Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk at the V&A Explores the History, and Global Appeal, of Japan’s National Dress

Opening in the lead-up to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk, a new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, looks at this traditional garment through the lens of fashion from the 1660s to the present day, when there is, states cocurator Josephine Rout, a “real kimono revival happening in Japan.” (Scroll down for examples from Vogue’s Tokyo street-style portfolios.) She traces the roots of this trend to early 2000s street style, when scenesters started wearing vintage kimonos as a way, Rout explains, of turning their backs on the “the ubiquity of global...fast fashion,” and also as a reaction against an older generation, “who saw the kimono as kind of old-fashioned and a bit too traditional. Younger generations,” she notes, “don’t have quite the same hang-ups, regarding kimonos.”

Tokyo street style, fall 2018Photographed by Kira / TokyoFashion.com

Kimonos, used by men and women, are the national dress of Japan and were worn with regularity until after the Second World War, when they went from being everyday dress to “codified costumes that people would only wear for special occasions,” according to Rout. What’s thrilling to her curator’s eye is to see the circularity in the present-day revival. The last time kimonos were fashionable garments was in the early 20th century, and what’s à la mode today are kimonos from that earlier era. No longer ceremonial garb, kimonos are, notes Rout, “something that people can wear and have fun with again. And that’s true whether the garment is vintage or by created by a new gen of kimono designers responding to the revival.”

Under-kimono for a man (juban). Fabric made in Britain or France, tailored in Japan, 1830 1860.Photo: Courtesy of the Khalili Collection 

Kimono Times, Akira Times, 2017Photo: Courtesy of Akira Times / Courtesy of the Victoria Albert Museum

Curators Rout and Anna Jackson want to show how truly dynamic and global kimonos—described as “the ultimate symbol of Japan”—are, and that they have had almost “viral” appeal for most of their history. The starting point for the exhibition is the mid-17th century. In the fashionable Japan of that time, artists and courtesans set the trends that were followed by the style-conscious middle class, who were hungry for novelty and eager to convey their status. Kimonos started being imported to Europe a century later, where they caused a stir. The exchange was two-way, as kimonos then started to be made using imported European fabrics. The late 19th-century Japonisme movement (one that both influenced and overlapped with Art Nouveau) created a market for “kimonos for foreigners.” At the same time, the domestic market, the curators note, was “transformed by the use of European textile technology and chemical dyes.”