How Has Tokyo's Culture Influenced Fashion

A curator of the showroom Kimono Refashioned that is currently touring the United States looks at the impact the Japanese kimono has had on global fashion.

A Global Fashion Icon

The kimono today enjoys greater prominence and influence in the world of fashion than ever before. There was a time, though, when the traditional garment seemed in danger of disappearing from the daily wardrobe of Japanese women, relegated to rare outings and special occasions for formal events such as weddings, coming-of-age days, and tea ceremonies. However, in recent years it has enjoyed a resurgence, gaining attending both in Japan and abroad equally a sophisticated and elegant grade of dress suitable for everyday and formal occasions. The kimono has influenced the ideas of many designers, providing inspiration for new fashion resource. It could exist argued that few traditional garments take inspired designers to the degree that the kimono has.

For its leap/summer 2018 men's drove, the fashion house Maison Margiela has provided some spectacular examples of the kimono's influence. John Galliano of this firm designed a men'due south coat from a colorful and luxurious antique obi, the sash to tie a kimono. Similarly, Christian Louboutin designed a pair of boots for the autumn/winter 2017 drove of luxurious textile inspired by a tardily Edo period (mid-nineteenth century) kimono textile pattern, with bamboo, plum blossoms, and cranes.

Christian Louboutin's boots, fall/wintertime 2017 collection. (© Kyoto Costume Plant)

A particularly interesting illustration was a men'due south collection by Tom Brown for jump/summertime 2016. Drawing on Nihon's traditions of exquisite craftsmanship and design sensibility, it incorporated kimono-inspired designs into otherwise sober-looking business concern-style suits to create a contemporary pop mode.

A men's suit by Tom Brown for the spring/summer drove 2016. (© Mode Press)

Other famous designers who accept explored the creative possibilities of the Japanese kimono include Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint-Lauren, and Cristóbal Balenciaga. Madeleine Vionnet and Paul Poiret in the 1920s and Jacques Doucet in the late nineteenth century likewise were captivated by the unique culture of the kimono.

A day apparel by Jacques Doucet from around 1897 featuring iris (kakitsubata) blossoms and leaves. Photo by Hayashi Masayuki. (© Kyoto Costume Found)

Japonism and the Kimono Craze

Researching the enduring fascination with the traditional styles of Nihon reveals the enduring influence of the kimono on Western aesthetics. In the seventeenth century, chief factors (traders) of the Dutch Due east India Company in Nippon brought padded kimonos dorsum with them when they returned to The netherlands, and kimono were prized as indoor wear for men. Lightweight and warm, these exotic Japanese dressing gowns were called Japonse rok. They grew to be extremely pop, appearing in portraits of the time and fifty-fifty spawning copies in neighboring countries.

Japonse rok at the exhibition Japonism in Fashion in 1996. Photo by Hatakeyama Naoya. (© Kyoto Costume Institute)

A wave of enthusiasm for all things Japanese swept Europe and the United states of america during the second one-half of the nineteenth century; this came to exist known as Japonism. The touch modes of fine art like ukiyo-due east had on impressionist painters is well documented. However, less well known is the influence that the kimono also had on fashion.

The relationship between Parisian way and the kimono developed in natural progression. Women fell in dearest with the beautiful and exotic clothing, wearing the garments to relax in at habitation. Designers in Paris and London and then started to use kimono cloth for their ain creations. Japanese-inspired designs somewhen came to exist used for silk fabrics by material makers in Lyon, marker their debut on the Parisian fashion scene.

Paris designers at the commencement of the twentieth century were the start to take note of the graceful, draping form of the kimono. Around 1910, coats and dresses with silhouettes echoing those of uchikake kimonos or the kimonos worn past the beauties depicted in ukiyo-e prints began to appear. The nukiemon décolletage style of lowering the rear hem to betrayal the nape of the neck became popular, forth with long sleeves and details evocative of ornately busy obi sashes.

Pioneering designers like Vionnet and Poiret drew on the straight cut structure technique of the kimono, and in the 1920s style was increasingly marked by cylindrical designs equanimous of straight lines made past sewing together rectangular-shaped pieces. This brought a new methodology into traditional European dressmaking, which was based on the ideals of volume and iii-dimensionality. From this period, the structure and shape of dress changed every bit designers moved abroad from obeying the shape of the homo body and began to embrace the wider possibilities of a freer range of forms. In this way, the kimono went beyond the superficial appeal of the exotic and impacted mode as a whole.

Clothes by Paul Poiret, 1920s. Photo by Hayashi Masayuki. (© Kyoto Costume Institute)

The exhibition Kimono Refashioned examines this diverse relationship between the kimono and Western fashion from the 2nd half of the nineteenth century to the nowadays. The show opened at the Newark Museum in October 2018 before touring to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in Feb 2019. It will travel to the Cincinnati Museum in June, completing its bout of three major American cities by the fall. This exhibition, for which I initiated the plan, is a cooperative effort between the Kyoto Costume Institute and the iii museums in the U.s.. Along with looking at the influence that the kimono has had on Western way, it introduces the works of Japanese designers from the perspective of this legacy.

Exhibits from Kimono Refashioned at the Newark Museum in 2018. (© Mike Peters)

Japanese Designers Modify the Fashion Earth

Works by Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake at exhibit Time to come Dazzler: 30 Years of Japanese Way held at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, 2010–11. (© Lyndon Douglas)

The Japanese designers used straight-line dressmaking that showed a clear debt to kimono culture, enveloping the body loosely rather than closely following its natural curvature. From the perspective of traditional Western dressmaking, which looked to copy the lines of the human frame, the approach was highly unorthodox. Initially, critics condemned the designs as lacking any sense of form. But what they failed to recognize is that the designs came from a sensibility free from the rules of the traditional Western approach—one that embraced the essence of the kimono to take a more abstract approach to way.

Coat by Comme des Garçons (Rei Kawakubo), autumn/wintertime 2012. Photo by Hayashi Masayuki. (© Kyoto Costume Establish)

Dress and skirt past Yohji Yamamoto, autumn/wintertime 1996. Photograph by Hatakeyama Takashi. (© Kyoto Costume Institute)

The kimono occupies inexplicable spaces in the notion of Western clothes, and in the age in which mode was shifting to a freer definition of shape and form, this different sense of space gave Japanese designers an advantage. Their creations helped to interruption down the celebrated and symbolic meaning of Western clothes, bringing almost a more than ambiguous definition of femininity past dismantling the idea that women's wearing apparel should emphasize flowing, curvaceous lines. Ultimately, Japanese influence dismantled the rigid Western notion that had dominated until then and helped to turn fashion in new directions.

Japanese Textiles in Tradition and the Now

Although these creators' designs themselves were often controversial, their usage of materials was highly lauded. Fabric, or textile, is an essential element for achieving new expressions in clothing and for bringing nigh dynamic forms that combine cutting edge qualities and creativity. In the kimono, with its homogeneous form, fabrics hold the key to differentiation. The designers inherited this tradition and regarded the choice of textile as a affair of main importance, even earlier they started thinking almost design.

In developing new fabrics, they were helped by Japan'southward fabric industry, which has inherited from a wide range of distinct skills related to kimono—weaving, dyeing, and then on—in diverse regions around Japan. Despite the shift from traditional Japanese garb to Western-style wearable, the modern Japanese textile manufacture has inherited the tradition, and has continued its unstinting development of new technology. Techniques utilizing cutting-border technology proceed to attract attending from experts around the earth.

Dress by Iris van Herpen, autumn/wintertime collection 2016. Photo by Hatakeyama Takashi. (© Kyoto Costume Institute)

The Time to come of the Kimono

Today, fashion is shared effectually the world. This familiarity produces in our daily lives a sense of convenience, merely is also a source of monotony. Items that are broadly shared ultimately belong to no 1, and in an historic period like ours, the position of the kimono outside the Western European cultural context is an advantage. The kimono, adult within the unique context of Japanese culture, offers fresh ideas and new inspirations to designers at a time when there are growing calls for greater diversity in what we wearable. The kimono is certainly not a thing of the past, only will continue to capture people's imaginations and stimulate and inspire creators for many years to come.

(Originally published in Japanese. Imprint photo: The Kimono Refashioned exhibition at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in 2019. © Asian Fine art Museum of San Francisco.)

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