IJCC, Vol 13, No. 2, 160-168(2010) 94
The Ironies of Japan Going into Trousers
Sheila Cliffe*
Dept. 갾 f English Literature, Jumonji University, Japan (Received April 11, 2010 : Accepted October 31, 2010)
Abstract
This paper examines a particular period in Japanese history, when clothing was systemically changed through government policy. It demonstrates the complex relationships between an Eastern nation and a Western clothing system. It also explores the complexity of roles which clothing plays in society, clothing yvhich brands a nation as masculine, but which resists the discourses of modernity, which were found on
程시 给它 clothing. It demonstrates that native, Japanese clothing has always been developing to meet the needs of its wearers, according to technology, sumptuary laws and prevailing tastes, and therefore that fashion is not any more a product of Europe than it is of the East. It reveals the Japanese fashion system as a complex and multi-dimensional one, about surface design rather than change in shape, but also being about inner and deep surfaces as well as outer surfaces for public presentation, and thus being a carrier for private as well as public discourses. This examination also demonstrates that whilst fashion may be intimately bound up with the forces of society and also politics, it is also a force which resists outside control, and develops because of the signification with which the embodied wearers endow it.
Key words : Japanese clothing, fashion history, trousers.
use of clothing is very debatable (Barnard, 2007), I. Introduction everybody can understand the meanings of the various uniforms of authority figures within their This paper introduces a particular stage in Ja culture. These uniformed sartorial performances
panese fashion history, where East met West, and would help to shape the national identity 쟈 f Japan the sartorial presentations of s이 f were significant in the 20th century. Native dress would remain not so much as self-expression, but as perfor useful, not only as clothing, but fbr expressive mances of gendered roles, of nationalism and of purposes, and the end of the 19th and beginning modernism, and were greatly influenced by the of the 20th centuries were marked by the most discourses of the nation state. Some of the out extraordinary period of mixing and matching of comes of these sarSfial performances are, with East and West in sartorial presentations of selves. hindsight, very ironic, and demonstrate that whilst sartorial behavio나 r can be controlled to a certain II. Development in the extent, the meanings that people attribute to their Meiji Period clothing, and the way that they express them
selves, is far less easily contr갾 Hable. Whilst the The Nfeiji period in Japan, 186오나 911, corresponds communication of accurate messages through the to the Victorian period in England. The newly
* Corresponding author E-mail : [email protected]
z 160 Vol. 13, No. 2 The International Journal of Costume Culture 95 formed government, forced to open its doors to There were only a few tailors in Japan, main the outside world, wanted to lead Japan into be ly catering to the foreign community in Yokohama coming a competitive and industrialised nation, and Kobe. All the wool for the suits and uni which could compete with other, in particular forms had to be imported from Europe. Of Western, industrialised nations. The groundwork course, suits and uniforms were very expensive, for this had been laid down in the Edo period, but gradually businessmen followed the example 350 years of relative peace and illation The of their superiors and went into suits for work. extent of the isolation is disputed by Screech Those not rich enough to buy a suit could still amongst Whers (Screech, 2002). This peaceful pe appear modem by cutting off their top-knot and riod enabled Japan to conce효 twate on agricul wearing a bowler hat, or buying a pair of shoes tural, econ샤 mic and cultural development, there or a scarf. For several generations men led a were good roads, and literacy levels were high sartorial double life, remaining in kim쟎 no at (Morris Suzuki, 1994). In the Meiji period, in order home, and going into trousers for work. to be taken seriously by other nations, Japan Women in the new order were not the build had not only to be, but to appear to the West as ers of the nation, but the keepers of the home. a civilized nation, and this meant going into tro It was a traditional and strongly gendered role. users. Dalby (1993) describes the process, which Real change in women's lives was not going to started from the Emperor, followed by the forces, be felt until the Taisho period. Ironically wom and then the instruments of the law and state all en^ first expression of any change in their role going into trousers. The Empew。호 was paraded was a revival of the Kamakura costume that had around Japan in a general's uniform, and was freed women from the debilitating layers they expected to entertain foreign guests in this attire. had worn in the Heian period court. Kamakura In the text, The Making of Modern Japan, in the was a military regime, and women had been ex photographs of the key figures in the Meiji go pected to be more active than they had been in vernment, and the men sent on diplomatic and the Heian period. The hakama consisted of a fact finding missions to the West, all but one, pleated and belted pair of baggy trousers. Worn 횮 ppear in suits (Jansen, 2000). Japan was gendering by the samurai, they had also been worn by itself a masculine state, and the Emperor publi women in the court of the middle-ages. This cly declared the kimono efleminate, in the Chinese re-adoption of an ancient garment leads us to style (Dalby, 1993, p66). This diplomatic mano ask what it was that was considered to be pro euvre, from kimono to tailored clothing was no gressive about it. As the hakama marked the simple matter, as tailors, and wool for the uni difference between the completely inactive and forms, were not readily available. It was ironic housebound court lifestyle and the active 퍊 ne of on two levels. Firstly because the building of an the Kamakura samw횮 i wife, we can assume that Eastern nation was not taking place in their own it signified the active and progressive lifestyle to native clothing, but in the attire of the West, and the Meiji period woman. It was worn by the secondly, because it was the most conservative Meiji Empress, Haniko, and her ladies in waiting. members of the society that were advocating this So women also also 'went into trousers\ which radical sartorial transformation. appeared as progressive and enlightened. (Liddell, Modernity was not the dominant tendency 1989). Meiji prints by Umezo Kunitoshi, Adachi
a효 d it was not performed by traditionally avant- Ginkou and Utagawa Hiroshige III show the garde sections of the populace: the adoption clothing of the day. Whilst the women are in ki of suits was a state instituted fashion amongst mono, and sometimes hakama, with black boots, the political and bureaucratic elite, normally a the men are in military uniform, suits of kimono very sartorially conservative group (Slade, 2009, with western accessories such as bowler hats and P42). coats.
161 96 The Ironies of Japan Going into Trousers IJCC
Ginkou Showing the S剛 ori시 Mix of the Meiji IP* 시
Until the 1920s the kimono and hakama was girls, school uniform. The signifying 이 unities of the hakama for women remain today and now it is the preferred outfit of the college or uni versity girl at her graduation. The Meiji govern 〈Fig. 2〉Contemporary Photograph Showing Girls ment built an event hall and ballroom, The Ro- kumeikan, a venue specifically for entertaining in Hakama at Their University Graduation. foreign dignitaries, (designed by the British ar chitect, Josiah Condor), and fbr the performance consequently immoderately ornamental, anatomi of Western music and dance. Here Japan's elite cally perfidious and formally arbitrary." (Slade, experimented with the sartorial forms of the West, 2009, p41). Whilst, for a short time, there was and in 1886, the Empress Haruko, appearing in a fascination with the trappings of western clo a Western dress, publicly encouraged women to thing, paras이 & boots and white biases which go into Western clothes, using convoluted logic, were worn under kimono, apart from those who by saying that western clothes were two-part, were politically connected and had to entertain blouse and skirt, and thus were the natural de the foreign dignitaries, the Victorian clothing had scendent of Japan's ancient court dress of ko- little to offer the Japanese woman. The novelty sode and h&k효 ma (Dalby, 1993, p81). However, of the adoption of Western dress 机 xm wore o氐 at this time only the elite or politicians5 wives and with the Sino-Japanese war looming ahead turned to Western clothing. followed by war with Russia, discourses of na Perhaps western clothing was not popular be tionalism returned, and with it, the kimono for cause the style of western dress in Victorian times almost all women. Woman, shut out of the busi was very unnatural with its accentuated bust and ness of buildin응 the nation state, and whose role hips and the s-shaped line. It was repressive ra was defined as being a homemaker, had little ther than modern, but as the male-dominated Meiji compulsion to change her clothes and remained government were adopting the Victorian ideal in kimono for much longer than did her male
"ryosai kenbo^, good wife, wise mother, as the counterpart. Whilst the s邛햐 could be seen as pro official role of women in the family, it was not gressive for the male, the Western clothing avail out of keeping with official discourse, "•■•the able to the female, whilst being in keeping with imported women's fashions of the 1870s were a the national discourse, could not be seen as pro profound reaction against modernity and were gressive.
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"The process by which kimono and the wo were content to nativize the influences of these men who put it on have become symbols of tra European art movements into their kimono. New dition in modem Japan has been deliberate. chemical dyes and imported were used in the There was first direct state involvement in the production of kimono, as were the new designs crucial Meiji period, and then the r이 e of the ki of the art movements. mono experts and entrepreneurs in producing this The kimono of the early 20th century demon model of traditional femininity, which is clearly strate the strong influence of art nouveau, with distinct from the model of Western rationality its bright colours and extravagantly twisting flower imposed on Japanese men” (Goldstein-Gidoni, 1999, and plant motifs. Art deco, with its emphasis on p366). the surface and pattern, was a movement parti cularly suited to the kimono, where the fashion IH. Development in the variation is in the surface decoration and not in Taisho Period the silhouette (Van Assche, 2005). Modem look ing stripes, diagonals and polka dots in stun Whilst the Meiji period had been marked by ningly bright colours were a radical and exciting a mixing of the elements of East and West, the addition to the more usual and traditional plant sartorial messages became clarified in the Taisho designs seen on kimono. However, there was no period. There was a crystalisation of "wa", Ja quick change for women from kimono to Western panese and "yo", Western. The Western became clothing and Kon Wajiro, who documented the associated with modernism, and the Japanese life of everyday people found that, even in 1929, with tradition. This was the time when many of in a survey of people walking in Ginza, the ma the reforms of the Meiji period, and the affects jority of women were still wearing kimono (Van of modernisation really began to be felt in peo Ass사 le, 2005). pled daily lives. The widespread use of radio In the popular imagination, the wearing of wes and magazines meant that women had more in tern clothes was associated with the figure of formation than had previously been available to the "moga", or modem girl. She was descended them, and the opening up of department stores from the modem woman, and in reality she was was also a big change. It was possible for women more of a media creation than a real woman. to go into Tokyo, watch a film or go to a cafe. This modem working-girl was seen as a progre The great European art movements, art nouveau ssive, promiscuous, playful consumer, and she and art deco, originally inspired largely by the was potentially politically powerful. She was in Japanese prints and art-works shown at the great direct contrast to the role of the "ryosai kenbo,, exhibitions at the end of the nineteenth century good wife and wise mother, in the Victorian ima in Europe, were beginning to affect Tokyo. In ge, which the Meiji government had endorsed as the 1920s, partly because of the influence of the ideal model for womanhood. The moga cut Japanese arts on the arts and crafts of the West, her hair short and could work in an office or a the silhouette of Western fashion was straight, and cafe. As she had her own money, and was by much closer to the kimono line than it had been definition urban, she was supposed to be a con previously. The kimono sleeve was popular in sumer. She was also seen as being selfish and a the West, and kimono-like dresses were designed less moral woman than her kimonoed sisters. in reaction to the corset and bustle of the Vic Tanizaki Junichiro's novel, Naomi, is about a torian age. Dalby (1993) observes that while the man's love for such a moga, and her increa- lines of the clothing in the East and West were sin이 y immoral behaviour is associated with her more similar than they had ever been, idealogi- love of Western clothes and the trappings of cally they were drawing farther apart. Rather than Western society. Women, however, were finally go into western clothing though, most women being offered new roles and expressions of be
163 98 The Ironies of Japan Going into Trousers IJCC ing feminine at this time, and the changes brought by modernity affected their lives in many ways. Rather than offering something Western, new forms of clothing were s시 d as being essentially modem. Part of the modem experience was consumption. The development of department stores around Nihonbashi bridge and the Ginza area, such as Mitsukoshi and Shirokiya, enabled women to see Western clothing and accessories. They origin서 ly catered to the very wealthy, but had a democra tizing effect as anyone could enter the shops and see the goods. The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 flattened much of Tokyo, and Ginza and the 〈Fig. 3> A Mon's Haori (Jacket) Lining, Showing downtown area of Tokyo was rebuilt in concrete. a Realistic Portrayal of an Aeroplane. Sartorial modernism in Japan could be re alised in different ways. In the public and male Cityscapes appeared in addition to natural ima space, it meant going into trousers. This, how ges, particularly that of New York, which was ever, was not the o이 y option. There were other of great fascination to the Japanese, and was seen ways in which modernity could be expressed. In through films. Images connected with film were order to understand these manifestations, it is also popular also lenses and apparatus for see imp◎까 ant to remember the multiple aspects of ing, such as binoculars and telescopes, which have clothing. long been an interest of the Japanese (Screech, Clothing is part of material culture and has a 2002). double face. It is at one and the same time pub The desire for leisure and sports is also de lic and private, material and symbolic, always picted in these private images. Horse racing had caught between the lived experience and provid been introduced in the Meiji period, and base ing an incredible to이 with which to study cul ball was also a popular sport. Drinking of sake ture and history (Paulicelli & Clark, 2009, p3). is also depicted on some garments. The Japanese clothing of 1930s and 40s is Not only are there images of the desired particularly fascinating in pattern and motifs. modem lifestyle, but as the Pacific War came These garments do not just reflect the art move closer, the discourses on Japanese clothing were ments of the West, but they reveal and produce about war, and about building a patriotic spirit. in 여 :artlin읺 y d려 ailed images, the preoccupation The market was full of propaganda textiles as with modernity and the desired new lifestyle of the wh이© nation as a collective rose to try and the population at this time. They are particularly defeat the foreign foe. The modernist images interesting because they are garments that place and desire for the American cityscape and Holly them as part of a discourse that could only have wood are suppressed by the mobilization 졍 f the been produced in this location at this time. Be whole country for the war effort. cause of this, though many of them are inferior A large proportion of these intensely modern quality, cheap and mass-produced fabrics, they garments are, surprisingly, hidden on the 4tnagajuu- are very important fb호 their embodiment of the ban!,, underwear or linings of men's "haori" ki history of the time. Part of change that moderni mono jackets. Whilst the popular assumption zation brought about was transportation and speed about Japan is that presentation of self is of ut and therefore images of vehicles are very common. most importance, why would thes은 garments Planes, cars, motorbikes and trains are regularly have the designs hidden on the inside? seen in the m키 e garments of the time. Going into trousers was a part of the public
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〈Fig. 7> A Wartime Textile, Nagajuuban, Showing a Warship, Bomb, Binoculars, the National Flag and a Patriotic Song.
face of clothing and also created a national iden tity. We must now consider the private aspects. But in order to understand this phenomenon be tter, we can turn to Rosenberger's (1995) collec 〈Fig. 5> Haori Lining Showing a Baseball Game, tion of texts on the Japanese self, which is al The English Words, Whilst being written in the Roman Alphabet, have been nativized to the Ja ways a multiple self, seen in relationships and panese Sound System. Ball is Boru and Strike is as a part of society. This is even expressed in Sutoraiku. the Japanese word fbr self, jib叽 literally self
165 100 The Ironies of Japan Going into Trousers UCC part, implying that there are other parts. The tra are not a public self but a private self, reserved ditional Western concept of a bounded self, an only fbr the intimate acquaintance or even for essence with no relation to culture or society, the wearer alone. The designs were called omoshi- nature or other beings would be an anathema to roi gara, which means interesting or entertaining Japanese. This western notion of self has also designs. Discourses of war or propaganda tex been challenged in "About Face” (Kondo, 1997 tiles were common from the Meiji period through P-37). In Rosenberger^ own study, Tree in Su to the e챦 d of the 2nd world war. The expression mmer, Tree in Winter, she describe입 how power of one's love fbr country for a man, was not a must be bound in societies. The male, as the waving flag, but was hidden in the folds of one's most powerful force, going outward, like a tree kimono near to the heart, and revealed only at in summer, must be tightly bound in public and intimate moments. Kashiwagi in Atkins writes: fonnal situations. "While this tight binding Individual men displaying their haori linings fects both men and women, men seem to be with war-promoting designs can be seen as show most tightly bound into continual hierarchy, from ing off or presenting their own personal messa household to school to workplace” (Rosenberger, ges in front of their intimate acquaintances. The 1995, p74). Rosenberger shows that this is ma zashiki-gei or parlor performance, is a private per nifested in language and the indulgence of high formance (gei) that takes place before a select er status people but is also expressed in sartorial group of friends in a small room, even a very forms. ^People are visibly bound in such formal small room, such as the fbur-and-a-half mat room contexts with tightly wrapped kimono, or well- (270><270cm or 8.8 feet square), that is standard buttoned Western wear-the higher the status, the fbr the tea ceremony (Atkins, 2005, pl78). tighter the wrap--. ^(Rosenberger, 1995, p74). She These meetings were almost eeHai끼 y p이 itical goes on to describe what happens in an infor or among business associates and geisha were mal, interior, or uchi, situation. present to serve and to entertain the men. To take In contrast, in inner contexts (uchi) of sponta off clothing or reveal underwear, of course, gives neity and intimacy, people are loosely bound messages about sexual relations or intimacy bet much like the tree in winter—.. ween the people present, so these messages were In relaxed evenings at home or in parties af intended for a very limited and select audience. ter work, the boun(h of hierarchy and status gra The wartime textiles produced in the 30s and dually d^rease. People loosen almost everything: 40s as under garments provide a fascinating look their ki energies, their clothes, and their seating at the lives, thought포 and preoccupations of the arrangements. Language becomes more informal Japanese people at that parti거 Har time. Thus, and childlike with shorts ending,….(Rosenberger, whilst often being 쟎 f inferior q챦 ality cloth, they 1995, p74) are a very important as historical records. On It is o이 y in such private situations that men the face of it, a man's job or role in life is to are permitted to be unbound in any way, and work, and the self-presentation of the worker was thus it is that smen* wear, since the Edo period, accomplished through the dark and sombre ki has had almost no figurative decoration on it at mono, and from the Meiji period, the business all. Just as in the West, men's clothing has come suit. However, in the private arena, the world to be about seriousness and has given up the inside the kimono, the back, or ura, in the ki right to be decorative. However, the Japanese mono or haori lining, or in the underwear could man has not given it up as fully as his Western be found a whole world of expressions patrio counterpart. On this inner wear can be found the tism and play, of longed fbr pleasures, entertain most interesting, detailed and expressive images ments and sexual desires. These garments fulfil in the kimono world. It is only in the unbound a very specific function as a place fbr the dis world where these can safely be 아 They course of modernity. Ironically, these discourses
166 Vol. 13, No. 2 The International Journal of Costume Culture 101 are not found in the western, modem clothing. stantly affect dress. Fashionable change is there The discourses of modernity are found on native fore not confined to the clothing of European clothing. The proliferation of these garments in nations, and from these images it is possible to dicate that the change into western clothing has deduce that fashionable change need not be only never been complete, even for men, and the ma about silhouette or shape, but can also be con king of such garments was quite common until cerned with design, colour, pattern, and their posi the middle of the 20th century. tion, too. Another implication of the hidden messages in IV. Conclusion kimono, is that fashion is about more than just the surface. The kimono system is overt, and can Japanese sartorial behaviours in the 19th and be learnt from a wide variety of sources, but the early 20th century reveal the complex relation inside is not considered any less important than ships between an Eastern nation and Western the outer surface, even though it will not be seen clothing. The ironies in the relationship are many. by the general public. The Japanese are typi The building of the Japanese nation had to take cally assumed to take much pride in the surface place in Western trousers, women adopted ancient presentation, appearance and the form of things, trousers as a sign of change, the initial Western but the kimono has depth and the interior is an clothing adopted by the Japanese woman was important, though private aspect. The fashion sys the decidedly non-modem corset and bustle of tem appears as multi-layered, capable of expre the Victorian period, and the time when kimono ssing private messages to selected audiences in and Western dress were closest in shape, they were realms not considered public. farthest apart in ideology. The contemporary dis There is nothing random about the system. courses of the time were not afforded space in Rosenberger's theory that those who are more the imported Western clothing, and therefore mo tightly bound socially are given more license in dernity was expressed not on the new clothing private, helps us to understand this, for it is on but on the traditional, native clothing. the underwear and innerwear of the male, who This extraordinary case, whereby the ruling is highly bound by the social system, where we government made the decision to go into wes find the most interesting and detailed messages. tern clothing, making the conservative elements Neither are the messages themselves random, but of society into the leaders of the new styles, reflect both public discourses from Japanese so was a political decision that shaped the identity ciety, valourization of a noble past, war or tech of Japan, aligning it with western nations, in nology, as well as private worlds of desire, en taking on a masculine identity by going into tertainment and pleasure. trousers. However, ironically, this clothing his tory reveals that though the state can control References sartorial behaviour through sumptuary laws or other means, the signifying meanings that peo Appadurai, A. Ed. (2001). Globalization. Durham ple give to their clothing are much less easy to and London: Duke University Press. control. Atkins, J. M. (2005). Wearing Propaganda. New Japanese clothing, though considered a tradi Haven and London: Yale University Press. tional clothing system, clearly has been conti Barnard, M. Ed. (2007). Fashion Theory/A Rea nually changing to meet the needs and to ex der. London and New York: Routledge. press the hearts of its wearers throughout its Barthes, R. (1982). The Empire of Signs. Farrer, history. Developments in technology, laws resul Strauss and Giroux ting in changes in taste, topical events, national Ben-Ari, E., Moeran, B., & Valentine, J. Eds. (1994). issues and popular preoccupations of the day con Unwrapping Japan. Honolulu: University of
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