Concept

Japanese clothing

Summary
There are typically two types of clothing worn in Japan: traditional clothing known as Japanese clothing, including the national dress of Japan, the kimono, and Western clothing, which encompasses all else not recognised as either national dress or the dress of another country. Traditional Japanese fashion represents a long-standing history of traditional culture, encompassing colour palettes developed in the Heian period, silhouettes adopted from Tang dynasty clothing and cultural traditions, motifs taken from Japanese culture, nature and traditional literature, the use of types of silk for some clothing, and styles of wearing primarily fully-developed by the end of the Edo period. The most well-known form of traditional Japanese fashion is the kimono, with the term kimono translating literally as "something to wear" or "thing worn on the shoulders". Other types of traditional fashion include the clothing of the Ainu people (known as the attus) and the clothes of the Ryukyuan people which is known as 琉装, most notably including the traditional fabrics of bingata and bashōfu produced on the Ryukyu Islands. Modern Japanese fashion mostly encompasses yōfuku (Western clothes), though many well-known Japanese fashion designers – such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo – have taken inspiration from and at times designed clothes taking influence from traditional fashion. Their works represent a combined impact on the global fashion industry, with many pieces displayed at fashion shows all over the world, as well as having had an impact within the Japanese fashion industry itself, with many designers either drawing from or contributing to Japanese street fashion. Despite previous generations wearing traditional clothing near-entirely, following the end of World War II, Western clothing and fashion became increasingly popular due to their increasingly-available nature and, over time, their cheaper price. It is now increasingly rare for someone to wear traditional clothing as everyday clothes, and over time, traditional clothes within Japan have garnered an association with being difficult to wear and expensive.
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