Gender, Costume, Textile, Technique - Brill's Japanese Studies Library by Barbara Hartley Hardcover

About the Book

This book, a unique contribution to the field of kimono and Japan-related clothing studies, challenges uncritical readings of clothing from the lives of Japanese women and cultural representations of women wearing these clothes. Chapters ground understandings of clothing, including kimono, in the lived experience of different groups of women in modern Japan.

Book Synopsis

This book, a unique contribution to the field of kimono and Japan-related clothing studies, challenges uncritical readings of clothing from the lives of Japanese women and cultural representations of women wearing these clothes. Chapters ground understandings of clothing, including kimono, in the lived experience of different groups of women in modern Japan.
Also discussing cosplay outside Japan, the collection argues that items worn by women are produced and consumed in a gendered and highly politicised socio-historical environment. Examining, for example, women's recent renewed enthusiasm for kimono, in addition to representations of monpe, kimono and other attire in film and narrative, the book includes three new translations of clothing commentary by women writers from Japan.
Contributors are: Tomoko Aoyama, Yasuko Claremont, Sheila Cliffe, Barbara Hartley, Helen Kilpatrick, Emerald King, Machiko Iwahashi, Komashaku Kimi, Rio Otomo, Sata Ineko, Jennifer Scott, and Shirasu Masako.

About the Author

Barbara Hartley, Ph.D. (2003), is an honorary researcher at the University of Queensland. She has published extensively on Japanese women's writing and representations of women in modern Japanese narrative. She co-edited Border-Crossing Japanese Literature: Reading Multiplicity (2023, Routledge).