliminary results of a research project that aims to compile a visual record of the seasons in Pontochō (one of Kyoto's pleasure districts), accompanied by an analysis of what this community means, how it is seen, and how it sees itself in contemporary society. These research notes will address the scope and structure of the project--the attempt at creating a material record initiated not by a researcher, but by the subjects of research themselves, as well as an analysis of some aspects of the material culture most often associated with maiko and geiko, and by extension with the Japanese culture as a whole: the kimono. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Answering to a growing interest and demand for interdisciplinary research, this paper aims to present an approach to introduce the method of discourse analysis into the art, fashion and design historical field as a new method of inquiry. With the goal of providing a bridge, connecting concrete, concerning promotional development and legitimacy construction; this paper focuses on the legitimization of design as a part of the design globalization process that occurred during the Art Nouveau period. Mitsukoshi department store, Tokyo's first and foremost trendsetter of the 'contemporary kimono,' functions as a case study for this research. The main research questions are: What discursive strategies did Mitsukoshi use to give sense to the promotion of the 'contemporary kimono' during the Art Nouveau period? How are these promotional strategies similar to or different from earlier kimono trend promotion, or transatlantic promotion of fashion trends and design during the same Art Nouveau period? Taking up the theoretical framework of legitimacy and sensegiving, this research aims to provide new interdisciplinary insights into the development of Mitsukoshi's promotion of the 'contemporary kimono'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article maps the way second-hand kimono pass between different regimes of value as they move out of people's homes and into second-hand shops. Joining recent calls for a greater anthropological focus on the processes of divestment and disposal, the author highlights how kimono move from the inalienable space of the domestic sphere and into the alienable domain of retail, and considers how their materiality – worn fabrics, dated aesthetics and musty smell – is an active agent in the transformation of value. When initially purchased, the symbolic and economic values of kimono are congruent. But with the passage of time and the deterioration of materials and fraying of kinship bonds, the value of kimono as treasured family possessions is diminished. Yet the very materiality that caused their loss of economic and symbolic value, their undesirable smells, colours and designs can cause them to enter a new regime of value as vintage fashion supported by fashion magazines. By rethinking Arjun Appadurai's regimes of value with a greater focus on material properties and qualities, this article aims to link cycles of divestment and consumption practices with the generation, loss and re-creation of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Japan, this article focuses on collections of gifted kimono that have accumulated in the home, which are usually intended to be passed from mother to daughter and thus enable the perpetuation of family history. I argue that the kimono, as an inalienable possession, is now not as often passed down as it was intended to be, and that this causes a sense of alienation to occur: alienation from the kimono itself, but also alienation from the family and the self within the family. Further, this article scrutinizes elements of Annette Weiner's theory, which has not been examined in depth—such as the context in which inalienable wealth occurs—and explores the workings of inalienability in a large-scale, capitalist society such as Japan. I argue that inalienable wealth in these societies is particularly vulnerable to sociocultural, economic, and generational change, and that this has an important impact on the inalienability of an object—in other words, an object cannot be fully inalienable without the social context at least in part supporting its inalienability. I pay particular attention to the emotional labor needed to care for and transmit inalienable wealth and what happens when inalienable wealth is not successfully transmitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Conservar Património is the property of Associacao Profissional de Conservadores-Restauradores de Portugal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is difficult to ride a bicycle or drive a car while wearing a kimono. Kimono are not considered suitable for contemporary life in Japan, and because of this, there is a pervading view that the Japanese traditional textile industry is in decline. However, Japanese designers and consumers are redefining Japanese clothing (wafuku) while retaining its ‘traditional’ image. This project investigates how the contemporary reinvention of Japanese clothing embodies the process by which tradition and modernity interact, and helps us understand how new designs are a vehicle for designers’ and consumers’ expressions of Japanese culture.

In this article, I argue that the role and significance of the Japanese kimono are changing in twenty-first-century Japan. When the Japanese economy prospered after World War Two, the kimono became a prestige item that was worn mainly for ceremonial occasions such as weddings and coming of age ceremonies, and it was also bought to fill the trousseaus of daughters who were about to get married. These kimonos were mainly worn out of a sense of duty and social obligation. These “duty” kimono were the mainstay of the kimono industry until the economic crisis of the 1990s. I argue that the economic recession, combined with changing social patterns in Japan surrounding marriage, led to the fall of the formal “duty” kimono but enabled the kimono to fill in a new role: that of fashion item. I demonstrate how Japanese people, through kimono fashion blogs and kimono fashion icons, second-hand shops and new kimono providers, are reinventing the kimono’s role as fashion in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fashion in the twenty-first century is typically fast fashion, characterized by mass production, high turnover and goods designed for a short lifespan. The kimono appears to be the antithesis of fast fashion in terms of production and consumption. A kimono takes time to create and usually has a long lifespan. However, in the current global fashion market there has been a growing trend towards slow fashion, which involves longer production times, use of local materials, and a focus on quality and sustainability. Elements within the Japanese fashion industry exhibit this trend but the reality is more complex than simply complying with a set of slow fashion criteria. An examination of the Kyoto kimono-making industry demonstrates a simultaneous speeding up and slowing down of various aspects of Japanese clothing. Rigorous scrutiny reveals the difficulty of categorizing production techniques as either fast or slow fashion. In addition, alternative ways of consuming kimono, that align with slow fashion characteristics, demonstrate that they can change the way consumers view purchases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a view of death as it emerges symbolically in the paintings of the Japanese-style painter Setsuko Mitsuhashi, who was affected by incurable disease. After being diagnosed with a malignant tumor, she painted a series based on legends from around Lake Biwa in Japan. She completed the last painting one month before her death. Submitted to close examination are seven paintings from the series, those that depict a woman wearing a red kimono. The author proposes that, in many aspects of their landscapes and especially the progressively expanding lake, these seven paintings express the process by which Setsuko came to terms with the end of her life and expressed a vision of the otherworld. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]