In the Mood for Kimono: Hayashi Mariko and the Weaving of Japanese Fashion into Popular Fiction

Abstract

Abstract The field of postwar Japanese and international fiction has seen an expanding corpus of texts revolving around kimono. Many works, while tapping into the intricacies of sartorial traditions, contain actualized narratives of young girls and women experiencing or remembering kimono in prewar, postwar, and contemporary Japan. In these stories, the kimono—ever persisting, at times resisting—helps the protagonist to discover self-confidence and agency as they deal with loss, social expectations, family, and national history. This article focuses on Hayashi Mariko’s short story collection Stories about Kimono (Kimono o meguru monogatari, 1997) and her more recent novel The Imperial Visit to Ohara: The Story of an Obi-Making Family (Ohara gokō: Obi ni ikita kazoku no monogatari, 2014b). These two narratives work within all of these parameters and illustrate how authors can write consistently about the multiple meanings within kimono. Through analyzing how Hayashi describes kimono outfits and their implications, this article also explores how, as a literary device, the kimono connects with the concept of reality effect; emphasizes the power of the feminine gaze in Japanese literature; and reveals how the limits between fiction and reality can be broken down. When inspired by the specific mode of dress that is kimono, writers can prompt new inspirations for women to create their own stories with it, discarding the cliché of ‘yamato nadeshiko’ (lit: Japanese pink carnations, used to evoke Japanese demure, feminine beauty) to explore darker and/or more embodied experiences.