Latest news with #MeijiPeriod
NHK
20-06-2025
- General
- NHK
Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima to be designated 'Special Historic Site'
The Japanese government will designate the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, western Japan, as a Special Historic Site that has especially high value for preservation. It would be the first such designation for a structure built since the Meiji Period, which started in the latter 19th century. A panel at Japan's Cultural Affairs Agency recommended the designation on Friday. The brick building was erected in 1915 and served as the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall. It partially survived the 1945 atomic bombing of the city. Also called Genbaku Dome, the structure is already designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The building was only about 160 meters from ground zero, but the shell of the dome miraculously survived the bombing while inner parts of the building burned down. The panel said it regards the structure as having extremely high value as a symbol of disaster from the first-ever atomic bombing in history, which is preserved in the same state as immediately after the explosion. The most recent monument designated a Special Historic Site to date is Goryokaku, a western-style fort in Hokkaido, which was completed in the late Edo Period in the 19th Century.
Vogue
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Adam Lippes Resort 2026 Collection
Adam Lippes took a trip to Japan last December, visiting Tokyo and Kyoto, and staying at a ryokan in Shuzenji. He came back raving, as so many do, about 'a culture continually in search of a higher form of perfection.' Travel has been informing his recent collections; a trip through Sicily was the starting point for his pre-fall outing, for resort it's naturally Japan. Pointing to the geometric mosaic print of a shirtdress in shades of navy, chocolate brown, gold, plum, and persimmon, Lippes namechecked Robert Motherwell's Lyric Suite, a series of 600 ink paintings. Motherwell used rick paper, rather than traditional canvas, which gave the paintings their 'delicate, translucent quality.' Japan's influence on this collection was indeed subtle. The references were present if you looked for them, in the relaxed shape of balloon pants, say, which are a nod to construction workers' uniforms, or the loose sleeves of wrap shirts, which are cut along the lines of a summery yukata. There was also a floral print inspired by a Meiji period lacquer box. But you don't have to be a Japanophile to take pleasure in these clothes, whether it's the shine of a lacquered wool trench in a deep shade of burgundy or the brushed mohair of a boxy jacket. One wear of his 'sweatsuits' in luxurious double-face merino knit and you're never going back to standard issue cotton again. 'It's really sporty. Less dressy,' he said, riffling through the racks at a photoshoot. 'We're moving out of a sort of dress phase into separates—it feels right. A sheath dress is the easy thing to design and make, but she's wanting more interesting shapes.' That goes for evening, as much as day. The quilted silk and lurex of a bandeau top and slim line skirt felt nearly weightless, and a simple yet striking v-neck gown that glides over the body was cut with a single seam using a Japanese pattern-making technique. He pulled out a tank dress in a crinkly fabric made from silk and metal. 'It's a little bit pushed for me, not to be pressed,' he laughed, his own search for a higher form of perfection yielding an unexpected, captivating result.
The Guardian
04-06-2025
- The Guardian
Embroidered silks to Adidas collabs: the evolution of the kimono
NGV senior curator Wayne Crothers says that up until the 20th century the term kimono was used generically to describe all clothing – the garments we now know as kimonos were simply 'what everyone wore'. He says: 'Historically they didn't use the word kimono. They used all of these huge vocabulary of words to describe different styles.' Photograph: Mitch Fong/National Gallery of Victoria Made for an aristocratic woman during the Edo period, circa 1800, this silk garment was designed to be worn open, with the padded hem trailing behind. It depicts a falconry scene – a common hobby for wealthy people at that time. 'An imperial lord or a princess would ride in that cart at the bottom,' Crothers says. 'This is very much for samurai-class women.' At the time the kimono was made, Japan had closed its borders to the wider world but inside the country it was a time of relative peace and prosperity, at least for the upper classes. Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria Outer layer garments during this period were often 'gorgeously, embroidered and decorated', Crothers says. First, a kimono would be coloured through resist-dye techniques, then more colour and detail was added through embroidery. Photograph: Mitch Fong/NGV Crothers says this garment is at the 'completely other end of the scale … a kimono made out of necessity from fragments or scraps of fabric'. While people think of Japan as wealthy, this garment from the Meiji period (1868-1912) shows 'there were people that didn't have very much finance, they toiled very hard as labourers or farmers'. Called a boro (rag) kimono, scraps were quilted on top of each other until it was thick enough to provide warmth in winter. This technique shows 'the more love that you imbue into an object, the more beautiful it becomes'. Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria During the Meiji period, from 1868 onwards, Japan reopened its borders to the world and Japanese design became a global obsession. During the late 19th century, it was very fashionable for aristocratic western women to sit for portraits in Japanese garments. This artwork by Australian impressionist John Longstaff was painted shortly after he arrived in Paris in 1890. Photograph: John Longstaff/NGV Department store Liberty, in London, were 'very early adopters of importing the export kimono from Japan and then also adapting the silhouette for western tastes', says Charlotte Botica, curator of fashion and textiles at NGV. This gown, made in-house by Liberty in 1910, features western flowers depicted in a Japanese style, with a classic kimono shape adapted into a western evening robe. Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria This poster showcases the visual exchange that happened between Japan and the west from the late 19th century onward. Hisui Sugiura was Japan's first superstar graphic designer. This poster is an advertisement he made for the department store Mitsukoshi. Sugiura had recently returned from Paris when he created the work in 1914 and was inspired by art nouveau style. That style had in turn been heavily influenced by traditional Japanese aesthetics. Illustration: Hisui Sugiura/National Gallery of Victoria Made in 1930, this is the kimono equivalent of novelty boxers. Men's outer robes tended to be dark and sober but their inner robes (nagajuban) were a chance for self-expression. It features illustrations of planes, ships and automobiles. During this era, for the first time, young men and women 'earned their own income and they could buy the things that they wanted … rather than being dependent on their parents', Crothers says. It is one of many garments in the exhibition 'that reveal the interests of the 'modern girls' and the 'modern boys' of the 1930s … moga and mobo was the abbreviated term in Japan at the time'. Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria Made in 1961, this is a museum piece from renowned artisan Serizawa Keisuke. 'Rather than just dyeing a flat piece of fabric or textile, he's using the kimono format as a canvas to create his works,' Crothers says. It is dyed using an Okinawan technique involving banana leaf fibre and stencils. This motif is 'inspired by glaze dribbling down the side of a jar'. Photograph: National Gallery of Victoria Tamao Shigemune is one of the leading Harajuku street style designers working today. During the 20th century, kimonos were seen as impractical for a long period but, from the 1990s on, the style has re-emerged among young, fashionable people. Tamao uses polyester and digital printing techniques to make more affordable kimono. Photograph: Tamao Shigemune/Katomi/National Gallery of Victoria Rumi Rock is another leading contemporary street style designer. This kimono, which features long sleeves traditionally worn by young women, was made for a coming of age ceremony. It is paired with a modern take on geta, a double 'toothed' traditional platform sandal. Composite: Rumi Rock/Akihisa Okumoto/National Gallery of Victoria Alexander McQueen's spring/summer 2008 runway show was inspired by Isabella Blow but this garment also features many traditional Japanese elements, such as long trailing sleeves and a butterfly motif. The belt is a hybridisation of a corset and a traditional Japanese obi. 'The butterfly is the personification of the soul in Japanese culture,' Botica says. Photograph: Michel Dufour/WireImage Hiroko Takahashi is a star of contemporary Japanese design, collaborating with brands such as Adidas and creating garments for sumo wrestlers. She is 'a very savvy, creative but extremely approachable designer', Crothers says. In this self-portrait, as in many of her works, she has chosen to pose in a fighter's stance. 'Which is not the traditional demure, feminine style pose,' he says. The NGV's exhibition features many works by Hiroko, including one custom-made for the exhibition, modelled on a life-sized statue of the designer. Illustration: Hiroko Takahashi/National Gallery of Victoria
Tokyo Weekender
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tokyo Weekender
Prostitution in Feudal Japan: A Literary Look
With over 1 million residents at its height, Edo (modern-day Tokyo) was the largest city in the world around the 18th century. And also the most literate. About half of its population were samurai, who were well versed in the classics. But Edo also had a thriving popular literature scene greatly enjoyed by the other half of the city. Together with adventure epics, dramas and comedies, the thing that commoners loved the most were stories involving the city's prostitutes. Though most of them were fictional, these stories help us understand the nature of sex work and the very culture of Japan's capital hundreds of years ago. List of Contents: Looking Down on Nighthawks To Be a Cool Guy in Edo, You Had To Visit Prostitutes Only Monsters Would Get Mad at Their Husbands Visiting Prostitutes Related Posts Image of Yoshiwara workers by Kitao Masanobu (c. 1800) | British Museum collections (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Looking Down on Nighthawks Yoshiwara, a government-sanctioned red-light district, was one of only three places in all of Japan which was set up to better control the flow of sex work in the country. It quickly became a common setting of popular books during the Edo period, many of which juxtaposed it and its working women with 'nighthawks.' Author Yamaoka Matsuake explained in his classic Sekifujinden that nighthawks, or yotaka, were unlicensed prostitutes who operated outside Yoshiwara, sometimes literally on the slopes of its moat, but also all around the city. The story focuses on a high-ranking Yoshiwara worker being condescending to a nighthawk while trying to get her to join the brothel district, for which she receives an eloquent dressing down about the hypocrisy of her gilded cage and its suffocating, rule-ridden hierarchy. Licensed prostitutes looked down on the nighthawks, but they themselves lived and worked in a place with a rigid etiquette system and a mean-girl-style pecking order. Yamaoka probably did not personally believe that the nighthawks had it better than the women in Yoshiwara (unlicensed prostitutes were virtually homeless and had no protection outside local gang bosses). But he simply refused to romanticize a place that put a lot of rules on sex. Terakado Seiken offered additional details on nighthawks in Edo Hanjoki , describing, among other things, their heavy makeup meant to hide skin conditions and other diseases. He also wrote about the wobbly shanties where they entertained clients. It was apparently common for people to peek in on those occasions and get a serious beating when they were caught. '8 O'clock at night of Yoshiwara' by Odake Kokkan. Meiji Period (1906) | British Museum collections (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) To Be a Cool Guy in Edo, You Had To Visit Prostitutes Physical contact was restricted in feudal Japan. Things like hugs, caresses and kisses were reserved for prostitutes, so naturally it was quite common for young men to fall in love with working women. But showing it would make them un- tsu. 'Tsu' was the name for the cool aloofness and emotional distance that people from Edo decided was the definition of a true man of the capital. While the concept is a little more complex than simply 'not caring,' that was a big part of it and the best way to show it was with prostitutes. Umebori Kokuga's Keiseikai Futasujimichi describes a Yoshiwara prostitute and her client, who are both the epitomes of tsu. They're smooth-talkers seemingly only focused on what they want, and they spend most of their time playfully insulting each other. In reality, the two are miserable and the only joy in their lives is each other's company, but they'd rather gargle the Yoshiwara moat water (which was essentially a communal toilet) than admit their feelings. In the end, they break up in a torrent of sarcasm because tsu trumped personal happiness every time. Or, in some cases, common sense. Santo Kyoden's Edo Umare Uwaki no Kabayaki tells the story of Enjiro, the son of a wealthy Edo merchant who wants to be known for his mastery of tsu. By this, he's already failed, because trying to be tsu is automatically un-tsu — it should come naturally to you — yet he still gives it a go. For instance, he visits the most expensive prostitutes in Yoshiwara and hires a live-in mistress to yell at him and be jealous of his many conquests. He even pays a guy to pretend to be a hired prostitute's steady client so that she can sneak away and be with her beloved Enjiro. Because getting a prostitute to fall in love with you — while you yourself remained emotionally unattached — was the ultimate cool-guy fantasy during the Edo period. Only Monsters Would Get Mad at Their Husbands Visiting Prostitutes Feudal Japan actually had a pretty liberal attitude towards sex… whenever there wasn't some anti-prostitution moral panic sweeping the capital. On the whole, though, if a husband visited prostitutes or had a mistress, his wife was expected to be fine with it. Nowhere is this attitude more obvious than in Baba Bunko's Todai Edo Hyaku Bakemono , a collection of short stories including the tale of a merchant who falls for a courtesan and starts spending all of his time with her, abandoning his family and business. His wife eventually disguises herself as the courtesan's aunt to gain entry to her brothel, mirroring the legend of Watanabe no Tsuna , whose demonic foe Ibaraki-doji also disguised itself as the hero's relative. Once inside, the wife tries to drag her husband back home, and through this and the Ibaraki-doji reference, she is branded by the author as a 'monster' who used trickery to disturb her husband's good time. Haifu Yanagidaru, an Edo-period collection of humorous poems, suggests that wives should have their children accompany their husbands during their outings to stop them from hiring prostitutes. This loose attitude towards fidelity continued well into the 20th century and once involved Prime Minister Katsura Taro, who actually had to publicly break up with his lover to save her, but not from his wife. The two women reportedly got along well together . Related Posts Osaka Street Painted Yellow To Prevent Prostitution Japan's Ancient Sex Worker Sirens: Asobi Samurai Cops: Inside Edo's Police Force During Feudal Japan
Metropolis Japan
20-05-2025
- Metropolis Japan
Kawagoe Day Trip
Saitama Prefecture is a brewery townscape in Kawagoe City. A famous tourist destination in the Kanto region. Just 30 minutes from central Tokyo, Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture feels like stepping into another century. With preserved Edo-era architecture, merchant history, and retro storefronts, this city known as 'Little Edo,' is a rewarding day trip from Tokyo's high-rises. Whether you're chasing cultural landmarks, local snacks or quiet charm, a Kawagoe day trip offers more than enough for a full-day adventure—especially for photographers, families or anyone burnt out on the bustle. The heart of Kawagoe's historic district is Kurazukuri Street. Here, low-slung buildings made of clay and tile evoke the fire-resistant warehouse style of the Edo Period. Some were rebuilt after the devastating 1893 fire, while others have been lovingly preserved. Shops line the street selling everything from handmade ceramics to roasted green tea, and on weekends, you'll spot locals in kimono browsing side by side with tourists. Don't miss: The architecture along Taisho Roman Dori Souvenir shops tucked into old kura storehouses The occasional aroma of roasted sweet potato Rising above the rooftops is the Toki no Kane (Time Bell Tower), which still chimes four times a day. Originally built in the 1600s, this wooden landmark has been rebuilt several times but remains Kawagoe's most enduring symbol. It's not just a photo stop—it's a soundscape, too. Time your visit with the chime at noon for the full effect. Candy Alley, or Kashiya Yokocho, is pure joy. This narrow lane is lined with old-fashioned candy shops that feel untouched by time. It began in the Meiji Period and still thrives today. Inside the shops, you'll find: Bright red candied apples Soy sauce-flavored rice crackers Whimsical handmade candies in animal shapes Classic Japanese toys and tops The vibe is playful, chaotic and sweet. Kids will love it. So will grown-ups who remember when candy came in paper bags—not plastic. Kawagoe's nickname, 'Koedo' or 'Little Edo,' isn't just clever branding—it reflects the city's historic role as a commercial outpost that helped support the Tokugawa shogunate during the Edo Period. Because of its strategic importance and proximity to Edo (now Tokyo), Kawagoe prospered as a merchant town and was known for its fire-resistant kura storehouses and samurai residences. Learn more about the historical significance of fire safety in our article: Edo's Inked Heroes: Edo Firefighters. Much of this legacy survived—or was rebuilt—after major fires in the 1800s. Today, its layout and architecture still reflect that Edo influence, earning it the designation as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings. Kawagoe's museums are small, local and personal. Skip the giant exhibitions and enjoy these more intimate spots: Kurazukuri Museum: Housed in a former tobacco merchant's residence. Dive into Edo fire safety and merchant culture. (Note: the museum is currently going through Earthquake-related renovations and is temporarily closed.) Yamazaki Art Museum: Features a modest but meaningful collection from local artists inside a former warehouse. Osawa Residence: Built in 1792, this is the oldest remaining storehouse in town. It's free to admire from outside and worth seeking out. Each stop feels like a secret—perfect for travelers who prefer to wander slowly and soak things in. All that walking and sightseeing builds an appetite. Kawagoe has plenty of food options—from traditional sweets to stylish cafés and hearty teishoku [set meals]. Unagi Denbe – A popular spot for unagi [grilled eel], a long-standing specialty in Kawagoe. [grilled eel], a long-standing specialty in Kawagoe. Pizzeria Pino – Unexpectedly authentic Napoli-style pizza. Yamawa – A cozy café inside a local gift shop, known for its sweet potato mini-kaiseki and seasonal drinks like iced matcha in summer and red bean soup in winter. Rengetsu Café – Known for its vintage interiors and fluffy French toast. Tsubakiya Foot Spa Tearoom – Sip on tea and sweets while resting your feet in a warm outdoor footbath. Koedo Kurari – A renovated sake brewery turned food hall and souvenir shop. Try their sake tasting set and grab some handmade snacks. The Kawagoe Festival is one of the region's most beloved traditions. Held every third weekend in October, the celebration includes towering floats, music, and dancing that overtakes the whole city. Can't make it in the fall? Visit the Kawagoe Festival Museum to see the floats up close and learn about the tradition year-round. Kawagoe is surprisingly walkable, but if you want to rest your feet, the Koedo Loop Bus is convenient. It runs every 30 minutes and links all the main stations—Kawagoe, Hon-Kawagoe, and Kawagoe-shi—with stops near all major landmarks. On foot, you'll likely stumble into cozy cafés, retro kissaten, and quiet backstreets that offer their own charm. Stop for a coffee, browse a tiny antique shop, or just sit and take it all in. For more day trip ideas from Tokyo, check out our other guides: Tokyo Neighborhood Guide: A Day Trip to Okutama Enoshima Day Trip: Caves, Shrines, Sea Views and a Taste of Mythology
