KIMONO FRAGMENTS
by Niamh McCooey
In recent years, the kimono has become a standard garment in shop windows along the high streets of the Western World, and while it’s common knowledge that this piece of clothing hails from Japanese culture, there’s a lot more to it than mere mass production.
Asiatica, a retail store in Kansas that creates one-of-a-kind garments from vintage kimono fabrics, understands the kimono’s story and tells it to the contemporary fashion industry through the cloth itself.
Since opening in 1977, the team behind Asiatica have been travelling regularly to Japan in search of vintage and contemporary artisanal fabrics, jewellery and luxury garments to be brought back to the US and shared with their Western clientele.
From as far back as 794 AD, the kimono has long been entrenched in Japanese culture; from its links to polite behavioural norms to its symbolic social status. Rumour even has it that after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, kimono-wearers often became the victims of robbery due to the garment’s restricting nature – inhibiting wearers from running away from danger.
Pieces of Japanese history form the foundation for Asiatica’s chic contemporary aesthetic. With all of their clothing made in their workshop and store in Kansas city, every item tells an individual story with great care and consideration. The company’s makers also create their own fabrics by using remnants old vintage kimonos, transformed into clothes tailored to meet each individual’s daily needs.
Asiatica will be exhibiting at Objects of Art, Santa Fe, 11 – 13 August 2017
El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, 555 Camino de la Familia, Santa Fe, NM 87501
www.asiaticakc.com