The transition to Western-style clothing throughout wider Japanese society happened gradually, with a significant degree of resistance. Until the Rokumeikan period (1883–1890), Western culture grew in popularity, and a number of clothing reforms came to order. After the Russo-Japanese War 日露戦争 and the occupation of Korea, national pride encouraged a return to nativism in which the kimono was re-established as the primary dress, especially for Japanese women. Japanese identity politics promoted the image of women in kimono as the keeper of Japanese tradition. This was on one side an aesthetic response to the desires of Westerners idea of Japan when longing for an imaginary ancient world inhabited by geishas, courtesans and samurai. On the other side it was a reaction to the increase in the number of female workers in the urban areas who dressed in Western cloth and earned their own money.
Japanese artists, who were trained in Europe played influential roles in creating that imaginary women with small egg-shaped faces and whitish skin. Painting the female nude 裸体 艺术 or representing Japanese women in kimono through the Westernized view, testified that Japanese artists had become members of modernized male European society. National art exhibitions installed whole galleries with Japanese-style bijinga (paintings of beautiful women). Department stores launched a series of visual campaigns and trend gatherings Ryūkōka to promote a national female iconography.
01 Artwork: 1900 – photography of Hakubakai coterie in Paris. Front: Iwamura Tōru; Middle (left to right) Kume Keiichirō, Kuroda Seiki, Gōda Kiyoshi; Rear (left to right): Sano Akira, Wada Eisaku, Okada Saburōsuke, Shōdai Tameshige
02 Artwork: 1935 – Geishas learn modern ballroom dances
03 Artwork: 1930, postcard for tourists. Maiko Fumi of Gion Kobu and a friend wearing an odori-costume
04 Artwork: 1910 – Poster for Hakuresui toiletry. The geisha depicted is Chiyoha
(1896-1994), a woman of famous beauty who was featured on many different photographic postcards during her day. After she cut off one of her fingers because of her heart broken, she was referred as “the nine-fingered geisha.”
05 Artwork: 1928 – postcard of Department Stores Association Special Pavilion Exhibit by the Nozawaya Store
06 Artist: Okada Saburōsuke (1869-1939) Artwork: 1927 – Iris kimono, oil painting – He was considered one of the most important pioneers of the portrayal of the modern Japanese woman. His portraits shaped numerous advertising campaigns and revolutionised the entire Japanese ideal of beauty.