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Yoshu Chikanobu, A Contest of Elegant Ladies among the Cherry Blossoms, detail, 1887.
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After Japan opened up to trade with the West, western-style clothing became fashionable, especially among the upper classes. However, kimono were style worn by many, especially in the home, but also by young women who newly entered the work force after 1920 or so. As Western styles infiltrated the wardrobe so did the concept of "ready-to-wear" garments. While the kimono in my previous post were made of hand-reeled silk from top-quality cocoons, machinery imported from Europe could spin the filaments of lesser-quality, previously discarded cocoons into thread. This thread was then woven into silk fabric which was much more affordable than yardage for custom-made garments. In addition, new synthetic dyes added deep and novel hues to the traditional color palette. Designs were also influenced by Western art movements, such as Art Deco and Art Nouveau.
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Meisen kimono, ca. 1930's.
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Decoration of these ready-to-wear kimono was simplified too - no more gold embroidery, hand-painting or other time-consuming techniques. Instead the fabrics were patterned by resist- or stencil-dyeing designs onto the stretched warp, before the actual weaving. This process is call kasuri (from the Japanese word for "blurring") and is similar to ikat. You can get a feel for this surface design process in this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaziD8vT6f8 although the process for producing meisen textiles was more mechanized.
Some traditional patterns and motifs continue to appear, but updated, such as the rabbit kimono below, which may have been made during the Year of the Rabbit, in 1939.
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Meisen summer kimono, ca. 1930's.
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Japan is an island nation and the sea has always figured prominently is its decorative imagery. The wave design below recalls The Great Wave, a woodblock print by Hokusai (1760-1849).
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Summer kimono, 1920's - 1930's.
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Kimono, detail.
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Meisen kimono were not as well known or as widely collected as the
earlier kimono, but John Weber made them a focus of his collection. I
love their bold designs and graphic impact. Many of the most intricate designs are made with a double
ikat technique (heiyo-gasuri) in which both the warp and weft are
patterned prior to weaving.
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Meisen kimono with thunderbolts, ca. 1950-55.
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| Meisen kimono with water droplets pattern, ca. 1930-40. |
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Meisen kimono with diamond patterns, ca. 1950-55.
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As much as I enjoyed this ground-breaking exhibit, I would have appreciated it if the curators had featured more about the process and perhaps included some videos of textile surface design and construction. There is a helpful illustrated glossary at the end of the catalog, called "Textiles and Techniques," which features close-up photographs of weaves and decoration techniques.
Also, why did even modern-era Japanese fabrics still heavily rely on dyeing, either by stencil or immersion, for color deposition whereas in the West patterns on silk and other fibers are so often placed by printing? However, there's no doubt these garments are amazingly beautiful.
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Meisen jacket with looped lines, ca. 1950-55.
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Jacket, detail.
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