<![CDATA[Kim Kardashian isn't the first Westerner to sexualise Japan's kimono. And she won't be the last]>
Last week, Kim Kardashian West was forced to relinquish the name "Kimono" for her new line of shapewear after Japanese netizens " and even the government " criticised her for appropriating the country's traditional garment.
Social media users chastised Kardashian West for linking the word to lingerie or innerwear.
But Kardashian West " whose family has been accused of other incidents of cultural appropriation, oftent black culture " is not the first Westerner to do this, and she won't be the last.
A search for the word "kimono" on US shopping sites such as Amazon reveals hundreds of thousands of silky robes and long, gauzy cardigans, oftentimes decorated with orientalist motifs.
Yumi Mizuno, 29, a freelance translator based in Tokyo, said she learned only recently that people in the United States had a different understanding of what kimonos were.
"I was confused at first and had no idea why [Kardashian] named her line 'Kimono', because the series had nothing to do with Japanese kimono," she said.
After Googling "kimono" and finding pages upon pages of lingerie, she said, "I realised the seriousness of this misunderstanding".
Kim Kardashian and models dressed in bodysuits from her clothing line she had planned to call 'Kimono'. Photo: Vanessa Beecroft via Reuters alt=Kim Kardashian and models dressed in bodysuits from her clothing line she had planned to call 'Kimono'. Photo: Vanessa Beecroft via Reuters
AN 'EXOTIC' GARMENT
The sexualisation of the kimono " worn by Japanese women today on special occasions " has its roots in a complex mix of trade and American imperialism, and the subsequent exploitation of Japanese women.
During the 1860s, as Japan began modernising under the Meiji Restoration, it opened trade with Europe and began exporting cultural products to the West.
Among these goods were woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e, Japanese artworks, handicrafts, fans, as well as kimonos.
The Japanese aesthetic, seen as foreign and exotic, was highly coveted and became appropriated by Europeans on everything from lily ponds and gardens to oil art.
A kimono is displayed beside a painting, La Japonaise Au Bain, by late artist James Tissot at the Guimet museum in Paris in February 2017. Photo: AFP alt=A kimono is displayed beside a painting, La Japonaise Au Bain, by late artist James Tissot at the Guimet museum in Paris in February 2017. Photo: AFP
Japonism was a key inspiration for impressionist painters including Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, as well as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec " who all depicted sensual-looking women in a series of kimonos in their artworks at the time, according to Elizabeth LaCouture, a gender studies professor at Hong Kong University.
"Look at the paintings of Whistler," LaCouture said, referring to the US painter James Abbot McNeill Whistler. "When he paints women in kimono, his models are lounging, and instead of a tight obi [or sash], the kimono is fastened by a loose belt. This was the beginning of the kimono's reinvention as a robe."
Meanwhile in Japan, the traditional kimono was increasingly set aside in favour of modern Western-style dress " but only for men.
As part of the Japanese government's modernisation drive, it encouraged men to adopt Western-style uniforms and clothing, but also did not want to completely abandon past traditions, said Lynne Nakano, an anthropologist in Japanese studies at City University of Hong Kong.
"They thought: 'Let's have women continue to wear kimonos'," she said. "Kimono doesn't mean women's clothing " it means 'clothing' but eventually the meaning changed to represent women's clothing."
Former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi clad in a traditional kimono. File Photo: AP alt=Former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi clad in a traditional kimono. File Photo: AP
After Japan lost the second world war, and during the American occupation of Japan from 1945-1952, the US government sought to feminise Japan to make it seem less of a threat to reintegrate it into the global system, said Sheridan Prasso, author of the 2005 book The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, and Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient.
"Part of that were images of the feminised salaryman and the servile geisha," Prasso said.
"During that period, the geisha image became corrupted with prostitution by an industry that used those images to try to lure and sell sexual services to American men. Those images became very sexualised [and] popularised in pop culture and movies about Japan."
The US' post-war effort to feminise Japan and sexualise the image of the geisha has deeply shaped the image that the West has of Japan and Japanese women today, Prasso said.
As kimonos became increasingly synonymous with the stereotypical subservience associated with their female wearers, they became popular souvenirs at the same time.
During the war, many families had to trade kimonos for food, said anthropologist Nakano.
"But there was a huge market of people selling family heirloom kimonos because they needed money," she said, adding it was likely fairly easy for Americans to buy these items along with other imitation versions.
Geisha giving a dance performance. File photo: SCMP alt=Geisha giving a dance performance. File photo: SCMP
In an account written by wartime Red Cross worker Lucy Herndon Crockett, "cheap white silk kimonos embroidered with flamboyant dragons and flowers ... white silk scarves, handkerchiefs, pyjamas" were widely sold, according to historian Naoko Shibusawa from Brown University. Pictures of cherry blossoms and geisha girls were also popular souvenirs for US servicemen heading home, Shibusawa said.
Today, lots of tourists still buy and bring back "fake kimonos" as souvenirs and use them as lounge or sleepwear, freelance translator Mizuno said.
"I see lots of comments from Japanese people criticising this situation," she said. "I guess it's a consequence of apparel manufacturers naming their products kimono and selling them, without mentioning or understanding what it actually means."
The appropriation, as well as demotion of the kimono from garment to undergarment, is not only insensitive, it is related to Western colonialism and Eurocentric world views of Japan, said gender studies professor LaCouture.
"The appropriation of the kimono is connected to a long history of struggles over global and regional power and domination both economic and military in Japan," she said.
The Western idea of Asia as exotic, feminine and servile ultimately results in profiting of these stereotypes at the expense of Asian women, Prasso said.
"I think it's very difficult for Asian women to overcome the sexualised stereotype in the West, and the appropriation of images and cultural dress like the kimono make that more difficult."
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2019. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
