The History of Kimono

Kimono is the traditional costume of Japan and actually translates as 'a thing to wear'. The kimono is always worn with the left side overlapping the right which is important because the only time it is reversed is for dressing corpses!

During the peaceful Heian period (9th-late 12th centuries), clothing styles became markers of age, rank and ceremony. Heian noble ladies wore juni hitoe – twelve flowing layers of kimono, each layer carefully chosen to complement the season and occasion. In the Kamakura period (1185-1333), men wore kimono tops with short trousers. This was a time of many wars and clothing was much more practical. Noble women wore short white kosode kimono tops with red hakama trousers.

Muromachi period was characterised by the short-sleeved kosode for women, who stopped wearing hakama trousers at this time. The lack of trousers encouraged women’s kimono to lengthen from blouse length to full-length. The kosode evolved from a plain white garment into the main outerwear and began to be decorated with rich patterns and colours. Now that trousers were no longer worn, women needed a sash to tie their garments together…the obi (at this stage a narrow band) was born.

Women of the Muromachi period developed many ways to wear their kimono. Wives of Samurai draped a second kimono over their heads in the katsugu style; this quickly became the fashion for women of the merchant class. Upper class ladies also wore uchikake as over-kimono; these kimono are worn in modern times as wedding dresses. On hot days, women tied the top part of the uchikake around their waists, a style called koshi-maki (hip-wrapping). This practice continued into the Edo period.

Edo (1603-1867) saw a return to fashion influenced by Chinese styles. Weavers created softer fabrics that could be draped for a flowing effect. Silks were dapple-dyed (shibori), hand-painted, stamped and embroidered with gold thread. The newly rich merchant class commissioned gorgeous robes, demonstrating their wealth, taste and leisure time. This patronage encouraged an outburst of creativity in design and techniques and the kimono became a true fashion item. As the ruling samurai class became increasingly jealous of the merchants’ wealth, they began to clamp down on ostentatious displays by introducing sumptuary laws, banning the use of complicated dyeing techniques and precious threads. Yuzen dyeing, using rice paste resist to achieve a similar effect, became the technique of choice for the merchant class. Sleeve lengths and openings became wider (so the hand-painted lining could be shown off) and women’s obi belt broadened to account for this change in proportion.