"High-quality color photographs and period pictures illustrate this sumptuous volume, which should interest experts and laymen alike." --Choice The Japanese kimono is celebrated worldwide for its elegant, distinctive silhouette. Though quintessentially Japanese, the kimono form has influenced fashion designers around the globe. The 150 stunning kimonos in this beautifully illustrated book were created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and they include formal, semi-formal, and casual kimono, haori jackets, and under-kimono (juban) worn by men, women, and children. Some of the garments reflect historical styles of design and techniques, while others illustrate a dramatic break with aspects of kimono tradition, as themes and designs from Western art began to predominate over Japanese references. The book, published to accompany a major traveling exhibition, traces the history of the kimono and illustartes the variety of colors, techniques, and designs used in creating this beautiful and symbolic garment. The kimonos featured here are drawn from the internationally renowned Montgomery Collection of Lugano, Switzerland.

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.

"High-quality color photographs and period pictures illustrate this sumptuous volume, which should interest experts and laymen alike." --Choice The Japanese kimono is celebrated worldwide for its elegant, distinctive silhouette. Though quintessentially Japanese, the kimono form has influenced fashion designers around the globe. The 150 stunning kimonos in this beautifully illustrated book were created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and they include formal, semi-formal, and casual kimono, haori jackets, and under-kimono (juban) worn by men, women, and children. Some of the garments reflect historical styles of design and techniques, while others illustrate a dramatic break with aspects of kimono tradition, as themes and designs from Western art began to predominate over Japanese references. The book, published to accompany a major traveling exhibition, traces the history of the kimono and illustartes the variety of colors, techniques, and designs used in creating this beautiful and symbolic garment. The kimonos featured here are drawn from the internationally renowned Montgomery Collection of Lugano, Switzerland.

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.

Highlights from one of the world’s most outstanding collections of traditional Japanese kimonos, with stunning examples from the Edo period through the twentieth century In traditional Japanese dress, the surface of the garment is most important. The T-shaped, straight-seamed, front-wrapping kimono has changed its shape very little over the centuries, but the weaving, dyeing, and embroidery used to decorate its surface make each a unique, wearable work of art. Choice of color and pattern vary richly to indicate gender, age, status, wealth, and taste, and are executed in a complex combination of weaving, dyeing, and embroidery techniques, with a single garment sometimes requiring the expert skills of a number of different artisans. Kimono showcases a magnificent range of kimonos from the the Khalili Collection, which comprises more than 200 garments and spans almost 300 years of Japanese textile artistry. Gorgeously illustrated and written by an international team of experts, the book surveys kimono of the imperial court, samurai aristocracy, and affluent merchant classes of the Edo period (1603–1868); the shifting styles and new color palette of Meiji period dress (1868–1912); and the bold and dazzling kimono of the Taisho (1912–26) and early Showa (1926–89) periods, when designers used innovative new techniques and fused traditional looks with inspiration from the modernist aesthetic then sweeping the world.

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.

What is the kimono? Everyday garment? Art object? Symbol of Japan? As this book shows, the kimono has served all of these roles, its meaning changing across time and with the perspective of the wearer or viewer. Kimono: A Modern History begins by exposing the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century foundations of the modern kimono fashion industry. It explores the crossover between ‘art’ and ‘fashion’ in this period at the hands of famous Japanese painters who worked with clothing pattern books and painted directly onto garments. With Japan’s exposure to Western fashion in the nineteenth century, and Westerners’ exposure to Japanese modes of dress and design, the kimono took on new associations and came to symbolize an exotic culture and an alluring female form. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the kimono industry was sustained through government support. The line between fashion and art became blurred as kimonos produced by famous designers were collected for their beauty and displayed in museums, rather than being worn as clothing. Today, the kimono has once again taken on new dimensions, as the Internet and social media proliferate images of the kimono as a versatile garment to be integrated into a range of individual styles. Kimono: A Modern History, the inspiration for a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,not only tells the story of a distinctive garment’s ever-changing functions and image, but provides a novel perspective on Japan’s modernization and encounter with the West.