JAPANESE CULTURE, EXPLAINED
KCI 306, inventory AC13201 2015-5-1, is a Japanese-made at-home gown of about 1906 for Western markets. Its construction adapts a kimono form.
Cream silk satin carries floral and bird embroidery, with padded cuffs and hem. Side gussets and a pleat starting at the back waist alter its silhouette. KCI considers Iida Takashimaya a possible maker; its designer remains unknown.
View this garment in KCI’s collection record ↗
KCI places the gown within the early-twentieth-century Western vogue for kimono-style indoor clothing. The name travelled while garment shapes adapted. A separately catalogued gray peacock robe provides a different example from that market; it is not another view of 306.
Takashimaya’s corporate archive dates its foreign bulk trade to 1876, followed by a trade department, export shop and a Lyon office in 1899. Its trade business separated in 1916. These developments explain an expanding organisation for overseas textiles without establishing a production record for this individual gown.
The archive preserves other paired examples of paintings and textile production: a drawing by Imao Keinen and a yuzen wall hanging made by Murakami Kahei show distinct contributions to an export textile. Designers, textile makers and merchants could perform different tasks. Neither named artist is thereby established as the maker of 306.
Side gussets and a pleat beginning at the back waist.
A stage in Takashimaya’s overseas trade organisation, rather than proof it made this gown.
No. The archive’s paired drawing and textile identify different contributors.