Relay Column: From Kimono to KIRUMONO (Wataru Kiyokawa)

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PROFILE

Wataru Kiyokawa

Wataru Kiyokawa was born in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture, in 1990.
He is the representative of Kurume Kasuri Kenkyusya.
He has been with the designer Takashi Segami, who has been creating clothes for over 30 years, for more than 10 years as a pattern maker in Yohji Yamamoto's women's collection line.
They propose 'Fabric Art': a fusion of traditional crafts and fashion based on three pillars- patterns, fabrics, and sewing.

Kurume Kasuri Research Institute Website
Company Instagram

'Overview of Japanese Clothing History'

Looking back at the history of Japanese clothing,

Culture imported from China and the continent established soft and gentle designs and beautiful colors similar to the modern kimono, mainly amongst the aristocratic classes during the Nara (710-794 C.E.) and Heian (794-1185 C.E.) periods.

During the period of Oda Nobunaga, a practical military culture, armor, emerged, where you can glimpse quirky humor despite the madness of civil strife. At the same time, the culture and aesthetic sense of wabi-sabi, kimono, and the diametrically opposite, powerful and glamorous culture like golden folding screens have been cultivated.

Kimono and everyday clothes became widespread, rationalized, and somewhat industrialized among the general public during the stable Edo period.

And around the end of the Edo period (1600-1868 C.E.), the concept of 'Western clothes' entered Japan as opposed to kimono, Japanese clothes.

It started as men's work clothes related to military affairs, and a culture emerged where men wore suits and women dresses at the Rokumeikan. From there, Western clothes slowly became established as everyday wear.

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