Meisen Kimonos

Meisen is a weaving and dyeing technique for producing an ikat fabric more quickly and in larger quantities than the labour intensive traditional methods allowed. Ikat is called Kasuri in Japan and it is this ancient technique that innovative textile producers of the late 19th century sought to emulate, develop and most crucially, produce in large quantities.

Ikat is a technique of resist dyeing, it is produced by resisting and then dyeing the threads before the fabric is woven as to produce a preconceived design that will be realised when the pre-dyed yarns are woven. Ikat fabrics can have a resist dyed weft, warp or both. Traditionally ikat was produced by tightly wrapping hanks of yarn in the areas to be resisted. First the lightest colour was dyed and then sequentially resisted and dyed with darker and darker colours until the desired effect was achieved. Obviously in this technique the more colours that are used the more time and labour required and thus more expensive the resulting fabric.

The labour intensive and difficult process of making traditional kasuri was simplified and mechanized. A technique of dyeing with a coloured paste that could be applied through a stencil was developed. This paste was originally applied to a loosely woven fabric of which the warps were kept and the wefts discarded after stencil dyeing to be rewoven into the finished product with a new weft.

This left the traditional blurry or feathered design associated with ikat. This feathering is produced by the near impossibility of exactly matching up the yarns when the fabric is woven. As in traditional ikat the more colours used the lengthier the process and more expensive the resulting finished product. Further modifications in the technique allowed for dyeing only the weft or both warp and weft. Occasionally further embellishments were added such as specially hand-dyed areas of the fabric and the hand insertion of metallic and other fancy warps and wefts.

Everyday kimono motifs in the late Edo and early Meiji period were most often small repeats in muted colours. The early 20th century saw the development of a style characterised by an explosion of scale and colour. Motifs that had discreetly edged the hem of a kimono became the primary motif as large repeats covering the entire kimono with an endless variety of colour and design.

The kimono designs showed the influence and cross-fertilisation of European and American design movements with classical Japanese design. Japanese art and design was first absorbed into the repertoire of Western art after the opening of Japan in 1854. Japanese prints and art objects flowed to the west through international exhibitions, dealers and travellers and were eagerly sought after by artists and the general public of the day. Japonisme was all the rage. The technical and artistic mastery of Japanese artists and craftsmen astonished the Western World. The sinuous flowing lines, the asymmetry, the stylisation and simplification of natural forms of Japanese art had a profound influence on European art. Japanese prints were collected by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet and Degas.

At the same time the first exhibition of Art Nouveau took place in Japan in 1902. The Japanese saw at first hand how Japanese art and traditional motifs had been absorbed, modified and used in Western decorative arts. This inspired a young generation of Japanese textile designers and manufacturers and led to the “revolutionary” transformation of Japanese textile design.

The early 20th century was a time of great change in Japan, continuing on from the rapid modernisation and absorption of Western technology that began in the Meiji period. Japan, who fought with the Allies in WW1, was eager to take its place as an equal among nations and avidly sought out and absorbed western innovation in all its forms. It was a time when young women were beginning to work outside the home in offices, shops and school. They walked, worked and shopped in the new urban environments and were eager to be modern.

The West was influencing the style of Japan through buildings, art exhibitions, movies, print media and travel. Frank Lloyd Wright built the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo in 1915. The Great Earthquake of the Kanto Plain in 1923 killed over 100,000 and destroyed a large part of Tokyo through quake damage and the firestorm that followed. Tokyo was rebuilt along more western lines, with Art Deco style buildings, railways, Western city layouts and electric streetlight. Cinema and radio were popular; women and men mingled in cafes and a new urban way of life began. While there were women who wore western dress, it was the meisen kimono that was young, daring and fresh. The young and single embraced the bright colours and large-scale designs. Older married women dressed more traditionally adhering to age-old designs and sense of colour.

“Taisho Roman” is a term used in Japan to describe the designs popular in the actual Taisho period. It refers to the pieces most influenced by Art Nouveau, more often than not floral and with a romantic feel. The Paris exhibition of 1925 exposed the world to a new style of Art Deco and pattern books were printed with textile designs. The development of the Deco style in Europe was echoed by textile design in Japan, as was the influence of European painting movements. The floral Deco of the early 20s overlapped and then gave way to the abstract, geometric and Cubist inspired designs of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

The kimonos shown here were collected over a period of several years and were chosen with several criteria in mind. Two of the most important were scale and colour. We also looked for pieces that exemplified the zeitgeist of the 1st half of the 20th century. As things have turned out our collection covers a reasonably broad representation of the various styles available. However we have not tried to be balanced, as a museum might do, but acquired only the pieces we personally liked and felt compelled to have.

Diane Hall. November 2009