Japanese Fashion During World War II

A large body of research has focused on the tragic experiences of World War II, both on the battle fields and in domestic settings—but fashion from the period has not received significant attention. This project, based on recent fieldwork in Japan funded by a Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Fellowship, uses Japanese library and museum collections and interviews with World War II survivors to investigate the notion of Japanese fashion during World War II. This presentation will focus on how young women and girls in Japan could, or could not, remain fashion conscious through this period considering a growing wartime mentality and material shortage.

About the Speaker:

Dr Tets Kimura is Research Associate in the Creative Arts at Flinders University, South Australia. His latest publications include “Fashion Nationalism in Asia: A Comparative Study of the Philippines’ Terno and Taiwan’s Qipao” (Asian Anthropology, 2022), and “An Analysis of Japanese Fashion in Australian Print Media: (Re)presentations in Newspapers and Fashion Magazines” (in Fashion: Culture, Commerce, Craft, and Identity, Brill, 2022).

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Photograph courtesy of Showa no Kurashi Museum (Ota, Tokyo)