The Kimono – An extravagant ode to bygone beauty
The art of making kimonos, Japan’s beautiful traditional garment and embodiment of ancient craft and feverish dedication, is disappearing. What used to be worn almost daily is now reserved only for special occasions and usually by women. Even then, demand for locally and traditionally made kimono has waned because of its high prices, which can be anything from ¥180,000 to ¥1 million (RM6,200 to RM35,650). Machine-made ones often cost just a fraction of that. This led to the number of companies in Tokyo dropping drastically from 214 to 24 in just 30 years. But in Kyoto, the city that has managed to capture and preserve the cultural heart of historic Japan, operates one particularly famous kimono maker – Chiso, a company that has been diligently making magnificent fabrics undeterred for 460 years.
When you realise how laborious the process of making one kimono is, you will find the price is more than justified. There are over a thousand steps involved if you’re counting from the first harvest of a silk cocoon to the vibrantly hued final product. And mastering even one technique can take up to 40 years. Chiso specialises in Kyo-Yuzen, a style of fabric dyeing native to Kyoto that is characterised by lavish, symbolic designs. Just the act of brushing the dye on a blank piece of silk requires special expertise since the colour needs to be spread smoothly. It must also be carried out in a room with constant temperature with no natural light to cast shadows in order for it to dry evenly.
Outlines are then made on the silk to be coloured in by an artist. This can take a month to complete and involve 40 to 50 colours. Chiso is such a perfectionist when it comes to colour that it spent a decade developing a technique to make a unique indigo kimono. Of course, standard kimonos can take just three to four months to complete, but you’ll have to wait for 18 months or more for special orders and set aside a bigger budget – Chiso’s most expensive kimono sold for ¥35 million (RM1.25 million) over 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, at the rate that these gorgeous garments are falling out of favour with the younger crowd, customers may soon have to wait indefinitely for a kimono of this quality. Such skills are passed down through the generations, and today’s best artisans are in their eighties. Which means if they don’t find enough successors to impart these precious skills to, the knowledge may be lost by the next decade.
Interestingly, as steeped in heritage as Chiso is, the company is more than willing to embrace the new age. It has had collaborations with numerous artists, including Takashi Murakami (before Louis Vuitton did, we might add), Kaws, Futura 2000 and even Yohji Yamamoto and Havaianas. It’s a jarring contrast to the image we have of conservative Japanese arts, but it’s an admirable – and admittedly refreshing – approach to keeping such treasured skills alive.
