A girl in Suzhou, China, was reportedly detained not too long ago for “provoking trouble”. Her alleged crime was being noticed exterior sporting a kimono. The girl was dressed like a personality from a manga (a Japanese comedian). Arresting her may appear dramatic however there’s extra at play right here than a easy vogue fake pas.
Clothing is a cultural identifier and, to many, a logo of nationwide identification and delight. When you consider the kimono you may consider Japan. However, the garment isn’t worn in Japan now, apart from at conventional festivals or celebrations. As a consequence, the kimono business, which skilled a growth within the Nineteen Eighties, is at the moment experiencing an enormous downturn.
The kimono worn immediately, nevertheless, is just not an indigenous invention of the Japanese. It might be traced again to the seventh century when the Imperial Court started to put on clothes tailored from Chinese kinds.
Despite these Chinese origins, the kimono is a serious cultural signifier of Japan globally. And, in lots of Asian international locations, significantly these which have been brutally colonised by Japan, the kimono stays a logo of oppression.
From people clothes to artworks
There is an extended historical past of sartorial similarities between Japan and China.
Chinese explorers in southern elements of historical Japan across the third century BC noticed individuals sporting easy tunics, poncho-type clothes and a sort of pleated trouser and high. These have been much like garments worn in elements of China at the moment. Images of priestess-queens and tribal chiefs in 4th century AD Japan additionally present figures sporting clothes like these worn by the Han dynasty China.
The first ancestor of the kimono appeared in Japan within the Heian interval (794-1185). Still typically worn with Chinese-style hakama (pleated trousers or lengthy skirts), this garment was comprised of straight items of fabric mounted with a slender sash on the hips. By the Edo interval (1603-1868), everybody wore a unisex garment often called a kosode, comprised of straight items of cloth sewn collectively like immediately’s kimono.
In the early 1600s, Japan was unified by the Shogun Tokugawa right into a feudal shogunate (a form of navy dictatorship) with Edo (now Tokyo) because the capital.
Japanese tradition developed throughout this era with virtually no exterior affect, and the kosode, as a precursor to the kimono, got here to signify what it meant to be Japanese.
Folk clothes and work garments have been additionally based mostly on entrance wrapping (left over proper), drop-sleeved tops and mounted with strings or cords following a fundamental kimono sample. The function of kimono-making developed, and the worth of some kimonos elevated to the extent of priceless artworks.
A logo of Japanese tradition
After earlier eras of a “closed” Japan, the Meiji period (1868-1912) marked a interval of speedy modernisation and overseas affect. The kimono, that means “the thing to wear” had a correct title and formally got here into being.
This was regardless of a brand new imperial edict that rejected previous costume as “effeminate” and “un-Japanese”. As a consequence, males, authorities officers and navy personnel have been inspired to put on western clothes, yōfuku, slightly than conventional wafuku.
But as Japan was present process basic change on a number of ranges, the sight of girls sporting kimono was reassuring and a well-liked image of Japaneseness.
Women began sporting extra western-style garments, particularly underwear for girls, after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923. It was felt {that a} sense of disgrace in exposing themselves prevented many ladies from leaping or being rescued from the higher flooring of buildings. The chance that fewer girls would have misplaced their lives within the catastrophe had they been sporting yōfuku or at the very least underwear beneath their kimonos was a catalyst for basic westernisation.
Japan’s Showa period started in 1926 when Emperor Hirohito ascended to the throne. This interval spanned two world wars and the rise of strident cultural ultranationalism and has been described as probably the most momentous, calamitous, profitable and glamorous interval in Japan’s latest historical past.
For these with a perception within the thought of Japanese uniqueness (Nihonjin-ron), which turned particularly fashionable after the second world conflict, the kimono (together with different points of Japanese tradition) was thought of superior to the western various. While the precise sporting of the garment decreased, the kimono’s symbolic standing in Japan elevated.
By the Nineteen Thirties, Japan was a serious colonial energy, having reworked from a weak, feudal society into a contemporary, industrial, navy energy within the Nineties. As such, the nation had launched territorial conquests into neighbouring international locations.
So, whereas individuals in Japan have been “dressing the part” in a daring try to look highly effective to the west, Japanese occupiers in Taiwan and Korea have been actively encouraging native girls to put on the kimono as a way to show Japan’s superior function and “greater east Asian co-prosperity” within the area.
A examine of how the kimono was perceived in Taiwan and Korea throughout the Japanese colonial interval from 1895 to 1945 confirmed that the Japanese kimono is clearly linked to Japan’s colonial management and conflict duties. The weaponisation of such a fantastic and stylish merchandise of clothes has clearly left its mark.
As the lady who was arrested in China not too long ago was reportedly warned:
The kimono stays a logo of Japanese custom and a reminder of the hazards of nationalism for international locations of wartime occupation and atrocities. But as Japan is getting ready to double its defence finances, elevating questions over its pacifist identification because the post-war interval, and China is flexing its muscle groups in Hong Kong and Taiwan, there needs to be extra for officers to fret about than a lady clad in a kimono.
Author: Ella Tennant – Lecturer, Language and Culture, Keele University 