A treasured item instilled with sentimental memories and cultural references for the people of Japan, and an artefact of wondrous design and beauty for those from outside of Japan, the kimono has become one of the most representative objects of Japanese art, design and culture.

A combination of two Japanese characters (着物) literally meaning ‘thing to wear’, the term ‘kimono’ only came into common use in the nineteenth-century. Early styles of uniquely Japanese women’s court costume known as jūnihitoe (twelve-layer robe) developed during the Heian period (794–1185); however, the earliest forms of kimono that we know today were the inner kosode and outer uchikake worn by the aristocracy from the Kamakura period (1185–1333) onwards. The opulence of these styles remains preserved in Noh theatre costumes.

It was during the financially prosperous Edo period (1600–1868) that the art of kimono production flourished. Samurai living in peaceful times, the economically booming merchant classes, and the festivals of farming and labouring tradespeople gave rise to technical innovations resulting in magnificent garments. Today, over two hundred years later, the kimono is experiencing renewed popularity in Japan, with groundbreaking young designers experimenting with new techniques, while internationally renowned designers inspired by kimono traditions present daring fashion statements to the world.

During the Edo period (1600–1868) a financially empowered and fashion-conscious society was fascinated by the newest social trends, and prints of beautiful women wearing the latest kimono were created and sold at affordable prices. Woodblock prints were initially black and white, before the gradual use of colour led to the creation of vibrant multicolour nishiki-e prints from 1765. Scenes depicting luxuriantly dressed women at favourite locations or performing popular activities appealed to the sentiments and desires of Edo’s pleasure-seeking public. This era became known as the ‘Golden Age of Ukiyo-e’, with artists such as Utamaro, Shunchō and Eizan producing some of the most skilful and elegant expressions of costume and beauty in the history of Japanese art.

The formal attire of high-ranking samurai men was known as kamishimo, consisting of a kataginu vest and hakama trousers. Naga-bakama are long trousers that were worn for indoor audiences with daimyo (feudal lords) or the shogun (military ruler of the country). Kamishimo outfits were worn over richly coloured refined silk noshime kimono that featured a decorative waistband of kasuri ikat dyeing and weaving. Both kamishimo and noshime displayed kamon, the clan crest of the wearer. Among the examples here is a rare full set displaying the nanbu tsuru (double crane) family crest from the Tohoku region of northern Japan and a noshime with the Tachibana family crest originating from the Nara region.

Noh is a masked dance-drama in which extreme stylisation of music and movement creates a beautiful and mysterious atmosphere for narratives that move between the human and spiritual realms. Early Noh robes produced during the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries were based on the elegant kimono of the ruling warrior classes. Although very few examples of aristocratic kimono from that period survive, this style of luxuriantly woven garment has been preserved through the Edo period (1600– 1868) and into the present day in the production of Noh theatre robes. Such garments allow us to visualise aristocratic fashion of the Japanese medieval period.

Vibrantly decorated kimono are worn by children for special celebrations and festivals. Newborn babies wear ubugi when visiting a shine to pray to the god of birth. Special formal kimono are worn for the Shichi-Go-San festival, when children visit shrines to celebrate their passage into middle childhood during their third, fifth and seventh years. Vibrant themed kimono are worn for Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Doll Festival, and Tango no sekku, Boys’ Day. Girls’ festive kimono are bright and filled with flowers and nature motifs, while boys’ kimono display symbols of bravery, honour, honesty and filial piety, such as tigers and samurai motifs.

Kimono for the working class were created using various materials and remarkable technical ingenuity. In rural areas, some households were so poor that they quilted together scraps and fabric offcuts fabric to create wadded garments. Firefighters became famous for protecting urban dwellers and, at festivals celebrating their bravery, wore decorated cotton or deer-leather coats. The indigenous people of Hokkaido, the Ainu, made ceremonial robes from local elm bark, while humble but practical robes worn by tea practitioners or used as undergarments were made from paper.

Some of the most popular and affectionately loved garments of the working class feature dyed motifs in deep indigo blue, a colour derived from the leaves of the indigo plant. In a seemingly magical process, cloth is immersed in a vat of indigo dye and only becomes blue when raised into the air to oxidise. Successive dyeing and airing produce increasingly deeper shades of blue. Popular techniques used for indigo dyeing include tie-dye shibori, stencil resist-paste katazome and resist-paste drawing yuzen. Lightweight indigo-blue-and-white yukata worn for festive occasions during the summer months feature dynamic designs of flowers, animals and Japanese folklore, which were associated with good fortune and served as talismans against evil spirits.

Creatively designed kimono featuring dark backgrounds with traditional, dramatic and playful subjects were popular in the early twentieth century.

Kimono with the Heron Maiden is inspired by The Heron Maiden (Sagi Musume), a single-scene kabuki song-and-dance performance. First performed in 1762, it was regularly revived, and during the Taishō period (1912–26) became a popular subject of art and design. In the play, which is based on a ghostly folktale, a young man rescues a wounded white heron that transforms itself into a beautiful woman. He falls in love with her and they marry, but he soon realises that, despite their love, she remains a heron and must disappear forever. This kimono depicts the beautiful young maiden: the white robe is her wedding dress, while the dark obi symbolises death.

Kimono with frolicking puppies in the snow displays a theme popular during the Edo period (1600–1868) that resonated with early twentieth-century artists and designers, foreshadowing today’s craze for ‘cute’, or kawaii, found in Japanese pop, manga and otaku culture. The design depicts puppies playing in the falling snow and includes a large circular shape appearing from the shoulder line that represents a traditional snow umbrella or a full moon.

Following the introduction of photography to Japan in the mid nineteenth-century, photographers such as Felice Beato, Baron Raimund von Stillfried and Kusakabe Kimbei recorded Japanese society in deluxe photographic albums featuring portraiture, idyllic locations and city life. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, photographic studios flourished throughout the country. Inexpensive portraits of popular personalities were produced in large numbers as pocket-sized prints and postcards. During this era, photography also became affordable to the burgeoning middle classes, and portrait studios became commonplace in towns and even department stores. Customers could record themselves and their loved ones wearing their best and most treasured kimono for posterity.

The history of kimono production encompasses a vast range of decoration techniques and fabric-production methods. Featuring kimono from the exhibition, this presentation celebrates the artistic accomplishments and technical skills – many of which are no longer practised – of anonymous textile artisans. Techniques include loom-weaving; silk and gilt-thread embroidery; tie-dyeing shibori; resist-paste dyeing with stencils, known as katazome yuzen; resist-paste dyeing from a tube and nozzle, or tsutsugaki yuzen; stencil-printed and machine-woven ikat meisen; marbling suminagashi on silk; and wadding cotton fabric offcuts, or boro sashiko. Also highlighted are detailed insights into the intricacies of wearing a kimono, obi sash and accessories, a practice handed down from generation to generation to this day.

During the 1920 and 1930s, the bustling streets of Japanese cities were filled with glamorous department stores, fashionable cafes, popular movie theatres, swinging dance halls and high-tech transportation, catering to a new generation of confident and financially liberated youth. Playfully known as moga and mobo – modern girls and modern boys – this new generation represented the arrival of modernity in Asia, energising Japanese fashion and innovation.

Moga became important to the new Japanese economy, not only as workers but also as active consumers of products, services and entertainment. For these young women, a favourite activity and symbol of their independence was to choose, buy and wear their own clothing and accessories. Sentimental towards Japanese culture, many moga actively acquired new styles of vibrantly patterned kimono and obi waist sashes, matching them with Western- and Eastern-inspired accessories to create inventive new looks.

Mobo were described as having an international outlook while also being loyal Japanese citizens. During the working day these young men wore Western-style suits and hats; however, for social gatherings and formal occasions, many favoured kimono. While mobo wore plain, dark-coloured outer attire, their kimono undergarments and the inner lining of their coats revealed the wearer’s personality and interests through modern, playful designs.

Although Japan had opened its ports to international trade in the 1850s, it was not until the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris, where Japanese textiles, prints and interiors were on display, that the kimono became a fashionable accoutrement outside of Japan. Following this, Western designers adapted and adopted the kimono’s cut, incorporating stylistic details such as wide sleeves, wrap-front fastenings, and richly woven and patterned silks.

By the late nineteenth-century, London’s Liberty & Co department store had become known for its imported ‘Eastern’ goods, which included items from India and Persia, as well as Japanese furniture, ceramics, fabrics and fashions. Buyers found similarities to the well-crafted decorative traditions of the British Arts and Crafts movement, whose goods Liberty & Co also sold. Concurrently, in Japan, large numbers of kimono and kimono-style gowns were also made locally for export. These differed from local Japanese kimono, instead featuring designs responding to contemporary European tastes.

In the context of the Victorian dress reform movement, which promoted comfort, freedom of movement and less constrictive garments, the kimono was seen as a desirable silhouette. Into the twentieth century, the kimono became a reference point for the work of designers such as Paul Poiret and Madeleine Vionnet. During the postwar period, designers recognised the kimono’s modernity and versatility, and over time its influence became more nuanced, concerned with innovation and subverting Western traditions.

During the height of the late nineteenth-century Japonisme movement, paintings of European women dressed in kimono were popular subjects with the French Impressionists and international painters working in the Parisian sphere of influence. The kimono was a sign of fashionable good taste, with Japanese textiles and costume being essential items in chic European wardrobes of the period.

The English artist Philip Wilson Steer’s 1896 painting The Japanese gown takes the kimono out of its traditional Japanese context and presents it casually draped as an exotic garment, worn sensually by a woman standing in a boudoir. Steer’s colourful palette and his painterly, fractured brushstrokes reveal the influences of Impressionism, which he had absorbed while studying art in Paris.

The Australian artist John Longstaff’s Lady in grey, 1890, depicts his wife, Rosa Louisa (Topsy) Crocker, formally dressed in a luxuriant silk kimono with tied obi sash. The work was Longstaff’s first Parisian success and was exhibited at the 1890 Paris Salon.

Living National Treasure (Ningen Kokuhō) refers to individuals recognised for their outstanding skills in traditional arts and crafts, and for their dedication to preserving and transmitting these skills to future generations. Designated ‘Preservers of important intangible cultural properties’ by the Japanese government, these individuals are highly respected and play a crucial role in safeguarding Japan’s rich cultural heritage. Prominent areas of recognition include textiles, ceramics, metalwork, lacquer ware, doll-making, and wood and bamboo crafts.

Serizawa Keisuke is one of the most important Japanese textile artists of the twentieth century, and a leading member of the Mingei arts and crafts movement founded by Yanagi Sōetsu in the 1930s. Serizawa is celebrated for his use of the kataezome (stencil-dyeing) technique applied to an Okinawan-style fabric made from abaca banana-leaf fibre. The dynamic pattern on this work was produced using two stencils and four colours. The inspiration for the simple shapes is glaze dripping down the side of a ceramic jar – a feature of historical wabi-sabi-style ceramics. In 1956 Keisuke was designated as a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government.

The last two decades have marked an exciting revival of the kimono as a creative, playful medium of personal expression. A new generation of young Japanese are challenging ideas of modernity and rediscovering their country’s fashion heritage.

Contemporary kimono labels, designers and stylists are reinventing Japan’s unique fashion traditions. They are using surprising materials to produce accessories and footwear, experimenting with alternative fabrics and techniques, such as inkjet printing on polyester, and coordinating unlikely fashion items to express unprecedented ideas. Craving the latest designs and styles as rapidly as the seasons and years change, young pleasure-seekers cruise Tokyo’s fashion districts of Harajuku, Shibuya and Aoyama in search of the latest trends, such as ‘super cute’ (kawaii), ‘playful gothic’ and ‘new dandyism’.

In this mix, recognised designers like Issey Miyake feature bold designs by established graphic artists such as Ikko Tanaka. Kimono artisans like Tamao Shigemune and Rumi Rock design and style previously unimaginable ensembles of kimono and associated accessories that appeal to current consumers and shock previous generations. New brands such as Y. & Sons produce unique tailored or limited-edition off-the-rack kimono for fashion-conscious young men, while Robe Japonica and Modern Antenna work with surprising motifs to create innovative street fashion kimono.

The influence of the kimono, with its draping form and limitless possibilities for decoration, permeates contemporary fashion. Leading Japanese designers fuse age-old textile techniques with modern designs to produce high-end kimono ensembles, while international designers allude to the kimono’s chic linear shape to create new interpretations of the traditional Japanese garment.

Kyoto-based kimono artisan and designer Jotaro Saito produces sophisticated outfits contrasting light and dark flowing lines. In contrast to Saito’s innovative masculine and feminine kimono styles, Hiroko Takahashi has developed her contemporary graphic design skills to produce bold unisex kimono presented as installations as a statement of female assertion and gender parity.

In recent decades, internationally recognised fashion icons Yohji Yamamoto, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen have expressed affection for the kimono as an influence on their creative practices. Considered a master tailor, Yamamoto has incorporated the kimono’s simplicity and linearity into his work, while Galliano is renowned for integrating kimono influences into his collections and runway shows, particularly during his time at Dior. McQueen was known for exploring Eastern fashion and incorporating Orientalist elements, with the kimono serving as a key inspiration.