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- Kimono
Kimono (from mono meaning thing and ki of kiru meaning to wear) is a term that came into use in the Meiji period (1868-1912) when the fad for all things Western led to a need to distinguish between Japanese and Western Clothing. The terms wafuku (Japanese clothing) and yofuku (Western clothing) were coined, but wafuku referred to all kinds of Japanese clothing. Kimono has come to mean essentially the T-shaped outer garment based on the kosode (small sleeves), the outer garment of the urban elite of the Edo period (1615-1868). The kosode had developed from a tenth century undergarment into a long, straight overlapped outer garment by the 16th century. In the late 16th through mid- 19th centuries, the Momoyama and Edo periods, the kosode or kimono became not just a garment, but a work of art. Its structure, and the social and economic developments of the times, encouraged the decoration of its surface by artists and artisans.
The kimono is made from whole widths of the bolt of kimono fabric, about 35 cm (14 inches) wide, sewn together with a simple running stitch, wrapped around the body and tied at the waist with a sash. The length of a kimono bolt is about 11 to 11.4 metres (12 to 12.5 yards), enough to make one adult size kimono. Until quite recently, kimonos were never ready-made. A customer chose her bolt of fabric and had the kimono made up to her measurements. Two straight lengths of fabric make the body of the kimono, sewn up the middle in the back and left open over the shoulders and down the front. A one-half length section is sewn to each side in the front to form an overlap, left over right, and sleeves (sode), each another width of the fabric, are attached to the sides of the body. A neckband or collar is attached to the neckline and extended about one-third of the way down the front opening. For a heavy customer, the full width of the bolt may be needed to form the body of the kimono. For a thin one, none of the width of the fabric is trimmed off; it is simply folded into the seams at the side. The kimono is not tailored to a specific length for each customer. For the everyday woman, excess length is bloused over a hidden cord at the hips and held by the obi so that the hem of the kimono is kept from touching the ground. To clean a kimono, it is taken apart and then the lengths sewn back together to form a strip of fabric of the original bolt length which is washed and stretched over bamboo supports to dry. One of Ichimaru�s kimonos, a bush clover (hagi) pattern on a greenish silk crepe, which she is shown wearing on one of her record albums covers, is in that disassembled and sewn into a strip form for washing. This sort of design and construction makes it very easy to refit a kimono after washing if the wearer�s size has changed. Since the fabric strips forming the kimono are not cut and shaped as they are in Western clothing, the kimono also presents an ideal canvas for the textile artist, as the kimonos in this exhibit demonstrate. Individual style in dress is shown in the kimono not by cut and construction and varying shapes but by the choice of surface decoration: colour, texture, pictorial design and the various decorative techniques.
Until the end of the 16th century, the preferred fabric for fine kimonos was Chinese silk. With the support of the warlord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), the native Japanese silk industry was revitalized and Kyoto became a centre of fine silk production. The decoration at first was primarily in the weave, with sumptuous brocades, and with embroidery, which often suggested brocade designs at first but then began to develop its own pictorial style. Other often very expensive forms of decoration included tie-dyed and stenciled techniques, the latter frequently employing gold and silver leaf and powder (surihaku). Silk could be hand painted, and fine artists like Ogata Korin, Matsumura
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