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Women’s kimono with spiral and stripe design and accessories

Women’s kimono with spiral and stripe design and accessories
c. 1930

Medium
silk, cotton, rattan bamboo, enamel, plastic and metal (meisen textile)
Measurements
(a) 145.0 cm (centre back) 132.0 cm (cuff to cuff) (kimono)
(b) 386.0 × 30.0 cm (sash)
(ob)
(c) 22.5 × 8.5 × 4.0 cm (each) (sandals)
(d) 33.5 × 36.0 × 23.0 cm (basket)
(e) 4.5 × 1.5 (brooch) 107.0 × 0.8 cm (cord)
(f) 16.0 × 17.0 cm (hair piece)
(g) 12.5 × 4.5; 9.0 × 5.5 cm (each) (hair pins)
Place/s of Execution
Japan
Accession Number
2016.110
Department
Asian Art
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased NGV Foundation, 2016
Gallery location
Special Exhibitions Gallery
Ground Level, NGV International
About this work

This outfit for a spring or summer daytime outing features a large rattan and bamboo picnic basket, a fabric headband with delicate artificial flowers, imitation pearl and diamond hairpins, a refined enamel lotus flower obi brooch, and a pair of metallic-thread cloth flat zōri sandals, which lack the platform of geta sandals. The obi sash displays the popular amusement of moga and mobo ballroom dancing and alludes to the international atmosphere of the dance-class scene, as described in Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s popular novel Naomi (1923–24), a story about a quintessential moga.