The kimono is an iconic garment with a history as rich and colourful as the textiles from which it is crafted. Deeply associated with Japanese culture both past and present, it has often been thought of as a highly gendered, rigidly traditional and unchanging national costume. This book challenges that perception, revealing the nuanced meanings and messages behind the kimono from the point of view of its wearers and producers, many of whom – both men and women – see the garment as a vehicle for self-expression. Taking a material culture approach, The Social Life of Kimono is the first study to combine the history of the kimono as a fashionable garment with an in-depth exploration of its multifaceted role today on both the street and the catwalk. Through case studies covering historical advertising campaigns, fashion magazines, interviews with contemporary kimono designers, large scale and small craft producers, and consumers who choose to wear them, The Social Life of Kimono gives a unique insight into making and meaning of this complex garment.
This book examines the entire sweep of Japanese clothing history, from the sophisticated fashion systems of late-Edo period kimonos to the present day, providing possible theories of how Japan made this fashion journey and linking current theories of fashion to the Japanese example. The book is unique in that it provides the first full history of the last two hundred years of Japanese clothing. It is also the first book to include Asian fashion as part of global fashion as well as fashion theory. It adds a hitherto absent continuity to the understanding of historical and current fashion in Japan, and is pioneering in offering possible theories to account for that entire history. By providing an analysis of how that entire history changes our understanding of the way fashion works this book will be an essential text for all students of fashion and design.
With exquisite close-up photography of some of the most fascinating pieces in the V&A’s collections, this book reveals the full scope of Japanese dress over the past three centuries. A unique insight into the history and key themes of Japanese dress from the eighteenth century to the present, Japanese Dress in Detail reveals the elaborate embroidery, precise folds, and sophisticated dyes that form some of the most beautiful garments in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s unparalleled Japanese dress collection. This book provides readers with the rare opportunity to examine historical clothing, from breathtaking Edo-period kimono, court robes, and No— theatre costumes to indigo-dyed utilitarian garments and exciting contemporary designs. Featuring both garments and accessories, this book is an extraordinary exploration of the beauty and complexity of Japanese fashion. Specially commissioned close-up photography and authoritative texts accompany each garment, and front-and-back line drawings make this publication an invaluable resource for students, collectors, designers, fashion lovers, and Japanophiles.
Matthews Hamabata got off to an unpromising start when he first arrived in Japan to study influential business families. An unmarried, third-generation Japanese-American graduate student, he was there to learn about business executives in their roles as male principals and heads of households. Some Japanese were less than hospitable and often downright rude to him, and the souvenirs bearing the Harvard University emblem that he had brought along for gifts proved to be inappropriate within the highly ritualized system of Japanese gift-giving. In this engaging and personal narrative, we watch Hamabata in the first disappointing six months of his fieldwork as he attempts to map the boundaries of culture, class, and sexuality. "I became my own biggest fieldwork problem," he writes. "Was I inside or out? When I thought I was in, I was actually out, but when I acknowledged the fact that I was out, I was let in." He soon recognized the importance of marital and filial relations in transmitting power in the business world, and he began to direct his study to examining the social and emotional lives of all members of the Japanese ie (household) and the way they affect business activity and ownership. He takes us behind the scenes of the family enterprise to see how the multiple "layers of reality"--biological, social, religious, emotional, and symbolic--relate and cause dilemmas for ie members. (Names, locations, and other details have been altered for the sake of anonymity.) We meet the Moriuchis, the Itoos, the Okimotos--people who must constantly balance their own personal desires against the good of the ie. Many telling vignettes illustrate a central tension in their lives--their need for love, power, and emotional expression versus the constraints of traditional attitudes toward their ancestors, public honor, the economic enterprise, and the obligation to continue the ie over time. A grandfather stubbornly refuses to hand over the reins of succession to the next generation, creating an impossible situation that eventually tears apart an economic empire, as well as the fabric of various interrelated families. Economic, familial, and religious factors figure in a clash for succession between the person who possesses the ancestral tablets and the head of the enterprise. A daughter must reconcile personal love with arranged marriage. Ambitions for the son in line for succession war with the realization that this spoiled, incompetent young man may well ruin the ie. A fascinating portrait of everyday life told with vibrant sensitivity as well as humor, this book is full of the vitality of common concerns: life choices, love and commitment, confrontations with death. It is about very real people trying to make sense of their lives--trying to reconcile the roles and duties dictated by custom and tradition with rapidly changing expectations in the international milieu of contemporary Japan.
There is a charm to Kyoto. Surrounded by lush green hills, the city feels alive with nature, history, culture—and tourists. At once ancient capital, modern city, and home to numerous cultural heritage sites, Kyoto looms large in the promotion of Japanese culture at home and abroad. In the wake of years of economic recession followed by the national promotion of “cool Japan” in popular culture and tourism of the twenty-first century, anthropologist Jennifer Prough sets out to examine how the city’s history and culture have been mobilized to create heritage experiences for today’s tourists. The heart of her book, Kyoto Revisited, centers on what it means to produce these for visitors, why seeing and feeling culture and tradition appeal to both domestic and international travelers, and the challenges faced by a heritage tourism city. As Prough’s study suggests, heritage has multiple meanings. It is created as interested parties—state and local, public and private—tell different stories about the past, which are marketed in response to tourists’ desire for face-to-face engagement in an experience economy. Her work examines several prominent features of Kyoto tourism, including promotion plans, heritage neighborhood renovation, the role of the seasons and traditional aesthetics in citywide events, the appeal of sites commemorating the Meiji restoration, and the trend of walking in the heritage district in a rented kimono. Throughout Prough brings together scholarship from Japanese studies, heritage studies, and the anthropology of tourism to highlight the interplay between the romantic desire for heritage tourism and the emphasis on “personal experience” (taiken) in the visitor industry today. Experience has long been an integral part of tourism—even as what counts as experience has shifted across time and place (from taking a photo to staying with locals to trying one’s hand at a traditional craft)—yet these touristic desires take on a new tinge in the experience economy. Kyoto Revisited demonstrates not only how the past has been used to construct the city’s identity and shape understandings of Japan for travelers, but also how these speak to broader trends in our contemporary moment.
Through object-based case studies of garments from the ancient past through to the 21st century, Margaret Maynard reveals the countless ways the temporal is woven into our attire. From the physical effects of age on garments to their changing cultural significance, time and fashion are inextricably linked. Every garment has its own pace and narrative, and every dress practice is rich with temporal associations: 'wearing' time in the form wristwatches, marking key moments in time from marriage to death, 'defying' time with beauty products, preserving and re-imagining time through vintage, and concepts of 'timeless' and 'classic' styles. This ground-breaking book presents a complete rethinking of the study of global fashion history, revealing the complex nature of changing fashion when viewed through the lens of time and challenging Eurocentric approaches such as the periodization of style and the arbitrary division of 'western' and 'non-western' fashion. Fashion in Time is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion and dress history, material culture studies, cultural anthropology, archaeology and related fields.
This work traces the history of the Kimono - its designs, uses, aesthetics and social significance - and in doing so explores the world of the geisha, last wearers of the kimono. The colourful and stylized kimono, the national garment of Japan, expresses Japanese fashion and design taste, and also reveals the soul of Japan. Many today consider the kimono impractical, discarded by men for suits and ties a century ago, it is now only worn occasionally by women.
Is it ever acceptable to “borrow” culturally inspired ideas? Who has ownership over intangible culture? What role does power inequality play? These questions are often at the center of heated public debates around cultural appropriation, with new controversies breaking seemingly every day. Cultural Appropriation in Fashion and Entertainment offers a sociological perspective on the appropriation of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and religion embedded in clothing, textiles, jewelry, accessories, hairstyles and tattoos, as well as in entertainment, such as K-pop, Bhangra, and hip-hop. By providing a range of global perspectives on the adoption, adaptation, and application of both tangible and intangible cultural objects, Kawamura and de Jong help move the conversation beyond simply criticizing designers and creators to encourage nuanced discussion and raise awareness of diverse cultures in the creative industries.
Through an astonishing series of interviews, Gay Men's Style will take you on a dizzying journey through shops, bars, clubs, gyms, workplaces and global city streets. Based on the lived experience of gay men of all ages from the UK, USA, Europe, Australia and Japan, Shaun Cole calls for a more nuanced understanding of gay male dress and style. Gay male identities in the 21st century are increasingly intersectional, fluid and flexible, from hyper-masculinity and muscularity seen in clubs and on the pages of gay magazines to self-knowing drag culture and androgynous gender play in the fashion industry. Gay Men's Style explores these multiple identities and the ways in which gay men self-identify and present themselves to the world through dress. This analysis is set alongside seismic shifts in technology, global communication and gay rights to redress and readdress the subject of gay men's style in a time of social and sexual upheaval.
From the refined homes of Tokyo to the nightclubs of Kyoto; from gangster chic to Harajuku street style; from ateliers and catwalks to city sidewalks and religious festivals--this book shows how the kimono has continued to be one of Japan's most exciting wardrobe elements. Interviews with important industry figures, including clothing manufacturers and fashion designers, reveal how this traditional dress, with its simple and elegant form and timeless textile production methods, is as relevant today as ever.
