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Kimono fashion: the consumer and the growth of the textile industry

in pre-war Japan

Penelope Francks

‘His nation had not changed its costume for over a thousand years’, a Japanese official

reportedly told a shipwrecked Spanish trader in 1!", going on to criticise the

castaway’s compatriots as, #y contrast, ‘so inconstant that they are dressed in a

different way every two years’$ %his incident was famously &uoted #y Fernand

'raudel in The Structures of Everyday Life to demonstrate the significance of clothing

fashion as an indicator of the attitudes to tradition and change that stimulated the

emergence of capitalism and industrialisation in (urope) ‘ the future was to #elong to

the societies fickle enough to care a#out changing the colours, materials and shapes of 

costume’ *'raudel 1"+1) -.$ 'raudel in fact went on to outline some of the more

material links #etween the emergence of fashion as a determinant of clothing

consumption and the growth of production and trade that was starting to transform

key parts of the (uropean economy$ For many years, his hints were largely forgotten,

as supply/side analysis of technical and organisational change dominated approaches

to the understanding of industrialisation$ 0ore recently, however, as research has

 #egun to return the consumer to a central position in economic history, it has ceased to

 #e possi#le to ignore clothing fashion as a factor in the ‘consumer revolution’ now

regarded as a ‘necessary analogue’ to the industrial revolution itself$

s a result, fashion can now #e defined as ‘a cultural catalyst to consumption’

*2emire -!!") -!., spurring the growth in demand for te3tiles that underpinned

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technical change and investment in what proved to #e a key sector in industrialising

economies$ 4n eighteenth/century (urope, imports of e3citing new cotton fa#rics,

from 4ndia and elsewhere, later copied #y domestic producers, encouraged

innovations in dress and the more rapid turnover of styles that has #een termed the

‘fashion system’$ 5hile the #etter/off spent growing amounts of time and money

keeping up with the latest fashions, mem#ers of the middling and even lower classes

adopted and adapted their own new styles, through, for e3ample, use of the second/

hand market or the ac&uisition of ‘populu3e’ versions of the accessories sported #y

the fashiona#le elite *2emire -!!6) ch$6.$ %he resulting demand for increasing

&uantities of te3tiles in an e3panding and faster/changing range of &ualities and

designs fuelled the ‘cotton revolution’ and lay #ehind the technological and design

innovations in fa#ric production that played such a central role in the industrial

revolution itself$

%he emergence of the ‘fashion system’ has thus come to #e seen as an inherent part of

the development of industrial capitalism in (urope and 7orth merica$ For Japan, on

the other hand, the assumption that, up to 5orld 5ar 44 at least, incomes were too low

to generate anything other than a ‘narrow’ domestic market has deflected attention

away from any role for consumer demand in sustaining industrialisation$ s regards

clothing, a link #etween consumption, fashion and industrial growth has e&ually #een

e3cluded on the grounds that the ma8ority of Japanese people, especially women,

continued to wear Japanese/style garments$ %he fa#rics for these were produced

within the ‘traditional’ sector of the economy, where the supply/side forces assumed

to have driven industrialisation 9 imported technology, #usiness structures and

 products 9 were thought not to operate$ t the same time, if fashion as we know it is

-

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ine3trica#ly tied up with the emergence of the 5estern/style industrial economy and

the clothing in which it is dressed, it cannot have #een operating, as 'raudel’s

anecdote seeks to demonstrate, within the supposedly static, ‘traditional’ clothing

systems inherited #y the non/5estern world$1  %he kimono/clad Japanese could not,

therefore, have participated in the kind of fashion/driven growth in te3tile demand

that played such a role in the industrialisation process elsewhere$

%his is to ignore the numerous ways in which Japanese/style clothing, for men #ut

especially for women, changed over the period of economic development and

industrialisation from the late %okugawa period to 5orld 5ar 44 and the e3istence in

Japan, as elsewhere, of mechanisms that spread new fashions to ever wider sections of 

the population$ 0oreover, the ‘traditional sector’ of the economy, within which

Japanese/style clothing materials were produced, is no longer seen as static and

‘#ackward’, so that a role for growth in domestic te3tile demand in promoting and

conditioning Japan’s industrialisation #ecomes a possi#ility$ 4n what follows, 4 seek

to show that production for a domestic market dominated #y Japanese/style clothing

 played a significant part, &uantitatively and &ualitatively, in the crucial stages of

growth in the te3tile industry$ %he characteristics of ‘traditional’ Japanese/style

clothes and the nature of the accelerating trends in their fashions are essential

elements in any e3planation of the pattern of economic and technological change in

an industry central to Japan’s modern development$ Hence, the consumers of kimono

fashion played their part too in determining the distinctive characteristics of industrial

growth in Japan$

1 %he assumption that involvement in fashion depends on the adoption of 5estern/style dress appears to

 #e widely held amongst those who study fashion *see e$g$ 5ilson -!!: or, for a recent Japanese case,Slade -!!"., although Finnane, in her study of ;hinese clothing history *Finnane -!!+., decisivelyrefutes it$

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The textile industry and the domestic market

%he production of te3tiles has long #een recognised as having played a key role in the

industrialisation process in pre/war Japan, as in many other industrialising countries$

%e3tile output grew in real terms at an annual average rate of $ per cent over the

whole 1+:hkawa and Shinohara

1":") %a#le 6$

 process has always lain with the growth in te3tile production for e3port) the raw silk

reeled from domestically produced cocoons that provided Japan’s ma8or source of

e3port revenue following the opening to trade in the 1+6!s? the cotton yarn, spun from

imported raw cotton, that the first modern te3tile mills were successfully a#le to sell

a#road from the 1+"!s? the woven cotton fa#ric competitively produced for e3port,

once integrated spinning and weaving mills #egan to #e set up around the turn of the

century$ @rowth in these areas of te3tile production has #een viewed as crucial to

Japan’s industrialisation, not 8ust in terms of the e3pansion of output and e3ports, #ut

also as driving the process of adoption of modern forms of technology and industrial

organisation, with relatively large/scale te3tile mills pioneering mechanised methods

and the development of a factory la#our force$

 7onetheless, production for e3port and the emergence of large/scale mills represent

 #y no means the whole story, as regards the role of the te3tile industry in Japan’s

economic history$ (ven at their high point in the 1"1!s and 1"-!s, e3ports continued

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Table 1: Textiles and fabric production in the domestic economy (%

Share ofte3tiles inmanu/facturingoutput

Aalue ofe3ports asshare oftotalte3tileoutput

Share offa#ric intotalte3tileoutput

Share ofe3portsBin cottonfa#ricoutput

Share ofe3portsBin silkfa#ricoutput

1875 22.3 14.9 44.8 0.1 0.2

1880 27.9 10.6 42.5 0.2 0.3

1885 28.4 18.3 40.8 1.0 0.5

1890 36.1 13.1 35.8 0.5 7.3

1895 47.3 19.7 37.5 3.7 19.2

1900 35.8 24.1 41.5 9.3 22.3

1905 31.9 37.3 35.0 16.1 50.1

1910 33.6 40.0 40.8 16.8 29.1

1915 33.1 40.7 39.5 21.1 35.5

1920 34.3 38.2 43.8 48.3 33.9

1925 39.4 45.2 37.4 56.1 28.3

1930 30.6 37.2 42.2 55.2 16.8

1935 29.1 37.2 44.2 61.2 13.4

Boutside the Japanese empire

2%(S 1!) %a#les 1 C 1+? 'ank of Japan Statistics Department *1".) %a#le 11 *1.?>hkawa and Shinohara *1":".) %a#les 1" and -

to account for less than half of the value of te3tile output as a whole *%a#le 1.$ %he

domestic market for te3tiles continued to e3ert a ma8or influence on producers in the

industry, stimulating growth in #oth the ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ sectors in forms

that inter/connected with and complemented the e3pansion of e3ports$ 4n mechanised

cotton/spinning, output increased more than 6!/fold #etween the 1++!s and 5orld

5ar 4, #ut e3ports were insignificant #efore the 1+"!s and still only accounted for a

third of output in 1"1< *#e 1""!) %a#le -*./1.$ s large/scale cotton spinning mills

were esta#lished, a ma8or part of their rapidly growing production therefore went to

supply the domestic cotton/weaving industry$ 4n raw silk production, the #ulk of the

e3pansion in output of the machine/reeled thread produced #y larger/scale mills was

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e3ported, #ut still, #y the inter/war period, !=

in Japan was consumed #y the domestic weaving industry$ 0ost of this took the form

of the lower/grade thread produced #y hand/reelers or small/scale mills, intended for

use #y weavers producing fa#ric for the domestic market *0atsumura -!!) "=:.$

%he weaving sector, which produced around

output throughout the pre/war period, therefore represented a ma8or user of Japanese/

made yarns, whether from large/scale modern mills or more ‘traditional’

esta#lishments$ (3ports of woven cloth were negligi#le #efore the end of the

nineteenth century, and although they su#se&uently increased to account for over half

of cotton fa#ric production, they rarely accounted for more than a third of woven silk

output *%a#le 1.$ %he domestic market for clothing materials thus remained central to

the overall demand that Japanese te3tile producers 9 spinners and weavers 9 aimed to

meet$

0oreover, that market was e3panding fast) e3penditure on clothing in real terms grew

at an annual average rate of almost 6 per cent over 1+:

1+:!s to 1- per cent in the 1"!s *2%(S ) %a#le

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%his growth clearly had its origins, as elsewhere in the world, in the switch from

home/made to purchased materials, especially cotton$ 'y the later %okugawa period,

most ur#an consumers were #uying their clothes, #ut in the countryside it was still

only the #etter/off who had the cash incomes to purchase clothing material, new,

second/hand or as thread to weave *%animoto 1"+:) 6

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striped * shima. or splash/patterned *kasuri. yarn/dyed, narrow/width kimono fa#rics

associated with local weaving areas? the other half was largely made up of plain white

cloth, which could, for certain uses, #e factory/made or even imported, #ut was still

 predominantly produced #y small/scale weavers for use in ‘traditional’ clothing, either 

cloth/dyed, as for casual kimono * yūkata., or undyed and #leached for linings, socks,

etc$ *chida 1"++) 16"=1.$ %he market for silk remained even more heavily

dominated #y the narrow/width fa#rics, intended for kimono and their accessories,

that small/scale, specialised weavers produced$

s a result, a division of la#our emerged, with the large/scale integrated mills

specialising in production for e3port, leaving the ma8or part of the growing domestic

market to small/scale producers$ 4n cotton/weaving, the vast ma8ority of weavers

continued to work either on contract at home or in small/scale workshops *%animoto

-!!) 1-=1.$ 0ost in due course came to operate within local industrial districts 9

known as sanchi 9 specialising in particular types of cloth, and #e and SaitE estimate

that sanchi production accounted for +1 per cent of total cotton/cloth production in

1"1" and still < per cent in 1"-" *#e and SaitE 1"++) 1

smallest 6=-"/worker category *0inami 1"+:) -16., and many continued to work in

household enterprises with fewer than five workers$ 5hile larger/scale producers

carved out for themselves a growing share of the overseas te3tile market and some

small/scale producers eventually did find niches for themselves in e3port markets 9

 #y the inter/war period,

 sanchi *#e 1"+")

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small/scale sector survived and developed for the most part as suppliers to the

domestic market for Japanese/style clothing te3tiles$

s the growth in this market demonstrates, Japanese consumers proved no different

from consumers elsewhere in desiring more clothes more often, as soon as they were

a#le to afford them, and it was to the domestic weaving industry, dominated #y small/

scale producers, that they turned, as their spending power and desire for clothing

grew$ s a result, production for the domestic market in Japanese/style fa#rics

continued to represent a distinct and important element in the e3panding te3tile

industry of pre/war Japan$ nderlying this, as the ne3t section will argue, was the

development of consumer demand for clothing along lines laid down #y a

 predominantly indigenous fashion system$ %his in turn, as the su#se&uent section will

show, #ecame a ma8or factor determining the characteristics of the ‘traditional’ #ut far 

from static producers who responded to that demand$

!ashion and Japanese clothing

%he silk and cotton fa#rics that dominated the domestic te3tile market throughout the

 pre/5orld 5ar 44 period were designed to #e made up into garments and accessories

the #asic forms of which had #ecome more/or/less fi3ed early on in the %okugawa

 period$ %hese include the full/length ro#es generically now known as kimono,

together with the short unfitted 8acket *haori. worn over kimono, and a huge range of

accessories, from the obi sash that holds a kimono outfit together, through under/

kimono, collars, ties and purses, to split/toed socks and sandals$ 4ncreasing contact

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with the 5est from the mid/nineteenth century #rought with it knowledge of 5estern/

style clothing, and a significant num#er, though #y no means all, men gradually

adopted suits or uniforms for pu#lic activities, including white/collar work, though

many continued to dress in Japanese style on more rela3ed occasions$ 'y the inter/

war period, ‘advanced’ young women and ur#an sophisticates, together with those

o#liged to adopt ‘modern’ uniforms, were wearing 5estern/style outfits at least some

of the time, while children were increasingly dressed in what were regarded as cheap

and efficient 5estern forms$ 7onetheless, the vast ma8ority of women 9 rich or poor

 9continued to dress in Japanese fashion, so that, into the inter/war years, o#servers in

even high/fashion spots such as the @inGa in %okyo found almost all to #e wearing

kimono$- 

%he kimono is an unfitted garment, usually sold as a fi3ed length of cloth, to #e cut

and sewn at home or #y a seamstress, and periodically taken apart for cleaning or

alteration$  Historically, the kimono market divided into, on the one hand, an haute

couture sector centring on individually dyed lengths produced to order on the #asis of

 pattern #ooks and, on the other, an off/the/shelf sector involving lengths of dyed and

woven silk or cotton in stripes and other all/over patterns *iyoshi -!!) +.$ 'oth

forms were sold in the draperies from which Japan’s department stores were

eventually to emerge, #ut also far and wide #y travelling sales/people, and there has

always #een an active second/hand market$ t the same time, until the late nineteenth

century, many poorer households spun andIor wove their own clothing materials in

hemp or cotton, according to traditional local designs$

- >ne survey of the @inGa in 1"-6, for instance, found : per cent of men wearing 5estern/styleclothes #ut no more than 1 per cent of women *JE -!!:) -

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%he general assumption among e3perts in 5estern clothing systems has #een that the

decisive move in the emergence of fashion was the shift, #eginning in medieval

(uropean cities, away from draped ro#es towards fitted and ultimately cut and

tailored garments *5ilson -!!:) 1.$ lthough it is possi#le to discern changes in,

for e3ample, the cut of kimono sleeves, this has not generally #een the case with

Japanese/style clothing, encouraging the #elief that it has remained unchangingly

‘traditional’ and unsuscepti#le to fashion$ 4n other respects too the kimono might

seem a far from ideal vehicle for the kind of rapid turnover in clothing implied #y the

fashion system$ lthough there clearly were fashion trends operating in #oth male

and female clothing during the %okugawa period, the garments involved, especially

when made of silk, were e3pensively hand/crafted and availa#le only to the #etter/off$

4n general, kimono fa#rics are produced in such a way as to #e long/lasting and hard/

wearing, #ut relatively e3pensive$ 'eing unfitted or easily ad8usted, they can #e

handed on from person to person, patched and repaired, and, if carefully stored and

maintained, can last for generations$ 4n some respects, they resem#le investment

goods or stores of value, ac&uired through inheritance or dowry and easily pawned or

cashed in through the second/hand market if necessary$Geki -!!$

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cotton world/wide was driven as much #y its fashion possi#ilities as #y its cheapness

and convenience, compared with linen and other alternatives *Styles -!!".$ 4nspired

to compete with imported 4ndian fa#rics, (uropean producers developed clothing

materials that were lighter and more easily washa#le, #ut also suscepti#le to

manufacture in a wide range of more rapidly changing colours and designs$ 4n Japan,

high/&uality cotton in elegant stripes had #ecome fashion/wear among samurai and

ur#an merchants #y the early decades of the nineteenth century, competing with less

e3pensive forms of silk for casual occasions *%amura -!!

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%okugawa period *chida 1"++) 1-=.$ s elsewhere, therefore, the e3panding

market for cotton fa#rics has to #e e3plained, at least in part, #y their role in the

spread, if not of high fashion, at least of an appreciation of the possi#ilities of

variation in colour and pattern in relatively everyday clothing$6

 7onetheless, in the Japanese conte3t, the emergence of cotton as a fashion good could

not undermine the historical cachet of silk as a kimono fa#ric$ 4t did however mean

that, if silk producers were to tap into the growth of the domestic clothing market,

they had no choice #ut to seek to compete with cotton in the fashion stakes$ %hey

too, therefore, set a#out developing and designing cheaper #ut also more weara#le and

e3citing fa#rics intended to appeal to the e3panding market of clothing consumers

 pursuing kimono fashion$ 0eanwhile, wool muslin, increasingly produced as a

kimono fa#ric after the opening of the ports, also competed with silk for its feel and

weara#ility and for the clear and #right colours in which it could #e dyed or printed

*osovsky and 7akagawa 1")

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same time, the fle3i#ility and adapta#ility of Japanese/style clothing made it in many

ways ideal territory for the operation of ‘populu3e’ copying of elite fashions #y means

of alterations and accessories that also increased the demand for appropriate te3tiles in

the domestic market$ %he periodic dismantling and cleaning of kimono provided an

opportunity for a range of revamping 9 #y the owner herself or a professional 9 with

more up/to/date trimmings and decorations$ %he obi emerged as the most fashion/

dependent element in women’s clothes, offering wide scope for changing patterns and

materials at less than the cost of a whole kimono *%amura -!!1)

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included #oth relatively e3pensive formal silk goods and also fashiona#le cotton

stripes and kasuri *%amura -!!

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incomes had risen and new ur#an environments offered more opportunities for display

*Fu8iwara -!!) +=

Hence, although ‘traditional’ Japanese dress never moved, as its ;hinese counterpart

did, from the draped to the fitted and tailored, this did not prove a #arrier to the

development of many of the same forces of fashion as can #e o#served driving the

growth in demand for clothes in (urope$ ;ommercially produced cotton fa#rics

offered a range of new, cheaper and more convenient possi#ilities for increasing

num#ers of clothing consumers? as their spending power grew, more and more women

were a#le to ac&uire versions of ur#an high fashion, even if only in the form of

accessories, and eventually to aspire to something in silk? the second/hand trade

spread fashion more widely and reduced the cost of #eing up/to/date$ 5hile

modernising ;hinese women shifted from flowing ro#es to gradually more/and/more

close/fitting and fashiona#ly/cut qipao, 8ust as (uropean ones had earlier developed

the fitted dress, Japanese ones focused on new colours, te3tures and designs in

cheaper and more convenient forms of cotton, silk and even wool fa#ric that could #e

incorporated within the #asic structure of a kimono outfit$ %he implications of this

 path in kimono fashion for producers within the te3tile industry are the su#8ect of the

ne3t section$

1

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"emand and supply interact: fashion and the de#elopment of the textile industry

s we have seen, therefore, producers of te3tiles for the domestic market in Japan

faced e3panding and changing demand, in forms largely determined #y the nature of

fashion in Japanese/style clothing$ %heir responses involved the development of more

widely availa#le versions of the high/class kimono fa#rics and accessories that had

 #een ur#an fashion among the #etter/off, #ut this process was inter/twined with the

influence of imported goods that opened up new possi#ilities in terms of colour,

te3ture and design$ 5hat emerged was an industry made up of small/scale producers

in regional concentrations, producing an ever widening range of products,

differentiated #y colour and design, #y te3ture and feel, #y seasonal use and social

function, as much as #y price$ s 4toh and %animoto recognise, ‘&uality’, essentially

involving the design and appeal of the fa#ric, was the key to success for small/scale

 producing regions in the competitive market that the growth of demand generated

from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards *4toh and %animoto 1""+) 6+.$

4n #road terms, changes in demand were reflected in the fortunes of different fa#rics

in the domestic market$ 'y the later decades of the nineteenth century, and #efore

there were any significant e3ports of woven cloth, the domestic ‘cotton revolution’

had made cotton the dominant product, while silk remained something of a lu3ury$

%hereafter, however, the share of silk steadily rose, reflecting growing domestic

demand, as consumers’ incomes increased and producers took silk down/market in

innovative, cheaper forms$ 'y 1"1!, the shares of cotton and silk *including silk

mi3es. in consumer e3penditure on clothing were roughly e&uivalent at a little over

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had fallen to little more than -6 percent, reflecting also the rising market share *from

appro3imately 1! per cent in 1"1! to over -! per cent #y the 1"!s. of the woollen

fa#rics now used in everyday kimono as well as 5estern/style clothes *2%(S ) %a#le

:+.$

nderneath these #road trends, however, lay a continually shifting and diversifying

 pattern of production, as the fa#ric industry responded to the growth in its market,

under the influence of fashion$ 5ith the opening to trade in the 1+6!s, imported

te3tiles #ecame part of the picture, #ut the cotton #road/cloth that foreign producers

mainly had to sell was not in direct competition with home/produced te3tiles for

kimono and accessories$ 7onetheless, newly/availa#le fa#rics, such as wool and

calico, dyed in #right colours and e3citing patterns, suggested the directions in which

te3tile producers had to go to meet the growing and widening demand for clothing

materials$ 4ncreasingly, success in the domestic market depended on #eing a#le to

offer populu3e te3tiles that com#ined the look and feel of the high/&uality silk

fashions of the %okugawa cities with the colours, te3tures and design possi#ilities that

imported inputs and new techni&ues opened up$

For ‘traditional’ cotton fa#ric producers, it thus #ecame increasingly hard to rely on

sales of the same #asic stripes and kasuri$ 'y the end of the nineteenth century, they

were facing growing competition in the domestic clothing market, not from imported

or factory/made te3tiles, #ut from an e3panding range of kimono materials using new

inputs, such as wool muslin or cotton flannel, #ut also lower/grade silk, on its own or

in com#ination with cotton and later rayon$ Such fa#rics were not necessarily cheaper 

than standard cotton, #ut they were produced in more varied and colourful designs

1+

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than the straightforward stripes and splash patterns and they could #e made to look

and feel much more like lu3ury silk *chida 1"++) 1:=+.$ s a result, ordinary

striped and kasuri cotton was gradually relegated to the role of rural work/wear,

eventually to #e transformed into the ‘traditional’ craft te3tile that it represents today$

0eanwhile, consumers sought to choose from a wide and changing range of

Japanese/style fa#rics, availa#le in &uantities, consistent &uality and innovative design

not known #efore$

%he capacity to meet demand of this kind was determined #y technical and

organisational developments among the producers of Japanese/style clothing te3tiles$

4n cotton/weaving, the shift to machine/made cotton yarn, produced from imported

raw cotton, proved decisive for many production districts$ Factory/produced yarn

was not only cheaper and more uniform, #ut also finer and more even, creating a

clearer and smoother effect when dyed and making it possi#le to produce fa#ric of

consistent &uality in the colours and patterns that the growing market re&uired

*%amura -!!

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raw materials, while maintaining &uality and consistency *%amura -!!

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%he development of fashion in Japanese clothing thus continued to give advantages to

small/scale producers, technologically and in terms of product differentiation$

However, their incorporation into the fashion system did present new organisational

challenges$ key factor in the capacity of sanchi te3tile producers to respond to the

growth in clothing demand was the a#ility to manufacture fa#ric consistently in the

identifia#le colours and patterns that differentiation in kimono fashion involved$"  4toh

and %animoto *1"++) 6+=". show how the dealers who sought to organise and market

the production of small/scale contract weavers wrestled with the pro#lem of ensuring

that they produced to consistent and high/&uality design standards$ 4n their case/study

region, local te3tile merchants adopted the putting/out system principally as a means

of controlling what small/scale household weavers produced, supplying them with

 pre/dyed yarn and specifying colours and designs in the light of market trends$

%he solution in many cases lay in defining the &ualities to which a local ‘#rand’ la#el

could #e attached and groups of small/scale weavers and dyers came together to

create the institutions that could guarantee the #rand identity and &uality of their

 particular type of fa#ric$1!  %hese institutions also provided small/scale producers with

a link to the market information necessary if they were to keep up with changing

demands$ (ventually, the congregation of small/scale producers into sanchi industrial

districts made provision of market information and co/ordination of response easier

and facilitated the regulation of a location/specific #rand identity and &uality$ 2ocal

 producer associations liaised with, for e3ample, department/store #uyers, in order to

develop the product lines that the fashion market re&uired$ (lectrification and the use

of larger/scale, powered machinery also encouraged the concentration of te3tile

"

 s #e and SaitE *1"++) 1

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 producers within industrial districts, #ut the nature of the market for Japanese/style

te3tiles continued to preclude large/scale mass production and to ena#le small/scale

 producers, suita#ly organised within their local sanchi, to survive and develop$

'y the 1"-!s, therefore, while new fa#rics were appearing in the market all the time,

most continued to come from small/scale producers located in particular areas or

industrial districts, using their local #rand names$ s #e *1"+" ) "=

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‘modern girls’ and cafK waitresses who sym#olised modern li#eration, wore meisen,

 #ut surveys suggested that, in the inter/war years, more than half of all women

walking on the @inGa were wearing it and throughout the country girls desired the

distinctive meisen look for their o-share outfits$11  s growth in per capita e3penditure

on other te3tiles tailed off in the second half of the 1"-!s, that on silk continued to

grow, driven #y rapidly e3panding purchases of meisen, which accounted for almost

half of all sales of narrow/width silk cloth #y 1"! *Lamauchi -!!") %a#les - C .$

 eisen silk came in vivid and striking designs 9 stuffy commentators complained that

women were going out dressed in what looked like 5estern/style curtains *7itta,

%anaka and oyama -!!) 6

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with spun silk, which was produced from waste cocoons unsuita#le for reeling into

e3port/grade yarn$ 'y the 1"1!s, power/looms were #eing adopted and a new method

of dyeing was developed that made possi#le the production of highly coloured and

 patterned, #ut relatively cheap, clothing fa#ric$

%raditionally, dyed pictorial designs on silk fa#ric could only #e produced #y means

of the time/consuming and e3pensive method known as yū!en, which depends on

 painting and dyeing each kimono length individually #y highly skilled hand$ %he

4sesaki method involved adaptations to traditional resist/dyeing *ikatIkasuri.

techni&ues that ena#led the desired pattern to #e created through stencilling colours on

to the individual threads to #e woven$ %he su#se&uent weaving of the threads,

com#ined with the use of spun silk, results in the distinctive fuGGy effect that defines

meisen, #ut the techni&ue could #e used to produce dramatic and colourful designs

consistently, on the repeated #asis necessary for, relatively speaking, mass production$

>nce the potential of 4sesaki meisen techni&ues was recognised, an e3plosion of new,

rapidly changing and increasingly radical designs was unleashed$  eisen kimono

*and haori. are particularly famed for their use of art deco and art nouveau motifs, #ut

surviving e3amples show them in everything from cu#ist/influenced a#stract designs

to dramatic re/workings of traditional flower patterns and geometrical repeats *Dees,

-!!") :+=1!1.$ s the popularity of this kind of kimono spread, new varieties were

developed, involving #oth high/ and low/&uality silk, mi3ed with cotton or man/made

fi#res, and the meisen la#el could #e attached to anything from cheap/and/cheerful

mass/market silk kimono to the high/fashion outfit of the ‘modern girl’ *Fu8iwara

-!!)

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kinds of fa#ric were o#liged to respond, so that the period from the antE earth&uake

of 1"- until the late 1"!s was dominated #y #oldly patterned styles, &uite different

from the su#dued and su#tle fashions of earlier times *Fu8iwara -!!) saka, yoto and 7agoya., where it was sold in the department stores that

were #y then accounting for around half of ur#an clothes sales *see Fig -.$ 7ew

designs were produced every year and widely advertised in relevant media, such as

women’s magaGines? meisen made a striking display to attract customers into stores

and meisen kimono were commonly offered at #argain prices in sales$ lthough, #y

modern 5estern standards, meisen silk is of high &uality and dura#le 9 plenty of pre/

war e3amples have survived to go on sale on the internet today 9 it was cheap and

disposa#le in comparison with more traditional kimono silks *7itta, %anaka and

oyama -!!) =:1.$1  Hence, meisen kimono could #e sold ready made/up, in the

e3pectation that they would go out of fashion, rather than #e taken apart, preserved

and passed on as family heirlooms$ lthough #y no means an everyday purchase for

most women, the meisen kimono nonetheless #rought the concept of the mass/market

fashion item to a wide market of inter/war consumers$1<

1 4t could also #e washed at home and was easier to care for than other forms of silk? hence, despite #eing smart and striking, it could #e worn on a more everyday #asis *Fu8iwara -!!) 61.$1

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%his depended, however, on the a#ility to produce meisen silk on the scale and in the

rapidly changing designs that the fashion market demanded$ 5ith stencil/dyeing and

 power/looms, weavers could produce in relatively large &uantities, #ut production

remained in the hands of small factories and workshops$ %he 4sesaki #rand was

regulated #y a producers’ association, founded in the 1++!s, which sought to maintain

&uality as num#ers and production volumes increased *0atsuGaki -!!) -

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women, with wages of their own, found themselves in a position to #uy and display

clothes in the pu#lic spaces that modernising ur#an Japan offered$ 4t cut out a path

that might have led to the mass/market kimono, had war and >ccupation not

intervened to #ring a#out a fundamental shift in the attitudes of Japanese people

towards their clothing system, and it demonstrated that, even in the modernising,

industrialising world of inter/war Japan, ‘traditional’ clothing could #ecome the

su#8ect of modern fashion$

$onclusion

%he story of the growth of clothing demand and fashion in pre/war Japan, culminating

in the phenomenon of the meisen kimono, undermines #oth the assumption that

fashion does not operate in ‘traditional’ clothing systems and the argument that it has

to #e associated with the large/scale mass production of modern 5estern/style

capitalism$ s economic growth and industrialisation proceeded in Japan, clothing

consumers, like their (uropean counterparts, switched to commercially produced

items in growing num#ers, at first in an e3panding range of attractive and convenient

cotton fa#rics and later in ‘modern’ versions of once/lu3ury silk$ However, the nature

of Japanese/style clothing and the fashions that emerged within it meant that,

although these materials were manufactured and marketed in ways that reflected the

increasing a#sorption of new techni&ues and inputs, they continued to #e produced in

relatively small/scale esta#lishments, concentrated in regional industrial districts$ 4t

was here that it was possi#le to develop and manage the skills re&uired to create the

kinds of fa#ric the market demanded, even if in new and fashiona#le designs$

-:

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4t could of course #e argued that the path followed #y Japanese/style clothing and its

 production in the pre/war period represented a dead/end, cut off #y the almost

complete switch to 5estern style after 5orld 5ar 44, which froGe the kimono in a

 particular ‘traditional’ form suited only to the most formal of occasions *Dal#y -!!1)

1-6=.$ However, the producers that it had fostered and allowed to develop did not

disappear with their pre/war product$ 0any were a#le to switch into production of

fa#ric for 5estern/style garments, utilising the skills they had developed pre/war$

4toh and %animoto *1""+) =. provide e3amples of the survival and development

of putting/out systems in te3tile production in the post/5orld 5ar 44 period, with

small/scale weavers in regions formerly specialising in silk and cotton, entering into

su#/contracting relationships with the large/scale suppliers of man/made fi#res and

wool yarn for the fle3i#le production of a wide range of differentiated te3tile

 products$ onald Dore, studying the weaving industry in the 1":!s, found it still the

domain of small/scale, family/#ased producers, congregating in industrial districts

*Dore 1"+) 16=:+.$ lthough most were #y then producing 5estern/style cloth,

their attention to detail, &uality and differentiation reflected a market formed in the

conte3t of pre/war clothing and its fashions$ Japanese people continued to spend a

higher proportion of their income on clothing and to e3hi#it a higher turnover in

clothes than their 5estern counterparts, while the a#ility of the domestic te3tile

industry, still dominated, in crucial sectors, #y small/scale, fle3i#le #usinesses, to

meet their e3acting and changing demands was reflected in continued low levels of

imports of te3tiles and clothing *Dore 1"+) 1" C %a#le :$

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4t is now coming to #e accepted that, rather than simply ‘catching up’ with the 5est,

Japan followed its own distinctive path of industrialisation, involving a continued role

for small/scale, la#our/ and skill/intensive forms of production, market/oriented #ut

organised within institutional structures rather different from those that characterised

capital/intensive industrialisation of the nglo/merican variety *Sugihara -!!,

SaitE -!!+.$ 4f this is so, the story of pre/war clothing demonstrates #oth the part

 played #y the ‘modernisation’ of ‘indigenous’, ‘traditional’ goods, such as the

kimono, and the need to recognise the influence of the consumers of these goods in

determining, through a process of fashion creation, the direction of technical and

economic change in their production$ %he pre/war consumer in her art deco meisen 

kimono, #ought from a department store for its striking design and fashiona#le

appearance, stepping out in her city, cannot #e ignored, if we are to understand how

history formed the industrial economy of modern Japan$

eferences:

#e %akeshi *1"+". "ihon ni #keru Sanchi enorimono$yō no %atten, %okyo) %EkyEDaigaku Shuppan ai

#e %akeshi *1""!. ‘0enkEgyE’ in #e %akeshi and 7ishikawa Shunsuke, eds$

San$yōka no &idai '()* "ihon +ei!ai Shi* ,o ., %okyo) 4wanami Shoten, 1= -1-#e %akeshi and SaitE >samu *1"++. ‘From putting/out to the factory) a cotton/

weaving district in late/0ei8i Japan’, Te/tie %istory 1" *-.) 1

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Dore, onald *1"+. Fe/ibe 3i$idities1 4ndustria 5oicy and Structura 6djustmentin the &apanese Economy (789:;9, 2ondon) thlone

Finnane, ntonia *-!!+. 2han$in$ 2othes in 2hina1 Fashion* %istory* "ation, 7ewLork) ;olum#ia niversity Press

Fu8ita, ayoko *-!!". ‘Japan 4ndianiGed) the material culture of imported te3tiles,

166!=1+6!’ in iello and Parthasarathati, eds$, 1+1=-!Fu8iwara ika *-!!. ‘Losoyuki to fudangi’ in oiGumi aGuko, ed$, +=6"4toh 0otoshige and %animoto 0asayuki *1""+. ‘ural entrepreneurs in the cotton/

weaving industry of Japan’ in Lu8iro Hayami, ed$, Toeveopment of 2ommerce and 4ndustry* 5ashington) %he 5orld 'ank, Geki 0ana#u *-!!. ‘FurE to sutokku no hifuku shEhi’, Shakai +ei!ai Shi$aku ")-"=1!:

iello, @iorgio and Parthasarathati, Prasannan, eds$ *-!!". The Spinnin$ Cord1 aGoba %istory of 2otton Te/ties, >3ford) >3ford niversity Press$

osovsky, Henry and 7akagawa eiichirE *1". ‘%he case of the dying kimono) theinfluence of changing fashions on the development of the Japanese woolenindustry’, =usiness %istory 3evie3ford) 'ergStyles, John *-!!". ‘5hat were cottons for in the early industrial revolutionO’ in

iello and Parthasarathati, eds$, !:=-

SaitE >samu *-!!+. %ikaku +ei!ai %atten 3on$ %okyo) 4wanami Shoten

!

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SaitE >samu and %animoto 0asayuki *-!!. ‘%he transformation of traditionalindustries’ in kira Hayami, >samu SaitE and onald %o#y, eds$, Emer$ence of

 Economic Society in &apan, >3ford) >3ford niversity Press, -+)!!$Sugihara, aoru *-!!. ‘%he (ast sian path of development’ in @iovanni rrighi,

%akeshi Hamashita and 0ark Seldon, eds$ The 3esur$ence of East 6sia,

2ondon) outledge) :+=1-Sugiyama, Shinya *1"++. ‘%e3tile marketing in (ast sia, 1+!=1"1