"Women Adorning Themselves with the Times" Conveying the "Hardships" & "Passion for Fashion" of Women

The special exhibition "Women Adorning Themselves with the Times," showcasing the evolution of women's fashion in the early Showa period, is being held at the Showa Museum in Kudanminami, Tokyo (from March 11 to May 7).
 
This exhibition highlights the transition of women's clothing from traditional Japanese attire to Western-style clothing and from home-sewn garments to ready-made clothes during the wartime and postwar periods, set against the backdrop of the times.
 
For this feature, we spoke with Ayaka Takahashi from the Showa Museum's Curatorial Department, who planned this exhibition. She shared the planning process, the exhibition's appeal, and the relationship between women's clothing and the historical context during and after the war.

The Reason for Focusing on Women's Clothing During & After the War

The Showa Museum is a facility that collects, preserves, and exhibits materials to convey the daily life of Japanese citizens, particularly the families of the war dead and the general public, during and after the war (approximately from 1935 to 1955). How did this exhibition come to be?