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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
Product Description
In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book Liza Dalby traces the history of the kimono - its designs, uses, aesthetics and social significance - and in doing so explores the world of the geisha, last wearers of the kimono. The colourful and stylised kimono, the national garment of Japan, expresses not only Japanese fashion and design taste but also reveals something of the soul of Japan. Amazingly beautiful, many today consider it impractical, too uncomfortable to wear in modern life - it was generally discarded by men for suits and ties a century ago, and now only worn occasionally by women. However, the kimono still retains a powerful hold on the Japanese heart and mind, and provides a link to Japan's past.
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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.
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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
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