From Duty to Fashion: The Changing Role of the Kimono in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

In this article, I argue that the role and significance of the Japanese kimono are changing in twenty-first-century Japan. When the Japanese economy prospered after World War Two, the kimono became a prestige item that was worn mainly for ceremonial occasions such as weddings and coming of age ceremonies, and it was also bought to fill the trousseaus of daughters who were about to get married. These kimonos were mainly worn out of a sense of duty and social obligation. These “duty” kimono were the mainstay of the kimono industry until the economic crisis of the 1990s. I argue that the economic recession, combined with changing social patterns in Japan surrounding marriage, led to the fall of the formal “duty” kimono but enabled the kimono to fill in a new role: that of fashion item. I demonstrate how Japanese people, through kimono fashion blogs and kimono fashion icons, second-hand shops and new kimono providers, are reinventing the kimono’s role as fashion in the twenty-first century.