Japanese clothing during the Meiji period (1867–1912) saw a marked change from the preceding Edo period (1603–1867), following the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate between 1853 and 1867, the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854 – which, led by Matthew C. Perry, forcibly opened Japanese ports to American vessels, thus ending Japan's centuries-long policy of isolation – and the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which saw the feudal shogunate dismantled in favour of a Western-style modern empire.
During the Meiji period, Western-style fashion (yōfuku) was first adopted most widely by Japanese men in uniformed, governmental or otherwise official roles, as part of a drive towards industrialisation and a perception of modernity. Western-style uniform was first introduced as a part of government uniform in 1872, and quickly became associated with elitism, modernity, and money.[1]: 34
The Western trends adopted by the government were not popular with the public at large. While those in employed in the Imperial court, office workers and factory workers wore Western dress at work, many still chose to wear kimono and other traditional Japanese clothing (wafuku) at home. The transition to Western-style clothing throughout wider Japanese society happened gradually, with a significant degree of resistance. This transition came to be referred to as three, distinctive periods: Bunmei kaika (1868–1883), the Rokumeikan (1883–1890s), and an unnamed period of nativist revival afterwards in the 1890s. The Bunmei kaika period was a period wherein Western products were adopted quickly, and were mixed with elements of yōfuku, such as Western-style shoes and hats being worn by men when wearing kimono. During the Rokumeikan period, Western culture grew in popularity, and a number of clothing reforms including a Westernised system of dress. Two decades into the Meiji period, it became increasingly hard to find men with uncropped, chonmage-style hair and women with blackened teeth, styles mostly relegated to rural areas.[2]: 83
Following the Rokumeikan period, due to a proliferation of Western dress over two decades, a single piece of yōfuku no longer served the purpose of distinguishing someone as modern and progressive.[2]: 84 In the final stage of the Meiji period, during the 1890s, popular culture and clothing saw a callback to nativism, in which the kimono re-established itself as the primary dress of the Japanese people, with Western-style clothing mostly relegated to formal roles, uniforms, and men in positions of power or obligation of dress. Women, having always been slower to adopt Western dress than men, continued to wear the kimono as fashionable and everyday clothing, and did not adopt Western clothing as everyday dress to nearly the same degree as Japanese men.[2]: 64–65 During this time, the kimono continued to evolve as a fashionable garment, and would evolve the formalised predecessors of modern types of kimono for women during the following Taishō period (1912–1926).[2]
- ^ Osakabe, Yoshinori (2018), Pyun, Kyunghee; Wong, Aida Yuen (eds.), "Dressing Up During the Meiji Restoration: A Perspective on Fukusei (Clothing Reform)", Fashion, Identity, and Power in Modern Asia, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 23–45, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97199-5_2, ISBN 978-3-319-97198-8
- ^ a b c d Dalby, Liza Crihfield (2001). Kimono : fashioning culture (1st ed.). Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-98155-5. OCLC 46793052.