If you’re in Tokyo right now, drop what you’re doing and hightail it to this kimono exhibit at the Yayoi-Yumiji Museum! There are two floors of fabulous 1920s-1950s kimono ensembles on display, each more swoon-worthy than the last. If this museum were a shop, I’d want to buy them ALL!
The unifying theme of this graphically stunning show is that they are all Meisen kimonos, fashioned from silk woven by dyeing the pattern into the warp threads before weaving:
The resulting images have a distinctive blurriness prized by the Jazz Age fashion artists who were challenging every aspect of traditional kimono design. Embracing imperfectly sharp edges was one of the ways they turned kimono style upside down.
And instead of keeping to a strict rotation of seasonal colors and motifs, they used whimsical Western patterns as well as color combinations that were not considered “feminine”…
and were even inspired by kitsch, surprising and delighting style-setters who had been cut off from inspiration that wasn’t traditionally Japanese for centuries.
If a kimono of this period did feature “traditional” motifs—like these summer waterlilies and butterflies—designers might play with the scale to turn them into abstract art…
or use vivid color combinations that are untraditional for the season.
Humble and retiring flowers like hydrangeas were depicted as lush and juicy as a piece of ripe fruit…
fruit was abstracted until it was more art than edible….
and more than one convention could be challenged at a time, like these big, graphically fanciful butterflies in seasonally non-traditional colors fluttering over a geometric background.
Japanese horizons were being expanded by international leisure travel during these years, so for the first time, Japanese artists could draw inspiration from African cloth…
the Russian avant garde…
…and enjoy foreign experiences like hiking in the alps or attending the ballet.
International travel also exposed them to women who had a life outside the home, and fashion responded. One of the most wonderful things about this museum is that is houses the twin collections of Takahisa Yumeji’s paintings of beautiful women and the kimonos his models wore, so they can put together a display like this, with his painting of a beer hall server and the kimono ensemble she was wearing.
The exhibit also includes fabulous postcards and magazine fashion spreads from the period that will make you wish that the haute couture demimonde would declare Meisen kimonos the next everything-old-is-new-again.
「大正の夢：秘密のめいせん物語展」
“Taisho Dream: Secret Stories of Meisen” exhibition
Yayoi-Yumeji Museum
2 Chome-4-3 Yayoi, Bunkyo City, Tokyo 113-0032
Dates: September 30 – December 24, 2023
Hours: 10:00-17:00, closed Mondays
Admission: ¥1000
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What beautiful fabrics. I really need to return to a city where wearing such flamboyant fabrics is acceptable at any age. And if I ever get to Japan, ate you available for hire as a personal guide ? (>ᴗ•)
Ahahahaha when I’m here, I’m working more than full-time to get all my book research done while I’ve got feet on the ground. But I always love to connect with friends (especially dear old friends!) for coffee, tea, dinner or drinks while you’re here! (^_^)