- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: University of Washington Press; Reprint edition (Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0295981555
- ISBN-13: 978-0295981550
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 20.8 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,457,173 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
A wonderful book by the best-selling author of Geisha and Tale of Murasaki on the kimono and the fashioning of culture in Japan
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
This beautifully written and sumptuously illustrated book uses the history of kimono, from its beginning two thousand years ago, to explore Japanese culture. It shows how clothing fashions can illuminate our understanding of a culture, by considering why things change and what can be learned from a formal analysis of the elements of a system that is more or less fixed. The author uses kimono as a way to probe aspects of Japan that the Japanese themselves think of as close to the heart of their culture. She includes discussion of the social meaning of wearing kimono today; how kimono as we know it came to hold its pre-eminent place as the national garment of Japan; a historical overview of the genesis of kimono; and an exploration of the intersections of sexual identity and clothing in the early 17th century. The resulting book is an engaging mix of detailed fashion history and social history, enhanced by more than two hundred illustrations.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As someone who wears kimono almost everyday, I found the book informative and fascinating. The research concerning the history of Kimono developement is absolutely fantastic.
As always, she is most brilliant when dealing with Japanese history rather than modern Japan.
As always, she is most brilliant when dealing with Japanese history rather than modern Japan.
When she starts talking about "modern Japanese society", it often sounds extremely 1970-80s and what she calls "Japanese mentality" to me looks like the characteristics of a generation or two above.
All in all, I find them boring and having no resemblance to the reality as I know it in Japan.
(If you can imagine yourself meeting a Japanese who had been to the UK in 1970s and firmly believed some of the hippies' styles as "essentially British", you would see the slight dizziness I felt in reading some of her comments.)
As for the kimono in our life, although she makes a point that it has more or less completely dissappeared, they are making a new come back. Observations of a foreign culture is a difficult thing. Just like milk, they have sell-by date and once it's gone, they start smelling rather bad.
But perhaps I should not be too harsh on those points.
After all, the book itself was first published quite some time ago. And, as I have already stated at the beginning, the research itself is absolutely brilliantly done.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Kimono: Fashioning Culture' is much more than the story of a single garment. A dynamic blend of fashion, social history and anthropology, the book traces the evolution of Japanese self-identity through the kimono. Dalby offers a carefully researched history of kimono, mouth-watering excerpts from a seventeenth-century Japanese fashion magazine, interviews with modern kimono wearers, and illustrations that are informative rather than blandly pretty.
Far from being a stable, tradition-bound political and cultural symbol, the kimono has passed in and out of fashion, changing to suit its times and wearers. Dalby deftly dissects the subtle differences-the length of a sleeve, the placement of a collar-that proclaim a woman's age, class, marital status, and personal taste.
Dalby writes about the look and feel of kimono with the authority of personal experience; while researching her doctoral dissertation in a geisha community in Kyoto (the basis of her previous book, Geisha), she wore kimono every day. Indeed, geisha are the only women who still wear kimono on a daily basis, and Dalby points out that the fates of geisha and kimono are intertwined: 'Whether or not a Japanese has ever met a geisha or used her specialized service (and most have not), a feeling remains that Japan would be losing something unique and precious by allowing geisha to disappear. Kimono has a similar hold on the Japanese imagination.' After reading Dalby's insightful account, it is easy to see why.
Far from being a stable, tradition-bound political and cultural symbol, the kimono has passed in and out of fashion, changing to suit its times and wearers. Dalby deftly dissects the subtle differences-the length of a sleeve, the placement of a collar-that proclaim a woman's age, class, marital status, and personal taste.
Dalby writes about the look and feel of kimono with the authority of personal experience; while researching her doctoral dissertation in a geisha community in Kyoto (the basis of her previous book, Geisha), she wore kimono every day. Indeed, geisha are the only women who still wear kimono on a daily basis, and Dalby points out that the fates of geisha and kimono are intertwined: 'Whether or not a Japanese has ever met a geisha or used her specialized service (and most have not), a feeling remains that Japan would be losing something unique and precious by allowing geisha to disappear. Kimono has a similar hold on the Japanese imagination.' After reading Dalby's insightful account, it is easy to see why.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent book - recommended for costume, art, literary and social historians, as well as those interested in modern and older Japanese society. As a small-time kimono collector, dabbler in Japanese literature, and historian of early modern European art, I found a huge amount to stimulate and inform me.
The book is a series of linked essays on the structure and history of kimono, its adaptation under the impact of the introduction of Western dress in the Meiji era, the significance of kimono as worn today, and the way in which just one kind has come to be accepted not only as the prime kimono type, but a symbol of Japanese-ness. There are also fascinating chapters on the significance of colours in costume in Heian Japan - a system of conventions surely unique in world history in its elaboration - on costume books from the 17th C, and on the author's own experience in working with geishas. The book is beautifully and copiously illustrated with line woodcut prints. The writing is vigorous and lively, though the American English is sometimes less than intelligible.
At times I felt this was a brilliant book, but ended with some quibbles. While the author displays an admirable range of skills, it sometimes seemed to fall between several stools - neither a fully coherent history of kimono styles(what about developments in the Taisho era?), nor anthropology supported by enough evidence. As another blogger has said, the remarks on modern Japan may be out of date, and the author's desire to push her favourite ideas sometimes jarred. But altogether. most impressive.
The book is a series of linked essays on the structure and history of kimono, its adaptation under the impact of the introduction of Western dress in the Meiji era, the significance of kimono as worn today, and the way in which just one kind has come to be accepted not only as the prime kimono type, but a symbol of Japanese-ness. There are also fascinating chapters on the significance of colours in costume in Heian Japan - a system of conventions surely unique in world history in its elaboration - on costume books from the 17th C, and on the author's own experience in working with geishas. The book is beautifully and copiously illustrated with line woodcut prints. The writing is vigorous and lively, though the American English is sometimes less than intelligible.
At times I felt this was a brilliant book, but ended with some quibbles. While the author displays an admirable range of skills, it sometimes seemed to fall between several stools - neither a fully coherent history of kimono styles(what about developments in the Taisho era?), nor anthropology supported by enough evidence. As another blogger has said, the remarks on modern Japan may be out of date, and the author's desire to push her favourite ideas sometimes jarred. But altogether. most impressive.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
kimono
i bought this book for a friend who is doing artwork in stitch based on kimonos and i am sure she will be delighted with it
Published 5 months ago by Mrs. C. M. Gill
Brilliant
I am still reading 'Kimono' after just finishing Liza Dalby's 'Gueisha', and I am finding it extremely interesting and very well written. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2010 by RP
Fascinating
If you've read 'Geisha' by Liza Dalby, you'll find this a wonderful exploration of one important aspect and reflection of Japanese, and Geisha culture. Read more
Published on 4 April 2002
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
