This post will be covering the Dori-Kimono style. Something which I just made up because in going over notes for the first 20 years of 21st century section of Kimono history, I noticed a lack of a clear catchall term for what was happening in Japan at the time, at least in English descriptions of the time. I use the term Dori as I do not want to coin an unrelated term to the topic, but I also am reticent to claim all of Street style as 'Tori' either, whilst a large number of streets upon which the subculture originates in all use the suffix 'dori' (the bottom of Takeshita-dori for example), thence Dori-style.
Dori-style (2016) Tokyofashion.com
In my resources page I list Dori-style as:
A 2010's style deriving from the Kimono-hime subculture, wearers often wear vintage Kimono from 1920-2000, varied vintage and modern fashion accessories, bright colours and takes its inspiration from 1990's-2010s Japanese fashion from magazines like Kimono-Hime and Fruits and streetwear, frequently borrows from Japanese street fashion subcultures found like Lolita.[1]
In the great origin stories of this I shall begin in the 1960s to give some further context. After WWII the intersection of the West and Japan mirrored that of the 1860's, with a majority of Western influence and exertion being Statesian. With the reign of the American shogunate coming to an end in 1951 after he was fired, his legacy as Supreme Commander loomed large over the then wartime casualties such as fashion and architecture which unlike food was not a high priority item of the onion lifestyle. As such Kimono saw a rapid decline in their popularity and fell to the wayside in favour of western fashions, not as some sources may claim an unprecedented feat, as the Japanese upper class had been doing away with Kimono for a time since the 1880's as a part of adopting Westernisation. A practice which by 1900 had certainly trickled into the new middle and working classes with the adoption of smaller items of clothing such as high-collared shirts, pocket watches and Chelsea boots was able to mimic this new influential dress code.
Onion lifestyle gave way later on to the thrift lifestyle, it was said [that] Tokyo changed more from 1950-1960, than America. [...] The humiliation of defeat coupled with the notion that once Japan must 'get with the times' and take the 'American way', known by any other name as a colonial mentality, relegated the Kimono over to the LDP[...].[2]
The 'thrift lifestyle' I refer to here was the mindset which Japanese people rather like Londoners, had to follow between 1947-1959. A large amount of infrastructure, production systems and chains had been broken in the run up to the 1960s in Honshu, principally by American firebombing campaigns which had begun in February 1945 in an effort to destroy wartime ammunition supply and as a deterrent to the Japanese army who had vowed to continue a now almost lost war.[3] This prompted a great series of rationing during wartime, and from 1946 on, the dismantling and eventual reinstatement of a limited number of Japan Inc's heavy industry companies.
A number of these included manufacturing and chemical companies which were mostly targeted for their involvement in the wars by SCAP. By 1960, with the rise of Communism in neighbouring countries, American Foreign policy towards Japan shifted in favour of resurrecting the country as it had encouraged the Federal Western Republic of Germany Bloc to do so with the Marshall Plan.[4] Japan suddenly became a vital arm of American Defense Policy, although the only real change from 1952 to the present in defending Statesian high-flying foreign defence policy was the capacity of the US to establish controversial Military bases on Guam, Okinawa and in neighbouring South Korea. The US of course drew from its previous financial vulture model and made money from the interest collected on war loans.
The US apparently though did not factor in the previous century, a century which as anyone with any knowledge of Meiji Japan knows, is the age which saw the complete overhaul of Japan as a nation from an Asian small to great power between 1854 and 1902 with the arrival of Perry's black ships and the ratification of the Anglo Japanese Alliance which saw the Japanese upheld as the only PoC member at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, and promptly after forgetting to do their homework, let Japan be. Japan on the other hand had already begun hiring independent American financial advisors on the matter of how to restructure Japan Inc. This was successfully carried and is today referred to as the Japanese Economic miracle which lasted from approximately 1960-1980, leading to the Bubble economy due to Japanese domestic saving tactics from 1980-1989. Instead the United States promptly patted itself on the back, declared it all MacArthurs legacy and take credit for Japanese labour, the Constitution and 'Modernisation' to this day.
Kimono Fashions (1956) 投稿者によるスキャン
Back to Japan though, whilst the wearing of Kimono from 1945-1980 saw a marked decline in domestic Japanese markets due to the need to promote once again Westernisation, the thrift lifestyle did include fashion as you see above. Whilst Kimono eventually transitioned over the years to form a 'traditional' form of dress; 1950-1959 being still commonly seen, 1960-1979 worn by older or traditional people, 1980-1989 worn increasingly as a sign of wealth and of national pride; by the 1990s the Kimono was certainly not a commonly worn garment by many Japanese people.
It is this context information between 1980-1999 which provides us with the scene set for how Kimono began to worn increasingly by younger people, eventually forming the revivalist historical subculture or what I call 'Dori-style'. By the 1980-1999 date, I mean that in this period, the Kimono was increasingly taken up again as a sign of wealth, particularly associated with Ginza who could afford to buy $10,000 artisan kimono every other week, and increasingly as a sign of national pride. Pride became a factor as the country was seen to be back on its feet again with the reinvigoration of the Japanese economy, heralded by the 1964 Olympics and Japan's pride of place in the production and manufacturing of Electronics in the 1980s. As such, younger middle class people with more leisure time began to increasingly in an effort to take pride in their national heritage and traditions began taking up traditional hobbies, such as wearing and making Kimono or related items in the textile industry.
As such by the 1990s, an increasingly larger number of young women and some men had begun to regularly wear Kimono again, although only in a small number. This 1990s revivalist subculture began to form meetings, publish material on antique Kimono and to my understanding began to increasingly wear the Kimono out and about, encouarging others to do so themselves. This was bolstered, not hindered by the 1990 Bubble crash, as many derelict Kimono, abandoned due to superstitions about being haunted by their previous owners I was once told (a grapevine rumour though if anything), began to appear on the secondhand market for incredibly cheap prices. This allowed antique Kimono collections to be built on the cheap, which of course allowed revivalist Kimono groups to form more easily with gretaer access to the products themselves which lead inevitably to more books and groups and with the introduction of the WWW in 1991 prompted a great revival in particularly Meisen or Taisho era Kimono wearing.
The Archetypal Kimono-Hime style (2009) Flickr/Kimono-Hime
Kimono-Hime Style (2019) Tokyofashion.com
It it this historical revivalist subculture which backdrops the 2000's background for Dori Culture. I swear I will get there eventually, stick with me. In the early 2000's fanzines (fan magazines) or Mooks began to be published within this subculture.[5] The most prominent of these that I know of would be the Kimono Hime series which began publishing in 2003. This glossy Mook with its penchant for pouting and antiques spawned the Kimono-Hime subculture, at its height from 2004 - 2010 I would say. Kimono-Hime was the first big Kimono subculture to include blogging and vlogging, with platforms like Tumblr, our lovely Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress and I suspect Geocities will have had a few, as well as Livedoor and Mircosoft Excite in Japan.[6]
For a 2005 Kimono-Hime vlog, see:- http://kimonoandkitsuke.blogspot.com/2005/06/
The Kimono-Hime subculture of blogging, and copying the inspiration of Mooks, the aesthetic of brands like Kimono-Hime, Mamechiyo and Tokyo 135 all promoted a glossy subculture, similar to how Visual Kei and Gothic Lolita have spread around the world via the appreciation of either aesthetics and their cultural activities and communities.
This progressed further into the 2010's style which I call Dori-style. Another change had taken place in Japan since this time, with came about with the evolution of internet culture in Japan and social media. In Japan, the combination of Yahoo Auctions (most likely), greater number of physical stores setting up their online or e-commerce platforms, the proliferation of Mooks and overall increase in those interested in fashion who blogged, vlogged or wrote online, saw a rise in the number of resources and fashion subcultures. This occurred abroad with the popularity of Ebay stores, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook & Twitter meetup events and the popularity of Street Photography, all of these merged to form what we may now call Dori-style which emerged around 2008 - 2018 by my estimates.[7]
I say 2008 - 2015 because the overall style of dress changed to a more individualistic style by this time and branched off due to the style seemingly becoming blase among the public and groups and individuals involved. Styling altered so that a less modest and more international style emerged and new shops began to open in Japan to shift to this demand, away from the frilly, traditional and antique and into a more layered and punk DIY aesthetic of Dori.
Dori-style instead was the new aesthetic which drew its style influence and aspiration from Street photography in Japan rather than simply from books which is the major distinction between the two aesthetics of Dori and Hime styles. Hime styles for instance are exemplified by their pleated bottoms taken from Mamechiyo, pouty expressions and rigid Kitsuke, following the trend of revivalist historical and antique styles promoted by the resurgence in the 1990s of Japanese domestic subcultures. Whereas Dori often is exemplified by its elaborate and innovative styling such as ornate non-traditional Musubi knots and Haori ties, incorporating elements from other cultures including motifs and western clothing items such as turtle neck jumpers to replace Eri, as well as often hand-made elements such as Obidome. Dori style often plays with hemlines and modesty more than the conservative and modest styles of Hime and is more like the rebellious sibling of the two, playing around more with silhouettes, very bold colours (e.g.- neon) and DIY Kitsuke. Dori fashion often could be find in magazines like Fruits and online at Tkyofashion.com, both of whom document/ed Japanese street photography and youth fashion.
In context therefore, Dori-style is the current global aspect of JKTC, with a complex mix of Western and Eastern fashion at the forefront. Kimono in this context are derivatives of a time where print publication was replaced by digital platforms and formats, moving from away from a consumer based in Japan towards global groups and younger demographics of people involved in fashion. Particularly, it is a reflection of how Japanese audiences have responded to the history of Kimono and its role in the modern day, not as a item of historical intrigue, but once again as fashion in its own right. Dori is defined by its break away point from the Hime subculture and the technological constraints both subcultures were afforded in their times. In essence though Dori-style is part of a wider acceptance and wearing of Kimono once more as a fashionable item and as a transitive style.
Essay #6 will be on the aforementioned tea-gown and loungewear issue in Western KTC.
Bibliography
[1] https://kaguyaschest.blogspot.com/search/label/ResourcePage
[2] https://kaguyaschest.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-legacy-of-macarthur-dynasty-on-ktc.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raids_on_Japan
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mook_(publishing)
[6] https://themeisle.com/blog/history-of-blogging/
[7] https://tokyofashion.com/page/10/?s=kimono
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