Early to Mid 20th Century Kimono

 

Machine-spun pongee silk woven with stencil-printed warp thread (meisen) Japan, Taisho period, 1912-26.

Machine-spun pongee silk woven with stencil-printed warp and weft threads (meisen). Japan, late Taisho-early Showa period, 1920-40.

Gauze weave silk (ro) with stencil-printed patterning (kata-yuzen). Japan, early Taisho period, 1912-20

Machine-spun pongee silk woven with stencil-printed warp and weft threads (meisen). Japan, early Showa period, 1930-40.

Hand-spun pongee silk (tsumugi) woven with stencil-printed weft threads. Japan, Taisho period, 1912-26

Machine-spun pongee silk woven with stencil-printed warp and weft threads (meisen). Japan, early Showa period, 1930-50

All of the Kimono here can be found in the book, Fashioning Kimono: Dress and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Japan. They were shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the Toshiba Gallery of Japanese Art in 2005 and 2006, on loan from the collection of Jeffrey Montgomery, a prominent collector of Japanese folk art.