KIMONO REVIVAL - TOKYO

Text by Chie Matsumoto

chiez2001@yahoo.com

It was shocking for Masaya Kinoshita. The 29-year-old dentist thought kimono was a respected Japanese tradition. But his parents frowned when they saw him going out in kimono one day. He should look at life more seriously rather than daydreaming, they told him. All Kinoshita had in mind was to experience and appreciate the traditional culture. Although his parents never forced him to wear ordinary western clothes, they disapproved of him everytime they saw him going out in kimono.

Kinoshita was persistant, however. He decided to attend university lectures in kimono where all the other students naturally appear in T-shirts and jeans. His professors were much worse than his parents by giving Kinoshita an evil stare. He was the sore thumb sticking out on campus. The student of a conservative dentistry university also felt silent pressure and strange vibe from other people around him on campus when he began wearing kimono as a daily wear five years ago.

In more than half a century, the mode has changed in Japan. And so did people's perception on the traditional wear. Once a daily wear, kimono has been shoved aside by western imports and in the 21 st century it has become the special outfit only for limited occasions such as wedding receptions, funerals or graduation ceremonies.

But young people in their 20s and 30s are braving the wind and trying to bring back Japan's cultural asset to everyday life. Some take it in as a new fashion statement, but others like Kinoshita cherish it as Japan's missing good 'o days.

"I'm only trying to help preserve the Japanese culture," says Kinoshita, sporting mustard colored kimono and hakama pants with matching yellow tabi socks. He doesn't carry a backpack with it, of course. That's not Japanese: That's a foreign import. In a roughly tied furoshiki cotton scarf jumble a wallet, train pass, a mobile phone and other personal items.

When teenagers and twentysomethings enjoy decorating their mobile phones with cute character goods and plastic key chains, the kimono-clad Kinoshita fancies tailoring a new set of kimono.

Kimono is a dying culture here in Japan. When Kinoshita strolls on a busy street in Yokohama, people turn around and their eyes fixated on him not because he is good looking but because he looks like someone just out of a samurai movie.

Earlier in the days, Kinoshita felt alienated in the crowd when he felt the commuters stare at him from head to toe and when elderly asked him which event he is attending.

But he grew out of it in five years. The 29-year-old dentist hosts a homepage in an effort to enlarge the network of young people interested in bringing back and preserving the traditional beauty of Japan.

Because kimono is much involved and complicated than wearing a T-shirt, people have to learn how to wear it and even where to buy the necessary items. Many end up taking a course to put it on themselves or paying experts about 7,000 yen to do so only for special occasions.

The return of the dying culture is spreading also from the Wakamono Kimono-no-kai (Young people's kimono club) at Waseda Univesity in Tokyo.

In the eyes of the 20s, it has a certain appeal as a fashionable outfit, says Yoshie Ito, the group president. The piece comes in a uniformed cut and shape, but colors, patterns and textiles offer so many variations that no other western clothing can offer, she says.

"I first felt curious in terms of the fashion sense," the 21-year-old social science student says. "I simply thought I could develop my own fashion style with kimono."

For the younger generation of Japanese like Ito, kimono that is put away for months without being worn only means a dust pan or a mildew gatherer. When taken out of the closet for a day or two, it always smells like moth balls.

But these young students are changing that impression of kimono.

Midori Sawamura of the club wore kimono to a lecture. Immediately a center of attention,   the student of English language and literature loved it when her professors and classmates looked mesmorized and impressed at her in the traditional attire. Sighs echoed in the lecture hall, and students turned to Sawamura.

"I felt good and superior when they awed," she says.

It's easily said than done. Kimono involves multiple layers, unusual knots, color coordination skills, special care, extra cash and even different sets of mannerisms. So few young people know all of that.

That may be why the culture is dying and the industry is shrinking. The businesses and experts need to expand their market by reaching out to the new clientele. Thanks to the recent trend in second-hand clothes, more used kimono are available and their price is becoming more affordable for younger clients. While the industry began to introduce new types of accessories favored by the people in their 20s and 30s, experts are liberating the old rules of kimono.

It is important to make kimono more accessible to the young people, otherwise another Japanese tradition will disappear, says an instructor of kimono wearing. "We are introducing ways they can better associate with because we would like young people to wear it casually."

And the effort has reached Hiroyuki Nagao and other young clients. The 23-year-old student who established the Kimono group for youths was able to re-define his identity as Japanese by running his arms through kimono in the modern days, he says.

"I was searching my soul to find who I was," he says, adding that he was lost in the pile of abundance of imported goods from the West. "And I think kimono led me to it. I wanted to reconfirm Japanese tradition and culture, as well as my origin."   He is contemplating on ordering a tailored set that could cost anywhere from 227 euro and up as soon as he starts receiving real salary on the real job.

A new fashion statement or soul searching, whatever the purpose of these young kimono enthusiasts, one of the few remaining Japanese tradition has found salvation.

Kimono Revival - Tokyo