Kimono in the Age of Japonisme: From Japanese Merchandising Strategies to Signs of British Women’s Liberty

Abstract In the early twentieth century, one could find kimono-like garments of various kinds in Britain: kimono made originally for Japanese consumers, contemporary robes made in Japan expressly for export, and kimono-inspired clothing made domestically. The present essay probes the merchandising of these new products in Britain, examining both British consumer tendencies and Japanese marketing practices, through analysis of Japanese trade statistics and reports on the international expositions of the day. Ultimately, this paper argues that kimono played a role, both literally and figuratively, in staging increased social justice for British women in the twentieth century, offering at least occasional relief from the debilitating fashions of the period, all of which required a corset, and providing a metaphor for a less restrictive social environment. While other scholars have hinted at such associations, this paper provides evidence, through analysis of contemporaneous journalism and advertising, that the women who wore these garments explicitly made such connections. More than an artistic stimulus of japonisme , the kimono and the fashions it subsequently inspired became symbols of the women’s suffrage movement in early twentieth-century Britain.