Travel
Japan
Women in Kimonos, 1937 – 1939
Title: [Japanese Scenery II]
Date: (1937-1939)
Film-maker: Tor H. Wistrand
Women are dressed in traditional style kimonos decorated with floral and other nature-inspired prints. As two women walk away from the camera, the one on the right wears a kimono printed with a bolder, geometric printed design inspired by Art Deco. The kimono remained the dominant form of dress for women in Japan until post 1945. Japan was also influencing Western fashions through this period as a jacket held by Horsham Museum shows (Item No. 1993.316).
Title: A Japanese jacket
Date: (1930s)
Image Kindly reproduced with the permission of Horsham Museum, Horsham District Council
Close-up of Japanese Woman’s Hair, 1937 - 1939
The Japanese woman wears a bold purple kimono with a shell-like print. Her hair is rolled and piled up and decorated with red ribbon and bejeweled accessories. Long hair was traditional in Japan and conformed to feminine ideals. A woodblock print, dating 1920, at the British Museum depicts a woman in a blue bathrobe combing her very long hair. See Item No. (1930.0910.0.1).
Western influences on Japanese styles in the interwar period can be seen in this woodblock print of 1934 in the British Museum. It depicts a female nude in Japanese baths with short bobbed hair defying conventional Japanese ideals of femininity. See Item No. (1981.0730.0.2).
Japanese Man with Drum, 1937 – 1939
This film provides an insight into the rich colours of Japanese men’s clothing. His coat is red, green and gold and accessorised with a red and white cone-shaped hat and sunglasses. This is in contrast to the 1920s and 1930s British men’s dress that was more sober and formal.
