Japan beyond the Kimono

Abstract

In the ancient city of Kyoto, contemporary artisans and designers are using heritage techniques and traditional clothing aesthetics to reinvent wafuku (Japanese clothing, including kimono) for modern life. Japan beyond the Kimono explores these shifts, highlighting developments in the Kyoto fashion industry such as its integration of digital weaving and printing techniques and the influence of social media on fashion distribution systems. Through case studies of designers, artisans, and retailers, Jenny Hall provides a comprehensive picture of the reasons behind the production and consumption of these rejuvenated fashion goods. She argues that conceptualisations of Japanese tradition include innovation and change, which is vital to understanding how Japanese cultural heritage is both sustained and evolving. Essential reading for students and scholars of fashion, anthropology, and Japanese studies, Jenny Hall’s sensory ethnography is the first of its kind, describing the lived experiences of people in the Kyoto textiles industry, explaining the renewal of traditional techniques and styles, and placing them both within contexts such as transnational ‘craftscapes’ and fast or slow fashion systems.

Kimono w kulturze Japonii – od ubioru po symbol „japońskości”

“…Wybór literatury do niniejszego artykułu nastąpił po wyselekcjonowaniu publikacji bazowych, zawierających szczegółową wiedzę historyczną i praktyczną, do których należą Dalby (2001), Milhaupt (2014), Nitanai (2017) oraz Okubo (2011), a także najnowsze badania Hall (2020) oraz Valk (2017; z zakresu specyfiki marketingu kimona oraz zmian w postrzeganiu kimona przez społeczeństwo japońskie. Warte wspomnienia są również dwie polskie publikacje: Zaborowska (2004) oraz Bielak (2019.…”

New fashion “orientations”: the tailoring of kimono in Parisian, African, and Indian dress designs

“…The designers behind the Kyōto Yūzen Sari project 19 take a completely different approach than the above examples, as their direction is more about "exporting" one particular kimono technique and applying it to the flowy Indian sari. This project is similar to the Kyōto-based Pagong (Kamedatomi) brand with their series of Hawaiian / Aloha shirts and Western-style dresses printed using the traditional Kata-Yūzen (型友禅) process (HALL, 2015(HALL, , 2020 20 or Tomihiro Yūzen turning towards the designing of fabrics for bags with their Ritofu branch. 21 The prime idea with Yūzen sari is detaching the technique from the original garment and through this, attempt to make the technique survive economically and culturally (ONUKI, 2022).…”