kimono experts, please?

cmpollack

cmpollack

VFG Member
Two kimono(s?), lots of questions...

The first one I know is Chinese, and modern-ish. But how modern? And is there any interest in this type of item, or would someone just take a trip to their local Chinatown for something equivalent? And is it even referred to as a kimono, or just a robe?

I thought the brocade was pretty, and it was hanging at the estate sale with 3 other kimonos, so in a moment of weakness I grabbed...

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The second one I can tell is for a man, and that's about it! (Also, I'm sure it's vintage, but as far as how vintage, not a clue...) Can't identify the fabric, but it's kind of rough in texture, definitely not silk! And it's lined in a heavywhite white fabric, very thoroughly finished (also very age-stained; that's how I know it's old... )

Has a belt loop and belt, so for Western market? There are a pair of snaps that allow it to be snapped over the hip like a Western style robe, but it would have been easy for the owner to sew those on himself.

Finally, my daughter is able to identify the characters as Chinese Katakana, but not translate. Anyone out there able to take a stab at what it says?

Many thanks!

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Hi Carrie,

I'll bump this up for you. Can't be much more help but to say that those are lovely. I think the second is Japanese.

Hopefully someone who knows more than I do will come along soon.
 
The top one is a recent kimono ( serged seams, rayon) made for the Western market. Kimonos are a Japanese style, not Chinese, so I would guess it was made inexpensively in China and only for export.


The second - hard to say. It looks post World War Two certainly, perhaps 1960s. The loops and snaps make it for export. Is it hand sewn throughout? That would make it possible to be made in Japan.

Hollis
 
My guess with #2 is Korean War period....the US boys did R&R in Japan, and came home with Japanese souvenirs.
 
Jewelry rolls and pouches--that sounds about right, Joules. I love the color/motifs on this, but guess I'll need to chalk it up to estate-sale-on-four-hours-of-sleep judgment and either use it myself or donate it...

Hollis/Maryalice--I was thinking no later than 60s on the second one (the fastidious construction and stains both look of that vintage... ;) ) and that it's possibly a military souvenir of some sort. The guy whose estate I bought it from was a distinguished WWII vet, so he wouldn't have picked it up in Korea, but on the other hand his estate apparently included items from his wife's family (she died a couple of years before him) so that's still a possibility as country of origin, I guess. (For whatever it's worth, there were two other men's kimonos, so plain that I didn't bother with them or even look at them that closely, but after doing a bit of research since, I think that THOSE were probably the most authentic... :no: ).

I'm going to try my daughter again to see if she can take an educated guess at what language the characters on it are from (though that's probably a challenge for an expert in Asian languages...) I know (vaguely) that Japanese uses a mix of kanji characters (made of syllabic components, and specific to Japanese I believe) and hiragana/katakana (Chinese, thousands of them since a unique character is used for each word). And according to Wikipedia, Korean uses Chinese characters with a Korean pronunciation. So though figuring out country of manufacture through those characters would be wonderful, it may not be possible...

Hollis, the only exposed seams I could find (literally, even in the belt) to check for hand vs machine sewing were in the collar, and they were machine sewn.

Any thoughts on fabric possibilities? It has the crispness and luster of a gazar-type fabric. Anything men's kimonos are typically made of besides silk, or is this just an oddball export fabric? Can't figure out what the lining might be, either--it's very substantial, gives the kimono/robe almost a quilted/padded sort of feel.

Think I should hazard a professional cleaning to try and lighten the stains in the lining, or leave it alone?

And thanks for the bump, Candy--as you can see, I need all the help I can get on these!

Many thanks, all!
 
They both look like kimono style robes. And you're right about them being for the Western market. Apparently the Japanese think it's really odd that we use them as robes.

One way you can tell real kimonos from "fakes" is the width of the fabric. Kimonos in Japan are made from thin strips of material. 15" or so across. If the width is like our western materials then its not a real kimono.
 
I'm sure this is info you already know, or will soon be looking up, but I just wanted to let you know that the characters on the second robe are not Hiragana/Katakana. Those are the two phonetic Japanese alphabets. This would be Kanji, or Chinese characters.

I don't know much about either language, but I was a little thrown off because the characters are a lot rounder than the Chinese characters I'm used to seeing - with even brush strokes, and uniform sizes. So I did a little research, and it looks like these characters are done in xiaozhuan, or Small Seal Script style. This wiki article is pretty helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script
And this website has a great picture, where you can see the similarity between the characters on your robe: http://www.hellomandarin.com/blog/2009/03/09/chinese-culture-lesser-seal-script/

So, from what I can gather, this would be the equivalent of us using an Old English font on something to lend it an antique air. As to the country of origin, it seems like that character style would make it more likely to be made in China. However, here is an eBay auction for vintage obi fabric (definitely Japanese) with similar script, so your piece could be made in Japan, too.

As for selling this, I would agree the the loops/snap would have made this for the western market. If I'm not mistaken, though, this would be a piece for export done in the style of a yukata, which is a lightweight summertime kimono. I've used that as a keyword before, and gotten good results.

I'm sure this is more info than you wanted!!! I hope it's helpful in some way, though. Good luck with both pieces, they're very pretty!
 
I'm sure this is more info than you wanted!!!
Click to expand...

Absolutely NOT! Thank you SO much for this info and the links--exactly what I needed (especially as my daughter seems to be offline the past few days and I seem to have misremembered whatever I gleaned through her about Asian languages...)

I love the idea that there's a "nostalgia" factor in the choice of calligraphic font...

Thanks again!
 
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