When art became fashion: Japanese kosode exhibited at the Los Ângeles County Museum of Art

The largest and most comprehensive exhi- bition ever assembled of Japanese kosode -the predecessor of the modern kimono - went on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 15 November 1992 to 7 February 1993. Entitled ‘When Art Be- came Fashion: Kosode in Edo-Period Ja- pan’, the exhibition featured more than 200 works, including obi, genre paintings, woodblock-printed pattern books, and 146 examples of kosode, representing the flow- ering of the textile arts of Japan. The exhibition surveyed the social and aes- thetic role played by dress in the Edo (Tokugawa) Period (1615-1868) when a dynamic urban culture flourished on a scale previously unknown in Japan.

On loan from eighteen Japanese and four American collections, many of the gar- ments had never been exhibited in the United States and several left Japan for the first time. Included in the exhibition were a kosode and four obi designated by the Japanese Government as Important Cul- tural Properties. Organized by the museum in co-operation with the Tokyo National Museum and the National Museum of Japanese History, the exhibition was seen only in Los Angeles.

The kosode was the primary garment of both men and women in Edo-Period Ja- pan. The earliest works in the exhibition date from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century and combine tie-dye- ing, applied gold leaf, embroidery, and ink-painting to create designs of great delicacy and refinement. The exhibition continued chronologically with works from the third quarter of the seventeenth cen- tury when the back of the kosode came to be decorated with a single, unified design. The late seventeenth century saw the de- velopment of yuz~n dyeing, a technique that permitted the direct application of dyes with a brush. The rapid mastery of the

painterly capabilities of this new technique produced outstanding examples of pano- ramic landscapes and city views creating a fusion of art and fashion unique in the history of dress. From the late eighteenth century to the end of the Edo Period, a more subtle colour palette and limited areas of patterning became the hallmark of a shift away from earlier flamboyance.

As the kosodeevolved into a highly expres- sive means of personal display, it became a vehicle for the graphic representation of the world of its wearers. In the thematic section of the exhibition, kosode were arranged by type of imagery. Popular sub- jects included views of Kyoto and the capital Edo; auspicious motifs such as pine, bamboo, plum (symbolizing good fortune and longevity) and pairs of mandarin ducks (connoting conjugal bliss); ordinary ob- jects such as boats, hats, and fans that became exciting design elements ‘in the hands of Japan’s skilled craftworkers; visual puns that played off imagery against the complexities of spoken and written Japa- nese; and famous places in literature that were widely known through printed books. Other motifs, reserved by convention for the samurai class, recalled heroic tales and an often idealized court of the Heian Period (794-1185). Of particular interest were the kosode painted by artists includ- ing those created by such well-known painters as Gion Nankai (c. 16761751) and Sakai Hoitsu (1752-181 1) whose signed paintings on kosode literally transformed art into fashion.

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