Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk


Fabulous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum examining the history of the kimono and how it still influences fashion today.

I admit I thought this show might take me about an hour but I staggered out after well over 2 hours having taken so many photos and learnt so much. The show started with the origins of the kimono in Japan but pointed that it has not been the unchanging garment we imagine and looked at the subtle changes over the centuries.  The idea of the garment was that the body wasn’t important but that it provided a large flat surface.

There were some wonderful examples of Japanese kimono’s which were displayed beautifully to show off the amazing fabrics and embroidery. I also loved the prints showing kimono shops which showed you the marketing and economics of them.

The middle section of the show looked at the kimono’s influence in the west starting with the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in Japan. As I’ve recently done a course in the Dutch Golden Age I found this fascinating. We had talked about the fashion for brown silk kimono’s used to indicate men as scholars in portraits. It also looked at the fashion for Japan in late 19th century and included some lovely examples of the clothes from Fortuny, Paul Poiret and Jeanne Lanvin.

The last spectacular room looked at the kimono’s influence on modern fashion with examples from many current designers and an interesting section on its use in costumes such as designs for Star Wars with an example from Obi-Wan Kenobi. It also looked at the current Renaissance in Japan for the kimono with people remodelling vintage pieces.

I went to the members preview day and a number of Japanese ladies had come in kimono’s so we had living examples among us and could see how the clothes moved. Lots of people were talking to them about what they were wearing.

Closes 21 June 2020

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