"Kimono: A Modern History" traces the transformation of the kimono from everyday garment to national symbol of Japan. The book begins by exposing the 17th- and 18th-century foundations of the modern kimono fashion industry and explores the crossover between art and fashion in this period at the hands of famous Japanese painters who worked with clothing pattern books and painted directly on garments. With Japan s exposure to western fashion in the 19th century, and westerners exposure to distinctive Japanese modes of dress and design, the kimono took on new associations and came to symbolize an exotic culture and an alluring female form. Early in the twentieth century, kimono production underwent a period of modernization and kimonos were intermixed with western fashion, in parallel to Japan s social transformation. In the aftermath of World War Two the kimono industry was sustained through government support and the naming of important kimono designers as living national treasures. Once again, the line between fashion and art became blurred, as kimonos produced by famous designers were collected for their beauty and displayed in museums, rather than worn as clothing. Today, the kimono has once again taken on new dimensions, as the internet and social media proliferate images of the kimono as a versatile garment to be freely integrated into a diverse range of individual fashion styles.
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