Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
Coming up on Art Palace. 

Speaker 2 (00:00:02):
Look at the neck. How's the neck, Russell? 

Speaker 1 (00:00:05):
It's good. It's pulled down in the back. Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:00:07):
That's sexy. 

Speaker 1 (00:00:22):
Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host, Russell iig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today's cool person is museum docent, Helen Rensburg, who's taking us on a tour of kimono refashioning contemporary style. Is there a particular place you want us to start or Right 

Speaker 2 (00:00:51):
Here? Right here at the beginning. 

Speaker 1 (00:00:52):
Okay, perfect. Well, thank you for joining us again, Helen. 

Speaker 2 (00:01:01):
You're welcome. 

Speaker 1 (00:01:01):
Your second time here taking us through an exhibition, and this one is pretty special to you, I would imagine. 

Speaker 2 (00:01:11):
Very. 

Speaker 1 (00:01:12):
Yeah, because you're sort of our docent who's very passionate about Asian art in general, but you are especially passionate about Japanese art. I 

Speaker 2 (00:01:22):
Am. I blame it all on the art museum. Really. 

Speaker 1 (00:01:25):
Word to blame. Yes. Okay. Tell me that story. 

Speaker 2 (00:01:27):
Okay. Nine years old, I'm taking art lessons here at the art museum. Back when the students of the art academy, I guess it was a work study program, did Saturday art lessons and our art lessons were in Gallery 1 37, and it was at that time hung with a comparison of Japanese hanging scrolls and Chinese hanging scrolls. Now, I don't remember this personally, but my mother teased me for years about this. She said about the fifth week I came home from class and I said, mom, Chinese art's cool, Japanese art's much better. And she just was like, how in the world? So I started by collecting Japanese fairy fairytales and kids pictures, books, and when I got to college in the late sixties, there were no Asian art history classes, but I made good friends with a librarian at D A A now D A a P, and she bought me books on Japanese art, which I got to read first, and I actually, when I went back to teach at uc, 45 years later, the book was still there and I used it for class. 

Speaker 1 (00:02:36):
Oh, nice. So I'm very curious what made a nine year old you feel drawn to Japanese art, over Chinese art. What was it about Japanese art in particular that captured you at that age? 

Speaker 2 (00:02:52):
Looking back, I think it happened to be, we can use this kimono right here. 

Speaker 1 (00:02:56):
Okay. We're right at the beginning of the exhibition, so if you are here looking along with us, this is the very first piece in the exhibition and it's just called kimono, so that's easy enough. 

Speaker 2 (00:03:08):
Right. Probably what appealed to me a lot was nature. 

Speaker 1 (00:03:11):
Oh, okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:03:12):
There's so much about nature in Japanese art, the seasons, my family went picnicking from about march to November every Sunday, so we were out in nature a lot. I really like their connection to the plant and animal kingdom. This particular one has a lot of flowers on it, including peonies and then the frolicking lion dog there. In a lot of ways, this is not to put down Chinese art, but I found a sense of humor in Japanese art that connects to me more. 

Speaker 1 (00:03:47):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:03:48):
Right. So some things I'll point out to you as we go along on that one, but the more I learned about Japanese culture being a neat freak, I love how they are so well organized. That's just me. Also over the years, it's like the more I learn about Japanese culture, the more I want to learn about Japanese culture. We have hosted Japanese young people at our home. Students and teachers have one right now, and they're just a great source of learning more about the culture. I live in their homes and we're in Japan, and it just keeps building up. 

Speaker 1 (00:04:25):
Okay, interesting. Alright, well, any other, since we're still here looking at this piece, is there anything else you wanted to say about this piece? And maybe I just started right off getting into your fascination, but we didn't really talk at all about this exhibition and what it is, so maybe we should set that up too. 

Speaker 2 (00:04:41):
That's no problem, because we are so grateful to the Kyoto Costume Institute who worked with our curator here, Cynthia Amne and the San Francisco Asian Art Museum to create this exhibit. It is a combination of east meets West in fashion and both going to the west and coming back to the east. So it's fascinating. It's about 150 years that are covered here, and this particular kimono is a fabulous way to enter the exhibit one. It's from the mid 19th century, and that's when Japan reopened to the west and so much of Japanese culture flooded into Europe and America too, and I'll have some connections with that as we go along. Two, this kimono represents a really high point in Japanese textiles as well as fashion design. So we're looking at a T-shaped garment here, which comes from East Asia, but then refined and totally changed by the time we get up to the 12th century in Japan. We have a tubular body shape right there. This is a fruity soda, so it has the longer sleeves on it. So those are the swinging sleeves. This particular kimono would've been for a young woman marriageable because the swinging sleeves were considered very attractive as the young woman moved. The other wonderful thing about this is as we go through, we'll talk about this structure of the tubular body, the straight sleeves, this one being long and probably on the Japanese woman was at her knees 

Speaker 1 (00:06:19):
On 

Speaker 2 (00:06:20):
That. So we'll talk about silhouette or shape or construction. We'll also talk about surface, and this is a great one because this particular one is dyed and embroidered. 

Speaker 2 (00:06:32):
So originally it was a white fabric that had a resist dye that left those white flowers there. The waterfall design is very typical Japanese. There's sort of a cloud design there. Again, very typical Japanese. There's fake shibori in places. We'll talk about that later. But it's all about the surface decoration, and probably this was from Kyoto, which was the center of kimono production in Japan for centuries still is. Then also on this, we have embroidery in that beautiful red orange and golden embroidery, so silhouette, surface decoration traditions. We're going to be going back and forth between those themes as we go through the whole show. 

Speaker 1 (00:07:21):
Yeah, it's really the overall design is very, if you just look at the shape of it, it's very simple, but then you have this incredibly complicated surface, like you're saying. It's a nice play on these two different ideas at once. 

Speaker 2 (00:07:35):
The other thing is we're standing here with examples of Western painters who picked up on the kimono idea and they use it in their oil paintings, but in Japan, the actual surface of the kimono is considered a design and it's just painting on the fabric. Often they do paint on the fabric, so this is their canvas for expression next to the western artist canvas of expression. 

Speaker 1 (00:08:00):
Yeah. I was a little surprised when I walked in by how many sort of non-fashion objects that were in this exhibition because you see all the kimonos and the more contemporary fashion pieces that we're putting out there, and so I was a little shocked when I came in and saw these paintings from the collection and these, but 

Speaker 2 (00:08:16):
They're all related to fashion. Come on over here. Come on over here. This is our own Cincinnati art museum, the Silk Merchant by Robert Blum, a Cincinnati artist. He was a reporter and an illustrator for Scribner's and Sons in Japan in the 1890s, and I think it's great to have it right across from the kimono because what you're looking at is three women who are at the kimono shop and they're picking out fabric. We have the shop owner who's holding out a piece of gauzy, beautiful pinky orange fabric right there and then I love the gentleman in the background who's looking in, what are they doing 

Speaker 1 (00:08:53):
Right 

Speaker 2 (00:08:53):
There? It is a lot of fun because it sets up the fact that the kimono industry was well established in Japan for centuries, probably going back to the seventh or eighth century, and this is the way it was bought most kimono women made in their own home. 

Speaker 1 (00:09:12):
There 

Speaker 2 (00:09:12):
Were some that were custom made, but they would start here. You can also see there's a pattern, well, there's a book there, and that is actually a pattern book now. Most of his goods are in storage, and he brings them out after they've looked at the pattern book and said, I would like to look at this particular piece of fabric, 

Speaker 1 (00:09:31):
Rather 

Speaker 2 (00:09:31):
Than having everything out and worrying about sun damage and dust and all those kinds of things. They've already looked at some stuff. It's stacked over here 

Speaker 1 (00:09:41):
Out of the way, 

Speaker 2 (00:09:42):
So it's a great one to start the exhibit with 

Speaker 1 (00:09:47):
Until you said the thing about this sort of gauzy fabric. I'd never really paid attention to how well he's rendering that sort of transparency. It's really, really great the way the sort of little triangle under his hand is letting in more light than the part that's overlapping it. It's just really, really well done. As you described that, I was like, oh yeah, I've seen this painting lots of times in the galleries and I've never really noticed that little, 

Speaker 2 (00:10:12):
Little touch. Now you'll watch more closely. I know. 

Speaker 1 (00:10:14):
I need to, I mean, there's too many things I know, 

Speaker 2 (00:10:16):
But I have to talk about the cat. 

Speaker 1 (00:10:18):
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:10:19):
Okay. If I toured this with young children and school aged children and I'm going on about the silks and look at the calligraphy and everything like that, and suddenly one of the kids will go, the cat's dead. The cat's dead. And I'm like, no, it's not. This is hibachi. There's some charcoal in there. In fact, you can see his feet are up against that because it must be a little bit cool that day 

Speaker 1 (00:10:41):
The 

Speaker 2 (00:10:41):
Cat's got his feet against the hibachi staying warm. 

Speaker 1 (00:10:44):
That's so cute. 

Speaker 2 (00:10:45):
Cool little detail that blonde added 

Speaker 1 (00:10:47):
On that one. Yeah. It's such a perfect cat sleeping pose too. It just really looks, yeah, I think if the cat were dead, people would probably be reacting and maybe wouldn't be paying so close attention to the fabric. Right, 

Speaker 2 (00:11:00):
Right. When Japanese goods came into Europe and America, it was mostly 1867 with the Paris Exposition Universal, and that set off so much interest in buying goods, and the Japanese were perfectly happy to ship a lot over, and what we're looking at here is the painting by Teo Sau was one of the earliest collectors among the artistic community to bring in Japanese goods. In fact, this is his own home. He's painting his home, and while there might be Persian carpets on the floor, the table that has the model of a Japanese ship is covered with the kimono. You will notice the red padding on the bottom of our 

Speaker 1 (00:11:50):
Initial 

Speaker 2 (00:11:50):
Kimono, and there's red padding on this kimono. You'll also notice all the floral designs and the floral designs over there too. So this was a nice pairing to put 

Speaker 1 (00:12:01):
Together. Yeah, they're really similar designs. Yeah. You 

Speaker 2 (00:12:03):
Have two very fashionly dressed women 

Speaker 1 (00:12:06):
Who 

Speaker 2 (00:12:06):
Are checking out this, and then you have all these Japanese items here. We even have an emperor doll in the back, and it's actually, he put together some things he shouldn't. That is a Buddhist family altar, 

Speaker 1 (00:12:20):
But it 

Speaker 2 (00:12:20):
Has a Shinto doll on it. 

Speaker 1 (00:12:22):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:12:24):
But that's a great example of the many, many layers of kimono that are part of the imperial tradition of dress, and that goes back over 1200 years. That thin kimono or fabric that we saw in the Blum painting that relates directly to that 

Speaker 1 (00:12:39):
Because 

Speaker 2 (00:12:40):
Those are very thin layers. 

Speaker 1 (00:12:42):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:12:42):
Whereas the initial, it's called the initial kimono here, it's going to be a fairly heavy silk and lined also. So we're going to come around the corner here, have to talk about Rookwood Grace Young did this beautiful ceramic vase, very delicate and small with a young woman and a kimono on it. Grace started at Rookwood at age 17 

Speaker 1 (00:13:05):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:13:05):
Continued there for quite a few years, and she was the first to paint a portrait under the glaze 

Speaker 1 (00:13:12):
At 

Speaker 2 (00:13:12):
Rookwood. So this is a groundbreaker right here. It's small. People might pass it right by, but it is important and 

Speaker 1 (00:13:19):
It 

Speaker 2 (00:13:19):
Continues that Cincinnati connection that I'll keep talking about as we go through. 

Speaker 1 (00:13:23):
And there are more examples of Rookwood in the exhibition out there. Yes, there are. I know there's lots of inspiration. Some maybe less literal, some more sort of stylistically. And then we have all of the Japanese decorators too, who worked with 

Speaker 2 (00:13:39):
Atwood 

Speaker 1 (00:13:39):
At Rockwood 

Speaker 2 (00:13:41):
Right past the Sau painting is an example of the first way that western designers adapt to Japanese fashion. They would buy kimono, take them apart because it's just a straight piece of fabric, which is very versatile. 

Speaker 1 (00:13:57):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:13:57):
Then they turned us into the wonderful, the shape where the bust is out and the bustle is out in the back and all that fabric underneath with the ruffles, but that is look at the embroidery on that fabric. We have gold, we have red, we have blue, we have green, we have all these different, in fact, there's quite a few colors of red in there, and then they add Venetian lace to that, so it's a real mash of the Japanese and the Western. So they like the exotic idea of Japanese fashion fabrics, but they weren't ready to change the fashions yet. 

Speaker 1 (00:14:36):
Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:14:37):
Okay. Now for every shoe nut that know, seriously, if you ever do an exhibit in their shoes, you meet the shoe nuts. So we have this wonderful pair of shoes right here is actually from 2017. Oh, 

Speaker 1 (00:14:53):
Okay. It's 

Speaker 2 (00:14:53):
Our youngest item 

Speaker 1 (00:14:55):
Artwork. Yeah. And it's funny, they do match this dress so perfectly that you would think, I mean, when you get close to 'em, you realize when you see the little studs on the heel and things 

Speaker 2 (00:15:04):
Like, well, those aren't Japanese, but the fabric, the fabric is definitely Japanese 

Speaker 1 (00:15:08):
On 

Speaker 2 (00:15:09):
That one. The high heels. No, that doesn't work for Japan. And right behind the boots is another example of a kimono that has been taken apart. Not as much because you can still see the sleeves. 

Speaker 1 (00:15:20):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:15:20):
Yeah. You can still see the seams there, and there's not as much change in that. 

Speaker 1 (00:15:26):
Interesting. Yeah. We should say those shoes too are Louboutin shoes, which you can see the famous red sole underneath. Oh, 

Speaker 2 (00:15:36):
I don't know anything. 

Speaker 1 (00:15:37):
Oh, yeah, yeah. Those are like shoes 

Speaker 2 (00:15:38):
And I don't get 

Speaker 1 (00:15:38):
Along. You're not a shoe? 

Speaker 2 (00:15:39):
I'm not a shoe. No, I'm 

Speaker 1 (00:15:40):
Not either, I guess, but yeah, that's like the sort of famous thing about Louboutins as they have that red sole, so you see that red, oh, they're wearing Louboutins, and you know that they cost a lot of money. There 

Speaker 2 (00:15:54):
We go. We have a lot of graphics in the exhibit, and I'm going to point them out when I can. This particular one shows how the straight fabric from kimono, so these would be the panels that were from the front to the back, the sleeves, but now they're cutting out the Western design. Western design construction is totally different from Japanese at this time. Everything is fitted to the person. A dress for Madam X only fits Madam X 

Speaker 1 (00:16:25):
On 

Speaker 2 (00:16:26):
That one, A wedding dress or a kimono. I'm just go back to a kimono in Japan until kids got to be five foot six could be passed down from grandmother to mother to granddaughter very easily because you just adjusted. 

Speaker 1 (00:16:43):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:16:43):
Yeah. The length just 

Speaker 1 (00:16:44):
Adjusted. Very versatile garment. 

Speaker 2 (00:16:46):
Very versatile garment. Yeah. Right now on this stop here, it's showing design books that were probably featured here in Cincinnati in one of our three Japanese curio shops that were active in the 1890s up to 1910. These particular books were produced in Japan. They are designs that were done by famous artists at the time, and then put in books like this that could be used not only by textile artists, but lacquer artists, metal artists, any artists who wanted to look at patterns. 

Speaker 1 (00:17:19):
Oh, wow. I had no idea that that was a thing like a Japanese curio shop that, I mean, it makes sense when you think about the rage for Japanese things that was going on at that time, but I didn't think that there would be a shop dedicated to that, but that makes a lot of sense. 

Speaker 2 (00:17:36):
We had three. 

Speaker 1 (00:17:37):
Wow. 

Speaker 2 (00:17:38):
And one was owned by the husband of et Sugimoto who wrote, which some people might know. Daughter of Samurai. 

Speaker 1 (00:17:45):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:17:45):
She lived here in Cincinnati about two miles from where I lived. 

Speaker 1 (00:17:48):
Oh, 

Speaker 2 (00:17:48):
Yeah. We were not living at the same time. Right, right. There are two gorgeous pieces of fabric here, and it is showing the Japanese influence on the French fabric industry. 

Speaker 1 (00:18:00):
Oh, okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:18:01):
So the design books we were just looking at, we have this gorgeous silver and red wave pattern. We saw those waves on the initial first kimono, and then look at this flower design coming straight down as a kimono design would come down. So it's a great example to show how, again, they weren't quite ready to adapt the silhouette of the kimono, but boy, they sure went the fabric and the fabric designs. So we'll turn around now and we have these elegant gowns. There are six of them here. So we'll just start here on the left. The first one is a ball gown. Both of 'em are French fabrics, but a French design fabrics basically in the front. But look at that train. It's all ferns straight off of Japanese patterns, and according to Ms. Amus, these ferns were not seen in western designs until that meeting of east and west on that one. 

Speaker 1 (00:18:59):
Interesting. 

Speaker 2 (00:19:00):
And it has the long train with that standard, shall we say, in western fashion. This particular coat gets to be a looser design, but underneath there would've been the same dress with the bustle and 

Speaker 1 (00:19:16):
The 

Speaker 2 (00:19:16):
Corsets and all that kind of stuff. But it's much looser, isn't it? 

Speaker 1 (00:19:19):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:19:20):
Yeah. It's not form fitting because they wanted that surface for all this incredible embroidery and Japanese motifs. 

Speaker 1 (00:19:29):
So 

Speaker 2 (00:19:30):
No silhouette, but ode, we have motifs. 

Speaker 1 (00:19:33):
We 

Speaker 2 (00:19:33):
Have samurai helmets marching up the front of this coat, intertwined with other designs. They're floral designs that cascade down the shoulders, and those continue on. The helmets also continue on the back. If you want to go around the side of the platform here, 

Speaker 1 (00:19:50):
Sneak 

Speaker 2 (00:19:51):
A peek, sneak a peak. Right. Sneak a peak. This woman's dress is by douche. I think I'm saying that right. 

Speaker 1 (00:19:57):
Yes, French. It would be like dse. I'm saying that with the authority of somebody who took high school French. 

Speaker 2 (00:20:04):
I took Latin. It doesn't help at 

Speaker 1 (00:20:06):
All. So take it with a grain of salt. 

Speaker 2 (00:20:10):
This dress, again, is surface, not silhouette. So we have iris across the shoulders, just a little bit down the front, and then a riot virus all around the hem. Many fashions in kimono because of the obi and the sash with the obi will leave the area around the waist, undecorated others, they go straight through the first kimono that we saw. But this is common. I have a number of kimon in my collection that are like this. While this is a very feminine dress, the Japanese would've looked at this and seen those iris in those iris leaves and would've known directly that reference to the samurai. I know it's a flower, but if you know your botanicals, the iris has a very straight leave, almost like a sword. And so even on boys' day, boys are given iris 

Speaker 1 (00:21:06):
Interesting. 

Speaker 2 (00:21:06):
Including the leaves because of the sword. 

Speaker 1 (00:21:09):
Oh, wow. 

Speaker 2 (00:21:10):
I know. 

Speaker 1 (00:21:11):
I had no idea. 

Speaker 2 (00:21:12):
You'll learn a lot here. 

Speaker 1 (00:21:13):
I know. 

Speaker 2 (00:21:15):
Of course. That's what we would do with all of our exhibits. 

Speaker 1 (00:21:16):
Right? 

Speaker 2 (00:21:17):
Learn a lot. Learn a lot. We have this amazing coat right here, there. We're getting a little bit to the tubular 

Speaker 1 (00:21:26):
Silhouette 

Speaker 2 (00:21:27):
Here. We've lost room for the bustle in the back. The Japanese would never add fur, but look at that fabric again. The other thing that's easier to see on this one is that there's an overall pattern that is gold on gold, 

Speaker 1 (00:21:42):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:21:42):
You have to almost see it in the light to 

Speaker 1 (00:21:43):
Catch 

Speaker 2 (00:21:44):
The fact that there's a pattern there. And then over that is the embroidery 

Speaker 1 (00:21:49):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:21:49):
A number of the kimon are like that here. We'll point that out. This particular gown bought possibly by the house of Wir, and we even have on the label an example of a geisha in a kimono, and her dress is just, it's beaded, but using Japanese designs. So where you got the train, again, shoe aficionados, check out the shoes on this one. But she's belted, and in a little way that overskirt harks back a little bit to the kimono. I know we don't have a kimono out that shows exactly how it is worn. Totally. With the OB in 

Speaker 1 (00:22:27):
This little 

Speaker 2 (00:22:28):
Overlap, that's part of it, but you'll just have to take it from us. 

Speaker 1 (00:22:32):
Yeah. There's something about even the way that belt sort of hangs out in the front, that it's not very literally connected to kimono, but there's something about almost the looseness of that that feels, I don't know, conceptually related. 

Speaker 2 (00:22:47):
Conceptually related, 

Speaker 1 (00:22:47):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:22:48):
Coco Chanel. 

Speaker 1 (00:22:49):
Oh, yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:22:50):
Oh yes. Coco Chanel, who brought us a little black dress, and here we really have an unstructured coat. We have jumped up to 1927, so it's a little bit into, or it's after World War I. She has a scarf on now. I looked at it first and I went, oh my gosh. This is a print technique. This is from woodblock prints. 

Speaker 1 (00:23:10):
Oh, this 

Speaker 2 (00:23:11):
Is boshi. It starts black at the top and then gradually goes to that green. It's really noticeable on the sleeves. The other part of this was the American and European fascination with Japanese lacquer wear. So she has added that incredible gold border just about below waistline on the body of the coat, and then just above the cuffs on the sleeves with that. And then notice she padded the cuffs. 

Speaker 1 (00:23:42):
That 

Speaker 2 (00:23:42):
Is definitely not western, 

Speaker 1 (00:23:44):
That 

Speaker 2 (00:23:44):
Is Asian or Japanese for that. So that's one of my favorite pieces. 

Speaker 1 (00:23:49):
Well, isn't that sort of gold around the middle? It has a look of an obie too. It 

Speaker 2 (00:23:54):
Absolutely 

Speaker 1 (00:23:55):
Has the same sort of structure of being this real thick band around the middle. 

Speaker 2 (00:24:00):
When you come to the second room and you stand on the doorway for a minute, there are designers and installation crew have done an amazing job by placing a kimono within site so that you can compare it immediately to the part of the exhibit that you're entering. So we have this gorgeous kimono with the cranes right there, and then designs, notice how loose things have gotten here. We're losing the corsets. We come over to the left and we have a beautiful dress with, I believe it's silk lame, and it's an evening dress by lady Duff Gordon from England. And immediately you see the sash and it comes down at the front. Now it's got the flowers that are added there, but in Japan, they now add ob gme to obs, a little extra decoration in the front. 

Speaker 1 (00:24:58):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (00:24:58):
So it's great. Now, the fringe is not Japanese, but it's beautifully done. Notice the sleeves. Most western sleeves have up to this time been fitted, and now we have a looser more open sleeve 

Speaker 1 (00:25:12):
On 

Speaker 2 (00:25:13):
That one. There's no bustle in the back. And another thing is her neck is showing 

Speaker 1 (00:25:18):
That's 

Speaker 2 (00:25:18):
Very important. In Japan, the neck was considered by a gentleman to be one of the most erotic areas of the body. 

Speaker 1 (00:25:26):
Oh, I know. 

Speaker 2 (00:25:28):
I have a whore on now. I can't tell you the number of times my Japanese lady friends go and pull my back neck down. It's like, no, get it down. Get it down. Mine's down right now. If you move around too much, it just falls forward 

Speaker 1 (00:25:44):
Again. 

Speaker 2 (00:25:45):
Look at this incredible red coat. It has no bustle anymore, but that wonderful jeweled, peace in the back, somewhat reminiscent of a kimono bow. Yeah, there's a lot of draping right there. Look at the neck. How's the neck, Russell? 

Speaker 1 (00:26:03):
It's good. It's pulled down in the back. Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:26:05):
That's sexy. And so we walk back to the kimono. Look how big those cranes are. 

Speaker 1 (00:26:12):
Yeah, they're impressive. This is probably one of my favorite pieces in the exhibition. It's just when I came in, I was like, wow, it is just the design on this thing. I mean, when you talked about it as a canvas, like a painting, this is a great way to, I mean, this one is really noticeable because of the scale you just mentioned. Everything is so large that it no longer feels like pattern. 

Speaker 2 (00:26:38):
This is a painting. 

Speaker 1 (00:26:39):
Yeah. Yeah. It really is. 

Speaker 2 (00:26:40):
It's a painting with huge significance because you have the cranes for longevity. They have two cranes, at least what we see on the front. They have plum blossoms and plum blossoms. So cranes are longevity. Plum blossoms are for perseverance because in Japan, they actually bloom in the end of winter, 

Speaker 1 (00:27:02):
Not 

Speaker 2 (00:27:02):
The beginning of spring. So oftentimes they are blooming when there's snow on that one. They have a phenomenal fragrance. We were there once in March and got to smell the plum blossoms, and across the shoulders we have cherry blossoms. So then that's the next flower of spring. And of course, cherry blossoms are a symbol of the samurai 

Speaker 1 (00:27:21):
Because 

Speaker 2 (00:27:22):
They bloom so beautifully. And then fall from the tree before their flowers wither down below iris. See those spiky 

Speaker 1 (00:27:30):
Leaves 

Speaker 2 (00:27:31):
Right there? So we have a lot of combination of the flower and the nature forms that are right there. 

Speaker 1 (00:27:36):
And I just realized this is the back, isn't it? 

Speaker 2 (00:27:39):
Yes. We are seeing the back of, we saw the front and the first kimo. 

Speaker 1 (00:27:43):
Yeah, the first kimono was 

Speaker 2 (00:27:44):
The front and this is the back. 

Speaker 1 (00:27:45):
Yeah. Yeah. I just realized looking at the top there in the collar, the way it's turned, I was like, oh, wait, this is, it makes sense because I'm not seeing the split 

Speaker 2 (00:27:53):
And to the right of this is this astonishing evening. It's just called dress. I'm sorry. This is an evening dress. 

Speaker 1 (00:27:59):
I know. This is the thing about fashion exhibitions. A lot of times the titles are not terribly exciting or helpful in trying to direct people to what you're talking about, because they're all like dress goat shoes. Right. 

Speaker 2 (00:28:13):
This is a beautiful matching. Now the other thing is this kimono is from the cam collection, and so our designers matched it with what we've been talking about is a kimono with a fabulous orange background, but I don't want you to think of orange, like safety cone orange. I want you to think of a warm flowing orange on that with the red, dark red plum blossoms and the white crane. Then we look to the right, and there's this gorgeous evening dress in orange, about five different versions of orange tents, long sleeves, tubular body. The OB is down at the hips, but it's still got that sash idea right there. So now we're going from, we're using the fabric to, we're using the silhouette. 

Speaker 1 (00:29:08):
See 

Speaker 2 (00:29:09):
The difference on that? They're not using any of the motifs, they're just using the general structure 

Speaker 1 (00:29:16):
Of 

Speaker 2 (00:29:16):
The kimono. 

Speaker 1 (00:29:17):
Yeah. It's something else. Sheer, like you mentioned, all those different shades of orange, and then the way the sort of transparency plays with that. It's just really, really something else. It's pretty beautiful. 

Speaker 2 (00:29:31):
Yeah. We have a number of evening coats. 

Speaker 1 (00:29:35):
Yeah. Another bunch of coats. 

Speaker 2 (00:29:38):
Bunch of coats loose. 

Speaker 1 (00:29:40):
Definitely. 

Speaker 2 (00:29:42):
We have the orange peach coat. Here is the Japanese kimono structure. So you have the long sleeves, although they split, they slit them at the top of the arm, which that's okay on that. It's not totally Japanese, 

Speaker 1 (00:29:58):
But it's close it. It is a little odd. It's an interesting take. Then 

Speaker 2 (00:30:03):
We have this coat by Miss Lily from the United States showing how far and wide the influences go, 

Speaker 1 (00:30:10):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:30:10):
That fern design we saw on the ballgown. There we have it. 

Speaker 1 (00:30:14):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:30:14):
There we have it. 

Speaker 1 (00:30:15):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:30:16):
Coming around here to the piece by Paul Perro, forgive me, anybody who knows French 

Speaker 1 (00:30:25):
Re 

Speaker 2 (00:30:26):
Re, it is a dress, and it is meant to mimic a horri, which is silk jacket going with a kimono over kimono. So you have the black ry over the gray silk, and she's even got it correctly draped the left side over the right side, and she has an ob, and there are small loose sleeves and then small circular areas that might represent the moan or the family crest that were often on kimono. We don't have an example of that in the show on that. So just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful outfit. And again, notice how that the surface design is not painted. It's not dyed. It's woven in. 

Speaker 2 (00:31:16):
So it really catches the light. It's very subtle. Beautifully done. Another way that Japanese fashions were adapted or adopted by Westerners was dressing gowns. And we have two examples here. As we come back to the right side of the front room, the gray and peach is done in Yokohama. Yokohama became a great point for manufacturing or sewing kimono that were sold directly to the western market. So are This particular one has a wider skirt than kimono does, so that was adapted, but you have those gorgeous flowers coming up the cord around the waist. It's more of a Chinese collar, but there were a lot of Chinese new Oklahoma too. 

Speaker 1 (00:32:05):
I only know this because I've been looking at places where I'm going to go in September and thinking about places. I was like, Yokohama has the biggest China town, 

Speaker 2 (00:32:12):
Town. Town, town. In Japan. In 

Speaker 1 (00:32:13):
Japan, 

Speaker 2 (00:32:14):
That's right. Always has. 

Speaker 1 (00:32:15):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:32:15):
Always has. So they got their licks in right there. But the black dressing gown is definitely kimono. You can see the long sleeves. You can see the shoulder decorations at the shoulder. You come up closely. And again, you have that woven in design, the very subtle flowers that are woven 

Speaker 1 (00:32:35):
In. Yeah, the black on black, 

Speaker 2 (00:32:37):
Black on black. And then you have the roses embroidered. I think those are roses embroidered at the top there, and she's got her sash on, and there's fringe on the sash right there. We have another painting right here that shows again the influence of kimono on painters, and it's by Richard Miller. So a woman actually has her dress on underneath or a nightgown, and then she's got a kimono over it. The fashion became that you'd have a tea gown on, which was coming fashionable in the late 19th century, but if you really want to be exotic, you would throw a kimono over that 

Speaker 1 (00:33:18):
You 

Speaker 2 (00:33:18):
Still had your corsets on, 

Speaker 1 (00:33:20):
But 

Speaker 2 (00:33:20):
You were exotic. You were with it. 

Speaker 1 (00:33:23):
You 

Speaker 2 (00:33:23):
Had that beautiful fabric on your back 

Speaker 2 (00:33:26):
On that. And there were many people that collected that. In fact, there's a little note that Cynthia threw in for the docents, that teso who's painting that we saw earlier. A lot of impressionists got mad at him. He would get to the ships and the stores earlier and buy up all the kimono before the other impressionists could get it on that one. Now we're moving into the section on design for the modern woman, and we're into the early 19 hundreds and the 1920s where women are much more active. They don't want the corsets, they don't want all that constrictions. Look how loose. We have five gowns here that we're looking at down the row. The gowns are just astonishing for luxury. So these are luxury goods. But an interesting fact, there was such a craze for kimono that Yokohama would do. Those luxurious ones we just saw with all the embroidery, 

Speaker 1 (00:34:22):
But 

Speaker 2 (00:34:22):
They would do cheap ones too. 

Speaker 1 (00:34:24):
They 

Speaker 2 (00:34:24):
Were providing for every market out there, the pattern companies, they were right behind them. You can go get a pattern and make your own. If you could find the fabric, I don't think they'd find fabric. We see this for Theano for the Altman company. Incredible gold. 

Speaker 1 (00:34:42):
Incredible 

Speaker 2 (00:34:42):
Gold. But I love the red underdress because I have forgotten to say as we've gone through here, when you see red padding on the bottom of kimono, probably the lining is also red. Red is a color of protection in Asia and in Japan. I know it as one, two ward off disease. So oftentimes children are dressed in red and many kimono are lined in red. I have red linings and a number of my kimono, which is kind of fun on that one. But look at those long sleeves, 

Speaker 1 (00:35:15):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:35:15):
They're a little scrunched right there. And then she's got a hood on the coat too. 

Speaker 1 (00:35:18):
Yeah, this one is wild. I 

Speaker 2 (00:35:20):
Know. 

Speaker 1 (00:35:22):
I mean, the others, they feel much more traditionally like what I would think of a twenties fashion. When you say imagine people in the twenties, you just kind of think of these, and they're pretty great for a lot of other reasons. I mean, the sort of patchworky looking pattern on this one is wonderful, but that first one we came to is just so opulent feeling. It's so extravagant. 

Speaker 2 (00:35:45):
Opulent is good on that. Then we have the flapper who they didn't know it, but they owed a lot to the kimono 

Speaker 1 (00:35:54):
Because 

Speaker 2 (00:35:55):
Suddenly you have this tube dress gives you all this freedom of movement, and you can kick it up with the Charleston, all that you wanted. The Hamm lines of course, get shorter than a kimono, but here it's structure. And on some of these, it's also surface decoration. 

Speaker 1 (00:36:13):
I 

Speaker 2 (00:36:13):
Know it's really subtle, but this one we're looking at, it looks very simple, but it's actually T shapes 

Speaker 1 (00:36:20):
That 

Speaker 2 (00:36:20):
Interlock, and that is a Japanese motif. And then you're back to lacquer wear with the combination of silver and gold in the lacquer 

Speaker 1 (00:36:29):
On that. And then the T itself almost ends up looking like a kimono itself on the pattern of it. It does, does it looks like these, the 

Speaker 2 (00:36:36):
Sote with the short sleeves, and then you have all the bead here, which is western. You don't see bead in Japan or didn't at this point, but you've got the floral decorations. You've got the wave patterns right there on this more subtle one compared to the flash over here on the other 

Speaker 1 (00:36:56):
One. Oh my gosh. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:36:57):
Yeah. That's flash. That's flash. And then we have to come over here because everyone loves a wedding dress. So Madeline vna loved Japanese fashion, and in 1922, she created this particular wedding dress, which probably someone could wear right now, couldn't they? 

Speaker 1 (00:37:17):
Yeah. You could easily imagine somebody wearing this today. 

Speaker 2 (00:37:21):
Mostly the reference here is to the tubular design, the layering, and then the long train, which is very flat and adorned. So it's more like an OB 

Speaker 1 (00:37:32):
Than 

Speaker 2 (00:37:32):
A typical train, which often has embroidery on it and is scalloped around the edges and 

Speaker 1 (00:37:37):
All 

Speaker 2 (00:37:37):
Those kind of fancy things. So everyone loves a wedding dress and white cross from the wedding dress. For those of you listening before you come to the exhibit, we have this wonderful graphic that shows you the starting on the left, how one long piece of fabric can be made into a kimono. So it shows where the sleeves are cut out, where the front, where the back, where the collar cut cutout, and it's just wonderful against a contrast with a bodice for a western dress of the 1880s. Look at how many pieces it takes to use that to do that bodice 

Speaker 1 (00:38:18):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:38:18):
Work around the woman's torso and bust. And again, the kimono can go for lots of different sizes, but once that dress is made, it's only for Madam X. Only for Madam X. What I also love is we have the pattern for VNAs wedding. 

Speaker 1 (00:38:35):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:38:36):
Alright. Take a picture of that. Go home, make your own. 

Speaker 1 (00:38:40):
You just have to figure out the dimensions. Yeah, you do. You do. 

Speaker 2 (00:38:43):
Well, it depends on your size, 

Speaker 1 (00:38:45):
The person. Yeah, that's right. And 

Speaker 2 (00:38:46):
Actually my students at uc, one of 'em made a kimono once because you can go to the pattern books and still make your own kimono patterns 

Speaker 1 (00:38:55):
A 

Speaker 2 (00:38:55):
Hundred years later. 

Speaker 1 (00:38:56):
Pretty 

Speaker 2 (00:38:56):
Cool. So we've entered the right side of the exhibit now, and our kimono sets the tone. We again have red padding on the bottom, and you can even see a little of the red lining on the sleeves there, 

Speaker 1 (00:39:09):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:39:09):
We're looking at the back, but if you go closely, we have birds. So again, that nature theme that's right here and to the right. So those are cranes and they're all flying up. So it's very auspicious design on this one. Again, behind it, the blue base fabric is that color on color brocade with all these plant designs that are back there. So it's almost like the cranes are going up against this incredible blue sky on that. And right to the right, we have this coat with swallows, and they cavort across the top of that, and then they fly down to the bottom too. Swallows are a symbol of fidelity in Japan. They mate for life. They're also a good luck symbol. And during the eight oh period, so I didn't define that, that's 1600 to 1868. They also believed to predict weather if they were flying high to catch the bugs, it was good weather. If they came down and they were flying low to catch the bugs, you probably are going to have some bad weather coming. So it was like a little bit of a weatherman. There. 

Speaker 1 (00:40:23):
Is this from the sixties? 

Speaker 2 (00:40:25):
This particular one? 

Speaker 1 (00:40:27):
I'm trying to 

Speaker 2 (00:40:28):
Think. It's the del Aqua. It's from, 

Speaker 1 (00:40:30):
Yeah. Oh no, it's later. This is really new. Okay. This is from 2015, which goes to show you what I know, but I guess when I said sixties, that collar with the 

Speaker 2 (00:40:44):
Tie. The 

Speaker 1 (00:40:44):
Tie, it just reminds me of, I dunno, something you would see Mia Pharaoh wear and Rosemary's baby or something. There's just something about it that has a very sixties look, but yeah, retro. Yeah. But it is very intentionally retro. I think it's very intentionally retro. 

Speaker 2 (00:40:59):
And then one of my absolute favorite pieces, 

Speaker 1 (00:41:02):
This thing is something, huh? 

Speaker 2 (00:41:03):
Right as you come in the ball gown with the strapless black ball gown with the amazing rosette of black silk in the front, but across the bottom we have flying cranes, so it directly relates to our kimono over there. But what is amazing is to know that this was by Ray, so we're now moving from western designers using Japanese inspirations. This side combines Western designers and Japanese designers on that. So Ray Kawakubo is an amazing designer. She's 77 now, and she's still creating, she has 21 lines of clothing from the J-pop clothing all the way up to the very, very fine ho couture. Okay. The cranes that are on here are in flight in white, in gold, and they were created by a use zen dyer and Kyoto. So she designed the outfit, but then hired an artist to paint the design on there. 

Speaker 1 (00:42:09):
That 

Speaker 2 (00:42:09):
Is not unusual in Japan. That is not unusual. I met a woman in Kyoto. She had painted her own ob. 

Speaker 1 (00:42:17):
It 

Speaker 2 (00:42:17):
Was fabulous. 

Speaker 1 (00:42:19):
It 

Speaker 2 (00:42:19):
Was just fabulous. It was all in Sumer, the black ink and washes on that one. So artists working together on kimono, very, very traditional on that one. And so this dress is from 91, 19 91. Again, 

Speaker 1 (00:42:35):
You mentioned the padded. Was that what you were about to point out? Yeah. I noticed that as we were standing here, the padded base of this, this seems very traditional in some way. 

Speaker 2 (00:42:46):
It is very traditional, but isn't that a great contrast with the black, white, and gold 

Speaker 1 (00:42:52):
And the whole thing has this interesting mix of, because at first when you just see the sort of silhouette of it, it looks very western ball gown kind of design until you look closer. Until then you like, yeah, all of these, the painted surface and that padded thing, and even the way that, I mean, I love this. The way it just bunches up into this crazy rose shape on the front is just, it's so, so crazy. 

Speaker 2 (00:43:18):
I wouldn't try to sit at the dinner table with that, but 

Speaker 1 (00:43:20):
Oh no. Well, I don't think she's known for designing things that are always terribly practical. 

Speaker 2 (00:43:26):
Re haku says, have fun. 

Speaker 1 (00:43:28):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:43:30):
We're going over to the left side of the exhibit now, and we must honor Hanai Maori. She was the first Japanese designer to be invited to show in France in Paris. She established her studio in Tokyo in 1951, and in 1977 was invited to Paris. This dress is amazing. I wish it could be seen by somebody who's walking because if you look 

Speaker 1 (00:43:58):
Closely, 

Speaker 2 (00:43:59):
It's actually two layers and it's the same pattern. I'm going to say sorry, under kimono, I'm used to that is the same design, but over that is this very thin chiffon printed with the same design. So can you imagine moving and how that design would sway back and forth as you moved? 

Speaker 1 (00:44:21):
Yeah, it's very hypnotic looking. I mean, yeah, it's really fascinating. I hadn't noticed it until we just walked up to it and I saw, I was like, oh my gosh, this is really crazy. The layering just creates a really fascinating effect. 

Speaker 2 (00:44:36):
The shoulders are very plain, but then you come down to the open sleeves and the flower designs and you come down and even the flower designs are sort of in wave patterns and come down. Then you do have a wave pattern there. You have iris, you have huggy, you have bell flowers, you have, I think there are pinks down here on that. So she's combined so much of the surface designs of Japanese dresses with a pretty western silhouette except for the sleeves on that one. The next one is by her also, and this is the dress I would steal if I could. It's very, very simple. It's a tubular black sheath and it has grass, what's called grass script calligraphy running down it. 

Speaker 1 (00:45:22):
It's 

Speaker 2 (00:45:22):
A long tradition in Japan to have writing on your clothing. It's considered to be a sign of your education and your understanding of traditional culture, poetry, and literature. 

Speaker 1 (00:45:34):
Now, 

Speaker 2 (00:45:34):
This is not translatable and a lot of grass calligraphy by famous calligraphers, somebody had to write down what it was they wanted to say 

Speaker 1 (00:45:43):
Because 

Speaker 2 (00:45:43):
Nobody else can. But everybody loves the flow of the thin and the thick 

Speaker 1 (00:45:49):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:45:50):
The swirls or the brush strokes on that one. So the calligraphy on the sleeves, the chiffon sleeves, and then on the tubular dress, very, very simple, very striking on that. Again, she was the first Asian designer to be asked to show in Paris. 

Speaker 1 (00:46:08):
Wow. 

Speaker 2 (00:46:08):
And a woman at that. 

Speaker 1 (00:46:09):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:46:11):
Then we have Sarah Burton and Sarah Burton has modified a couple things. She's actually brought sort of a harness on this dress, which we refers to the samurai culture. 

Speaker 1 (00:46:22):
But 

Speaker 2 (00:46:23):
You look at the dress and she's got these bold graphics on there and flower blossom, the wave tendrils, if you know the great wave print by Hokusai 

Speaker 1 (00:46:35):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:46:35):
Those tendrils that come over the ship, and she's got that on that. The boots are very western on that. Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (00:46:45):
Did you see the heel on that or the lack thereof? That is insane. 

Speaker 2 (00:46:50):
Yeah. 

Speaker 1 (00:46:50):
It's, 

Speaker 2 (00:46:51):
You've got to check out the heels 

Speaker 1 (00:46:54):
Where the heel should be is, and then it's sort of springs out from the front in a way that kind of mimics some of the shapes on the jumpsuit too. It is kind of a wave backwards, and it's funny, if I hadn't looked at the label, I would've probably pegged this one for a seventies design too, because of the patterns and colors look very seventies to me. Very. But yeah, this is from 2015. Yeah, 2015, 15. And for Alexander McQueen too. So a name people will probably recognize, 

Speaker 2 (00:47:31):
Well, they might recognize Sarah Burton because she designed Kate Middleton's wedding dress when she married Prince Hart. Prince 

Speaker 1 (00:47:37):
William. Oh, I had no idea. 

Speaker 2 (00:47:38):
Yeah. Hey, when you're docent, you pick up all sorts of fun facts. Hey, our guests love it, 

Speaker 1 (00:47:45):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:47:46):
We'll take care of our guests. 

Speaker 1 (00:47:50):
That is a juicy, good detail. 

Speaker 2 (00:47:53):
I'll promote docent tours as much as possible. John Galliano, this is a 2001 dress, and when you came in, you noticed the graphic design with the flowers and something that was round. It's from this particular 

Speaker 1 (00:48:06):
Glass. 

Speaker 2 (00:48:07):
So the fabric is Japanese, but the construction is very western. The important thing with this one is the oxcart design that is there and that's the oxcart wheel. 

Speaker 1 (00:48:20):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:48:20):
That goes back 1200 years of the hang on period when the only people who could ride in a wield vehicle were the royalty. So the imperial family and the Cortier on that one. But Galliano has zippers and all sorts of crazy stuff to that one. 

Speaker 1 (00:48:40):
It's pretty, pretty bizarre. That's zipper when you first hear like, wait, why is that zipper there? And then yeah, it looks almost like this sort of half boice or something that's sort of draped around her neck and it sort of looks like it's all sort of tied together. It's pretty out there. 

Speaker 2 (00:48:55):
It's one of those showstoppers. 

Speaker 1 (00:48:56):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:48:57):
That's what the designers do. 

Speaker 1 (00:48:58):
It's great. 

Speaker 2 (00:48:59):
They do showstoppers. When we come around to enter the next room, we're going to pass another piece of Cincinnati history, our Shi Ya Madani vase, which has flying birds on it, 

Speaker 1 (00:49:13):
And it really relates nicely to the 

Speaker 2 (00:49:16):
Coat with the swallows and the evening dress with the flying cranes 

Speaker 1 (00:49:19):
On. Yeah, definitely. It relates nicely to those 

Speaker 2 (00:49:24):
Shi madani worked almost 50 years at Brookwood pottery, creating pottery and teaching a lot of the decorators too. So we have an example of an OB that's actually out on the wall in its full length. Now, Obi come in many different sizes and many different lengths. I've seen Obie that are, I own Obie that are longer than this 

Speaker 1 (00:49:46):
One. 

Speaker 2 (00:49:47):
But the great thing about this one is you can see the artistry of the textile designers in it with the gold and the brocades of all the different flowers in the round shapes. Japanese family crests are generally in a round shape. So rather than the shield shape in the western, which is very nice to see, and there's a fold line there because often, well the fold, the OB is folded before it is put on. We have two dresses here. One the Yamamoto is not quite so recent. It's 1995. And the OB fabric is actually the skirt of this just in your face, red and gold. That is I think the 16 petal Kant. And that is a symbol of the imperial family. And that OB has been brought up to create a very unusual, it's almost like the OB was tied in the front rather than the back courtesans wore their OB tied in the front. Normal people wore their OB tied in the back. 

Speaker 1 (00:50:54):
Oh, 

Speaker 2 (00:50:54):
Oh, yes. It was quite the fashion. 

Speaker 1 (00:50:56):
Oh, I had no idea. 

Speaker 2 (00:50:57):
Oh yes. 

Speaker 1 (00:50:58):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:50:59):
If you get online to look at even more woodblock prints and we have out on display, you'll see some amazing obie that they must've been 30 feet long to get the bows that are in the woodblock prints. So the very plain top in a knit jersey, and then that astonishing skirt in the gold. This toshiko Yama Waki is again one of our early Japanese designers to do western fashion, and the print that is on the label is Hoka size, great wave. 

Speaker 1 (00:51:37):
So 

Speaker 2 (00:51:38):
It's right here for you to see and get the inspiration that she hits toshiko she had for this wave of gold that starts at the bottom and goes up the body and then breaks across the chest. This is an amazing technical embroidery. It's called couching. So those are actually gold threads. So that's gold wrapped around a small thread, and then the gold thread is embroidered or stitched onto the fabric. You even have the bow in the back. Absolutely stunning design. 

Speaker 1 (00:52:13):
So bold and these kind of hop around in time a bit. And this side, because this is 1956, so it's a little bit earlier than some of the other pieces we were just looking at. And actually when I just looked down and saw that I was sort of more impressed by it because it feels a little more, I would've thought it was more recent actually, just to look at it. I don't know. I didn't pin it to the fifties 

Speaker 2 (00:52:35):
When it was a good designer, a show, a good designer, a timeless designer 

Speaker 1 (00:52:38):
I guess. So I feel like this is pretty timeless. I feel like somebody could walk out, this would not be surprising to see somebody on the red carpet in something like this right now it looks 

Speaker 2 (00:52:50):
And they really stand out. 

Speaker 1 (00:52:51):
Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:52:52):
Really stand out. So we're just going to turn around because this way we can see the shibori section starting out with our most recent friend, Iris van Uren, when we had her show the woman who does Sculptures on the Body. Fabulous story behind this one. Iris loves to explore and experiment with technology. Believe it or not, you are looking at the lightest fabric ever created in the world. It's called Super Ganza. It was created in Japan for an audio company to pad some of the components in their audio items. And what she has done is taken the shibori idea of grabbing a little bit of fabric and tying it so that it takes or doesn't take die. And some of that is where the pinch comes out toward us, and then some of it is where the pinch goes away from us. So she's like this in and out and again, you have the wave kind of idea with the circular lines there. So I think this is very recent, 2016, 

Speaker 1 (00:54:09):
So 

Speaker 2 (00:54:09):
This is one of her early designs on that. 

Speaker 1 (00:54:13):
It reminds me of honeycombs or something. Absolutely. That's sort of what I think of. I mean, a lot of her dresses have a sort of pulling from biology and they feel like they're pulling from nature and other places and that's what if I look at this and even then some of the structures feel kind of bone like or shape sea skeletal too. So yeah, it's really cool. 

Speaker 2 (00:54:39):
If we go behind Eris, this dress by Yamamoto has shibori on just one part 

Speaker 1 (00:54:45):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:54:46):
It's much, much easier to see the shibori here where you have the little dots at the top and then around that. This is quite a complicated shibori because of a couple different colors used in it, not just one which is very traditional. I'm actually wearing a shibori right now, and this is my cherry blossom shibori for the color. Then back here we have a ante and it's a pullover blouse that is shibori, but instead of ironing out or flattening out the puckers that come with shibori, they left them. And so this makes a very, very stretchy material and that blouse could be worn by a number of different size people 

Speaker 1 (00:55:31):
Because 

Speaker 2 (00:55:31):
It would just stretch out to your size. Behind that is, it's not all for women here. We do have some men's fashion. This is a shibori that's very different. Shibori can be in the small dots like we're seeing here. It can be larger patterns, it could be tied with silk. Anybody that's gone to a day camp has done it with rubber bands. 

Speaker 1 (00:55:52):
We do it about, we've already done it this year at our camp. There you go, there 

Speaker 2 (00:55:56):
You go. This one uses woodblock and that created the black lattice design and then each of the blocks that was left dyed not black, has been individually hand colored. So it's pretty striking on that. 

Speaker 1 (00:56:13):
Yeah, it reminds me of a Mondrian painting or something. That's kind of what it's wearing a Mondrian. 

Speaker 2 (00:56:20):
We have a whole wall here of Japanese designers and these are designs that are playing with two dimensional and there is a triumvirate of Japanese designers who burst on the scene in the eighties and nineties, and that is is Miyaki, Ray Kawakubo and Yogi Yamamoto. So we've seen Yamamoto. We've seen Kawakubo already. We'll see him some more. This is Mke Mke at age 80 something is still designing. He is another experimenter. Before Van Uren, he worked with many textile manufacturers to play around with polyester and see what you can do with polyester. He has a couple, two things we have here to see is the pleats please Collection, where they worked out a way for permanently pleading fabric. So on the wall is a red and orange design that actually is a dress, and when it's not warm it becomes flat like that circle. But then when you put it on and you put your head through the hole there, it goes out from your body 

Speaker 1 (00:57:28):
And 

Speaker 2 (00:57:28):
It bounces around. It's Mary basket here in town collects mikay and she wore one the other night for the founder's opening. It's very cool. Then he also does things called one piece of cloth, and it's based on origami. So this is in two versions. It's on a mannequin and it's on the display as a flat piece. Miyaki is going back to the Japanese, use everything possible, don't waste anything. So it's called one piece of cloth. The idea that there's no wastage. That's the fabulous thing about kimono cut. There's no wastage. It is woven to be the exact length and width needed and nothing is wasted. Everything is used. It's very different from Western fashion where you have all these little bits and pieces left over on that one. So you can see it when it's flat and you can see it when it's on the body, which is very fun and funky. 

Speaker 1 (00:58:22):
Yeah, it's really cool that we were able to have two examples of this. I feel like that's so rare. I mean, I wish we could have done that with the other Miyaki piece here that we have only displayed flat, but it's pretty rare that somebody is able to have two examples in their collection of something to be able to display it in both ways. So this is probably one of my favorite pieces in the exhibition just because of that, to see it this way and then to get to see how it looks unfolded on top of somebody. 

Speaker 2 (00:58:54):
And we have two more miyaki right here. This is again from his pleading. Again, it's polyester and the dress. We have it on the mannequin, a different dress, but another dress flat and there's sculptural pieces. Oh 

Speaker 1 (00:59:09):
Yeah. 

Speaker 2 (00:59:10):
Whether they're flat or on the body, they're sculptural pieces. The bronze one, I just love that color. 

Speaker 1 (00:59:16):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (00:59:16):
It's incredible. And again, he runs something called Reality Lab. Quite a few different people, including a math professor where they are experimenting with fabric as much as possible to be ecologically aware. On that one, we have another rate. Sometimes you think you'll never figure out it's a kawakubo until you read the label because she keeps changing. She keeps changing, which is fine. So again, you have this flatness right here with, it's the jacket skirt and socks on that. 

Speaker 1 (00:59:53):
This one kills me. I think it's so funny. I think it's hilarious. It's, I mean, it's so silly and I think the label makes reference to this, but it almost feels like paper doll clothes, everything is sort of flattened looking because it kind of gets pinched together on the edges, and so it has this silly silliness to it. And then this pattern on the bottom, which is basically camouflage. 

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I just realized that 

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
With these big sort of red flowers over top of it, I mean it's just so goofy. So I just love this one. This one makes me laugh the most. So over the top. 

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Then the platform in the middle, we have a number of very modern pieces. If you start in the back, the Rudy Gernreich piece, and of course we saw that when we had the Rnw right show 

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Here, 

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
I don't dunno how many years ago. And then we have, these are from 1994. They're ensembles by John Gano, which take the kimono loosely in that they have obs, the black one has the sleeves, and then they're more risque, I guess you could 

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Say out. Yeah. It becomes very lingerie. 

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Very lingerie, 

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Like directed. It gets a little, what am I trying to say? 

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
There you go. But the OB design is beautiful. 

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
That 

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Silver on black is stunning. 

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Is 

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Just stunning. Then we have the Moraga piece here. She even has a matching fan on that one 

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Eco. 

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
So it again is a play we saw in the other room of the idea of the hoori, the jacket over the kimono and very loose and flowing sleeves, the collar there, but she does have a shirt underneath it. Kind of fun. 

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
And this is a pretty recent piece too. This is from 2013. I feel like you can kind of tell it looks very, very now fashion and not quite as out there as maybe the KO Cabo stuff. You can imagine somebody actually wearing this pretty easily. 

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Now, someone actually wore this. Okay, 

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Okay. 

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
This is a Boro coat and it's what we are calling rag wear. Now the Japanese have always been a very resource poor country. So they used and reused everything. Kimono when it wore out would become cut down to be children's clothing would be cut down to patch up something else, be cut down to be dish rags, to be padding for your shoe, the winter boots and things like that. Everything was reused. This is just the most amazing collect of blues as the Indigo faded and they just kept patching it. It is a padded coat, so it's a winter coat on that. So they would have winter coats like that. Very much farmers out in the rural area. The other thing to remember is we forget that every piece of cloth in a rural community was made in that community. Some woman, after doing all the day's choice, sat down at the loom and wove fabric for hours to get clothing for her family. So when something started to wear out, you were going to patch it. 

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
And I think it's good to note that this is an older piece. That's because it does blend so seamlessly with the pieces next to it. It's sort of showing us, here's where this kind of comes from, but it actually just looks kind of like it could be a piece of contemporary fashion, but it's from anywhere. The label says just between 1868 and 1912. So yeah, it blends in perfectly with these two pieces right next to it. 

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
And people do collect these now 

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
If you 

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Can find them, 

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Because 

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
They literally would wear it to death. 

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
So 

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Kawakubo picked up on that whole, she deliberately created this. So it has some rough edges and some uncut, but more like ripped ideas. The layering that's there, or both of two of the curators that came with the founding show were wearing Kawakubo items with the ripped and the unfinished edges, you might say. 

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Yeah, a lot of the pieces of hers that I'm familiar with have that look of clothes being falling apart or being transformed into something else. So yeah, this feels very, very in line with some of 

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
The bagger look. And we have to come back here. We have to start at the t-shirts first. We are entering the J-Pop section, 

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
And 

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
J-Pop owes so much to Osama Zuka, who was the Walt Disney of Japan. 

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
He basically started the current craze for manga. And we have a selection of shirts here that basically honor him with some of the different series that he created. He created quite a few. He began right after World War II and went for quite a long time. So you have the orange shirt is actually in the manga form. So it's a comic book. Manga is a comic book and in the panels of the comic book, and you read right to Left. You don't read to right on that one. And then it has its own bag. It actually is designed for Lacoste. 

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Yeah, it's got the little alligator on it and everything. 

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
It looks a little odd to me, but that's me on that one. And then you have the crash boom bang here, because so many of the manga do a lot to visualize special effects like explosions and things like 

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
That. 

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
And the little alligator, again, 

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
The printing on this is really interesting. The way it gets the different gradients on the smoke and the line, it's pretty fascinating. He made a series called, I think it's like here, we call it Kimba, the White Lion, which you were mentioning. He's like the Disney of Japan. And Disney was very aware of him as well. And shortly after they started working on a little project called The Lion King that bears a lot of resemblance to his piece, Z's piece to the point where there're scenes that are shockingly note for note like, oh, this is just a ripoff. That's interesting. 

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
That's interesting. We have two examples of kimono back here. This first one by Mke is a coat from 2016. It's more like a hoori, a short coat. It's very abstracted geisha, very abstracted geisha, actually. Almost just like she has kabuki makeup on with that red around the eyes and everything like that. 

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Yeah, really. It's actually kind of interesting how abstracted it is, but how well it still reads as a phase. I mean, when you really look at it and the more you break it down, you're like, this should not read as a phase, but it's like it's just our brains will see faces wherever they want two. And so look at that. The mouth is just a big circle and a little sliver of another circle almost behind it poking through. I 

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Know. 

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
And it's like, yep, that's a mouth. 

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
We're 

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Good with that. 

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
We're good with that. And then directly across from that one is we have one here by Castle BoJack, and this is from 1996. It is sheer 

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
With 

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
All that gold on it. So back to Lacker wear and all that. But actually we have the print that he based his design on, it was not unusual to show three famous geisha or three famous waitresses and the same print, increased sales. They were into that. And then he added himself in hanging down from the top with his dog. And he even has a JC for his initials right there. And part of that is chocolate and Me apparently if you translate it. So this is, 

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
Yes, 

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
You would definitely have a very plain black sheath under this one or white maybe because you wanted to make sure that this design shows up. And then she's got an Uchi WA fan that's the rigid round fan, but it has a smiley face on 

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
It. 

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Kauai. It's all about Kauai. 

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
And then our last platform here in the center, one is Kauai, the little sparkly eyed girls on the dress. And as I was doing my notes, having, this is Harajuku style here, and Harajuku style started actually with combining Western fashions with Japanese fashions. But as anime became popular, the fashionistas in Tokyo began to dress themselves as their favorite anime characters. And they gather in Harajuku Park on Sundays, and all of a sudden it came to me. It's like Sunday's in the park with J-Pop, and that's what we're looking at here. She's got a tunic over a little short skirt with the character, with the sparkly eyes on it. Then on the left, we have a men's outfit that is patched. 

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
Could be 

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Over in the Boro section. But what it is covered with Katana and Katana is the Japanese syllabary that is used now in manga for pop and sound words and accent words. 

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
So 

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
He's like an explosion of sound, if you can read the katakana 

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
On 

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
That one. And then on our right we have the tunic jacket, trousers and sneakers that is all on a robot character called Mobil's Suit Gundam. And it's in a fictional universe, so it's all references to that. So plain black trousers, but the rest of it's pretty crazy. I didn't notice the Under 

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Shark on that. Yeah, I was just about to point it out. It's like clear 

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Plastic plastic. 

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yeah. Underneath. That's pretty crazy. That is, yeah. I love this one. This one's so wild. It does feel like in some ways very conservative until you look at the patterns and the other things. And I love with the one next to it, the girl's real hair poking. It's this pattern of this manga character. But she has hair threads coming out for her hair. It's so funny. I 

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Don't know. Yeah, I don't know why they did that one. 

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
And then the mask too, that's something else we didn't point out about this one. It's like it is a sparkly face mask and it's sort of terrifying. 

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
It's not one that I'm, I try not to look at 

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
It if you want to know the truth. 

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
I'm just not into that. 

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
But I think there's something like the kind of cuteness meets this kind of scary thing 

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
That can happen in Aman Manga. 

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
Very definitely. And I feel like there's something, my sense of a lot of Japanese culture is that they sort of love putting the cute up against the grotesque sometimes. Absolutely. And playing with that a lot. 

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
They're big. If you read Love Caio Hern, they're big into ghost stories. 

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
Yeah, 

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
It still 

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Is. 

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
So let's just wrap it up here. 

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
Yeah. Thank you so much, Helen, for coming out and showing us around. So this was really, I learned a lot today. 

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Yeah. I do want to point out as we walk out that for guests who will be visiting after listening to this, there are wonderful text panels on fabric hung throughout the exhibit that pull in some of the things that you and I have been talking about. And when you come look for the traditional and the avant-garde, 

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Yes, there will 

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Be. Have fun with the J-Pop. 

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
Thanks again. You're welcome. Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have your own conversations about the art. General. Admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking Special exhibitions on view right now are Kimono Refashioning, contemporary Style and No Spectators, the Art of Burning Man. For program reservations and more information, visit cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and also join our Art Palace Facebook group. Our theme song is Ferran Music Al by Becca Lau. If you enjoy the show, why not leave us a nice review or rating? You can also take the survey which helps us learn more about our listeners@cincinnatiartmuseum.org slash podcast. I'm Russell Leig, and this has been Art Palace produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.