In Tajfuny, we say that you can never have too many beautiful albums about kimonos: they do not only allow you to feel as if you were in Japan, but also take you on a journey through time. Fashioning Kimono features an overview of kimonos from the Montgomery Collection of Japanese mingei art, as well as essays by experts on the subject: the editor of this volume, Annie Van Assche, as well as Anna Jackson and Elise K. Tipton.
We are loyal fans of the designs from the Taisho era, which reflected the shifting aesthetics and a number of other cultural changes. It is a time of changing definitions of what is feminine and masculine, of searching for a new meaning of what “Japanese” style means and of indulging in modernity (with growing imperialist tendencies in the background). Elise K. Tipton in her essay draws attention to complaints of men, including, for example, Tanizaki, about the disappearance of the “old” aesthetic that required women to be “submissive, passive, and accept being trapped in their homes.”
The modernist minimalistic patterns and war motifs on propaganda kimonos from the early Showa era take on a different meaning when you have the history of Japan at the back of your head. Fashioning Kimono is a great complement to albums such as Textiles of Japan, The Brittle Years or Wearing Propaganda in terms of content – but it’s also simply an aesthetic inspiration.
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