Coat

Iida & Co./Takashimaya

ca. 1900 · silk · Costume Institute

The kimono and the bamboo pattern are principal signifiers of Japan in the West. The adaptation of a theater coat from the silhouette of the kimono accommodates styles and needs of the Western market but also retains close identification with Japanese sources. By 1900, exoticism was customarily accompanied by reductivism, accepting and exacerbating the potential of Asian dress for modernism. This theater coat was published in the January-March 1900 issue of the fashion magazine, The Delineator.

Artist

Iida & Co./Takashimaya

Date

ca. 1900

Medium

silk

Culture

Japanese

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Gift of Joseph L. Brotherton, 1985