Ancient and modern Kimonos: the empire of the senses at Quai Branly

Weaving and interbreeding, quai Branly.

At the Paris Museum of Distant Arts, traditional Japanese clothing unfolds its perfection and infinite fantasies in a truly exquisite exhibition.

A journey of 150 pieces from the 17th century (Edo period) to today, all virtuosos, brought together by the Victoria and Albert Museum with the significant support of the London-based Iranian collector and philanthropist Sir Nasser D. Khalili.

In 2017 in Paris, the National Museum of Asian Arts Guimet had already masterfully told this ultra-sophisticated art of the kimono - art in 2D when the large "T" suspended from its bamboo hanger serves as a separation in the house, and in 3D when 'it is worn.

The trend of the day

He had made it from an equal number of clothes and accessories.

But they had been borrowed from the Nagoya Museum, an institution that inherited the textile fund of the Matsuzakaya clothing house, founded in 1611 and became a department store from 1910. We therefore admired, with some exceptions, only old and all Japanese ornaments .

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This time, the course is international and its contemporary part, very developed.

We could fear a repetition, we have an extension of the subject.

This ancient garment of more than a millennium, whose name simply means "the thing that one carries on oneself", is shown here from the Renaissance to the modern era, that of globalization.

Originally reserved for the elite, the kimono was democratized and its manufacture mechanized during the Meiji period (1868-1912).

On site, foreign fabrics imported by the Dutch or cottons from South-East India then entered into its manufacture.

Simultaneously, thousands of kilometers from the archipelago, to Scotland, the nobles made this assembly of eight rectangular lengths their dressing gown.

With porcelain, prints by Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1864) first reveal three elegant Japanese women.

They pose in front of a fashion store in Tokyo.

Alongside them, in the windows, advertisements, model albums and other novelty magazines indicate the trend of the day.

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Because what a variety!

What to choose among these silk crepes, these summery cotton fabrics, these shimmering embroideries, flowers, even landscapes, and with their seasons.

Here cascading wisteria.

There are scenes taken from some poem.

And again, mountain roses, plum trees with a thousand branches in bloom, peonies in bouquets, views of Mount Fuji, bridges, rivers, calligraphy.

A kabuki actor's kimono is surprising: it is adorned with patterns of carnival skeletons and skulls.

But the over-kimonos of geishas turn out to be the most exuberant, adorned with carp and dragons like the bodies of yakusas.

Such heavy coats are only worn on exceptional occasions, weddings, court evenings, galas...

"Living National Treasure"

When you pass behind the rice paper screens that serve as backgrounds, their graceful forms stand out in Chinese shadows.

Ghostly?

The 20th century, with its industrial and generalized conflicts, did not put an end to this hedonistic world of the kimono.

On the contrary: we discover pre-war and avant-garde creations, textiles influenced by Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

Patterns of roses or schematic buildings, planes, bombers and battleships, entire naval air battles.

And also, now, mechanical weaving of silk threads.

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In the West during this time, a Mariano Fortuny composed his variations, added moire, an addition of exotic dream.

Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, known as Lucile, a survivor of the sinking of the

, also had her kimono.

He survived.

More than others, firstly because they are looser, these garments seem to preserve, tied, embroidered or woven, the dramas as well as the joys of their owners.

They are relics and souvenir films.

Since the 1950s, from whatever country they are, many designers have imbibed this spirit of the kimono.

Its ability to be deconstructed and restructured, translated or modified, makes it a universal medium.

On site, everything started again in 1955, when the best Japanese craftsmen were officially recognized as “Living National Treasures”.

Kunihiko Moriguchi, purveyor to the imperial family and its retinue, is one of them (kimono Beyond, 2005).

This wise man, who knew Malraux in Paris and Balthus in Rome, to whom the Maison de la culture du Japon in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto have devoted important retrospectives, alternates on his strips as well as in his cuts, cubism and abstraction.

This without forgetting the old styles that he knows and respects.

Crosses, chevrons, simple lines of color or shades of gray, his ornaments are pure and zen refined... From this point of view, the Nigerian Duro Olowu can be considered a cadet, he who merges classic kimono and African Yoruba style.

The future again?

We can already imagine the extraterrestrials wearing the rectilinear silk falling to the "geta" (high clogs in lacquered rice straw) and closed by an "obi", this wide belt.

The costume of Queen Apailana, a character from

, who is there on a mannequin with her feather additions, invites it.

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With this piece, other aspects as fantastic as they are glamorous are evoked.

Photographs recall that half a century ago, it was a kimono worn by the character of Ziggy Stardust played by David Bowie (stage outfit designed with Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto and inspired by kabuki theatre).

Boy George and Freddie Mercury, Madonna and Björk also wore the kimono.

In Europe, it is true that it was very popular, and synonymous with eroticism, at least since

Pucchini's opera premiered in 1904, or the novel

, by Pierre Loti.

Within the course, the portrait of an English lady of this era close to her Japanese outfit, very liberty...

Edo period kimonos.

quai Branly museum - Jacques Chirac, photo Léo Delafontaine

In the final, contemporary section, Kunihiko Moriguchi appears to be one of the most innovative.

Trained as a graphic designer, he creates his patterns on paper with mathematical precision.

But then he expertly applies them to the textile surface, the old-fashioned way, using rice paste.

With him, without warning, the elegant squares of shaded gray or midnight blue in the style of Kunihiko Moriguchi have succeeded trashy kimonos, street art, humorous skateboarding, mangas, graffiti, or kitsch such as the one parodying Disney's castle in

.

Milligan Beaumont (born in 1992) excels in this kind of artistic desacralization through humour.

Last successors of Paul Poiret or Jeanne Lanvin in Japan, Yohji Yamamoto, John Galliano or Alexander McQueen have hoisted the kimono as a must on the catwalks of haute couture.

Each of their proposals is a model of luxury and grace.

In the wake of these greats, born in 1977, Hiroko Takahashi only swears by kinetic patterns, digital printing, silk, but also leather or enamel.

And then the men?

The men's kimono market is, according to Anna Jackson, chief curator of the Asia department at the "V&A" and curator, in full growth.

Born in 1980, Fujiyika Mikisuke sometimes cuts his own in yorkshire and equips them with a tie.

Ideal for the City.

Animalistic fantasies in origami or on prints

Animal fantasies in origami or on prints;

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

At Versailles.

From December 17 to January 29, 2023 the Espace Richaud (78, boulevard de la Reine) will host Gérard Ty Sovann's 2500 origami.

The most spectacular of these works made of a single square of paper folded and folded up to three hundred times in succession, without cutting or glueing, is a giraffe more than 3 m high.

Conversely, the smallest figure, an elephant, is 4 mm square.

The most monumental, finally?

A lion made in a sheet of 25 m side, which weighs 130 kg and measures 8 m long and 4.50 m high.

In Paris.

Until January 21, 2023, the Maison de la culture du Japon (101 bis, quai Jacques-Chirac, 15th) evokes in an exhibition the history of the relations of the inhabitants of the city of Edo - which will become Tokyo in 1868 - with animals.

For this the Museum of Edo-Tokyo lends more than a hundred old prints, paintings and everyday objects.

You can come across deer and wild boar hunts there.

You can still see monkey tamers, stray dogs, plow oxen, sacred horses... The whole thing suggests a symbiosis and the deep roots of Shinto animism.

The attention paid to the environment of Edo, nature still perfectly preserved in the 18th and 19th centuries, can also be read very clearly.

“Kimono” at the Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris (7th) until May 28, 2023. Catalog Éditions de La Martinière, 336 p., €55.

Tel.: 01 56 61 70 00.

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