I stumble upon a 100-year-old family-owned kimono shop in Tokyo’s Sugamo neighborhood. Now alone, spry 83-year old Yasuko lives above her small shop and introduces me to kimonos. Strictly coded for occasions, seasons, age and gender, they are strikingly beautiful — and expensive – each individually crafted. Although the shop survived World War II, it will close with her. Yusako says, “The time for kimonos is over.” She no longer wears one. When she dons it at my request, she declares, “Now, I look beautiful.”
The kimono is frequently used as a short-code for Japanese culture. It is a generic word for garment: ki (着) means “to wear,” and mono (物) means “thing” or “object.”Since the modernizing drive from the Meiji period onwards, the kimono has been marked as conservative, and western clothing as the norm. Literally mapped onto the body, it carries a sensory memory with invisible roots in personal history and belonging. The flowing fabric confers a shared femininity, connecting one generation to another, and to past recordings of idealized beauty. Yet, to the outsider, an undertow remains – a persistent imprint of a demure and submissive Japanese woman.
A respect for tradition is not enough. It remains to be seen if the kimono can represent the future. In the old alleys of the Gion district in Kyoto, women walk carefully in rented kimonos and getas. It is an extraordinary public performance of womanhood. I ask a group of high-school girls if they would pick a wedding dress or a kimono for their own wedding. Each says, “a wedding dress.”
