Kimono

Fashioning Culture

Liza Crihfield Dalby

• $26.95 paperback (9780295981550) Add to Cart
• hardcover not available

• Published: October 2001 (orig. pub. 1993)
• Subject Listing: Anthropology
  Asian Studies
  Textiles
• Bibliographic information: 396 pp., 350 illus., 71 in color, charts, notes, bibliog., glossary, index, LC 2001033306, 8.5" x 8.5"
• Territorial rights: World rights except British Commonwealth (excluding Canada)
• Contents

The colorful and stylized kimono-the national garment of Japan-expresses not only Japanese aesthetic sensibilities but the soul of Japan as well. In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book, Liza Dalby, author of the highly acclaimed Geisha and Tale of Murasaki, traces the history of kimono-its uses, aesthetics, and social meanings-to explore Japanese culture. Drawing on a variety of period texts including 17th-century kimono pattern books, Dalby vividly recreates kimono and those who wore them through the centuries. She discusses the development of the kimono robe from its Chinese origins two thousand years ago to its assimilation as the national dress of Japan.

An engaging mix of fashion history and social anthropology, this lively and scholarly book demonstrates in a new way how clothing can illuminate our understanding of culture.

"The force behind this excellent book is Dalby's personal passion for the whole cultural realm she discovered while learning to wear kimono with the exacting perfection of a professional, which meant learning to feel natural in it."-Ann Hollander, Yale Review

"Ms. Dalby has a great deal to tell, starting with her contention that clothing and wearer merge in Japan more than in most places. . . . [She] offers a tour of the cultural collisions that have become part of the fabric not just of the kimono but of modern Japan. It is a tour well worth taking." -Wall Street Journal

"A lively, informative study of the kimono, tracing its evolution throughout Japanese history to its current status as the national dress of Japan. [Dalby's] book's coverage includes all types of 'native' dress, past and present; her unique position as a Western 'insider' allows her to demystify the complex social mores connected with wearing the kimono. . . At once scholarly and enjoyable reading."-Journal of Japanese Studies

"Kimono is as elegantly designed as its topic. Lavishly illustrated and visually stunning . . . the text is every bit the equal of this graphic richness. In language simple but strikingly patterned, it weaves its way through technical details and historical arcanities with panache and color. . . . Such is the variety of lenses focussed upon its topic that the book will engage interests ranging from pop culture to literary history."-Mangajin

"An impressive, unusual, and beautiful book. There are many valuable insights here-not only about Japanese clothing but also about patterns of gender, class, and identity in Japanese culture."-Joseph J. Tobin, author of Re-Made in Japan

Contents

Part I Clothing and Culture

ONE Kimono Theme and Variations
Kimono, My Bias
Clothing as a Cultural System
Kimono Past and Present
A Grammar of Kimono

TWO The Natural History of Kimono
Parts of the Kimono Body
Ideas about Indigenous Native Garments
Early Chinese Prototypes
The Embryonic Kimono
Kosode is Born
Fluttering Sleeves
The Rise of the Obi
Sumptuary Regulations and Cool Chic
Kimono Meets Its Match

THREE The Kimono Discovers Itself
Kimono Self-consciousness
The Clothing of Meiji
Civilization and Enlightenment in Early Meiji
Political Haberdashery
The Unraveling Thread
High Westernization
Progressive Representations
Rationalization and Restrictions
Kimono Renascence in Late Meiji
Meiji Kimono and How They Were Worn
A Mark of Class
Permitted Colors
Western Influence on Meiji Kimono
Cultural Cross-dressing

Part II Kimono in the Modern World

FOUR Women who cross their legs - Kimono in modern Japan
Kimono with a Capital K
The Context of Official Kimono
Kimono Academies
Women and Wafuku
The Taisho Transformation
The War Years
The Functionalist Critique
The Feminist Critique
Kimono-ron

FIVE The Other Kimono
The People's Kimono
Work - the Other Kimono
Mingei Aspects of Folk Clothing
Stripes and Ikat

SIX The Structure of Kimono
What the Kimono Signifies
Gender
Life and Death
Formality
The Age Dimension
Taste - the Geisha Dimenson
Season

Part III Kimono Contexts

SEVEN The Cultured Nature of Heian Colors
A new Aesthetic System
Women and Dress
Rank and Sensibility
Layers of Color
An Imperial Wardrobe
Colors for a Court Lady's Dress
Cultured Nature

EIGHT Moronobu's Fasion Magazine
Clothing and Common Culture
Mercurial Gender
Fashion Books
The Kosode Full-length Mirror
Flowers of Youth
Ten Thousand Women
Yuzen hinagata

NINE Geisha and Kimono
Geisha Influences on Kimono
Geishawear

Notes to the Text
Notes to the Illustrations
Bibliography
Index and Glossary