Foreword of the book 'Fashion. A History from the 18th to the 20th Century'. By Akiko Fukai, Chief Curator, The Kyoto Costume Institute


This book consists of five hundred photographs of items of clothing selected from the extensive collections at the Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI). Since its inception in 1978, the KCI has held exhibitions around the world as a way of organizing research on Western fashion. The exhibitions and the catalogues that have accompanied them have met with acclaim from international audiences and by cutting-edge designers from all over the world.

Part of the recognition the KCI has received stems from its policy of displaying articles of clothing in a manner that is both academically accurate and true to life. In other words, the KCI presents clothing not just as historical artifacts, but also as vital elements of fashion. The exhibitions capture the elegance and charm that the clothing had in its day, as though simply having been "awakened" after a long "sleep." The KCI hopes that this publication, which covers selected historical clothing and fashion accessories from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, will enable an ever-wider audience to appreciate the wonder and pleasure of fashion.

The Kyoto Costume Institute

The Kyoto Costume Institute was established in 1978, in the wake of the first full-scale exhibition of fashion in Japan, "Inventive Clothes, 1909-1939," a show that originated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Greatly fascinated by the exhibition, Koichi Tsukamoto, the president of the Wacoal Corporation, one of Japan's top lingerie makers, and vice president of the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the time, perceived the need for an institution in Japan where Western fashion could be systematically collected, researched, and exhibited. Under a charter issued by the Japanese Government Agency for Cultural Affairs, Tsukamoto founded the Kyoto Costume Institute in April 1978.

The Kyoto Costume Institute strives to achieve an essential understanding of clothing and devise a method of predicting how fashion will evolve in the future. The KCI recognizes that clothing expresses basic human feelings, and that the expression of such feelings changes over time. It is fitting, then, that Yoshitaka Tsukamoto, the current president of Wacoal and acting chairman of the KCI, is following in his father's footsteps to assist the institute in its pursuits.

From its earliest days, the KCI has focused its activities on enriching its superb costume collections, and on planning exhibitions based on interpretations of these collections. To date the collection comprises over 10,000 costume items, and more than 20,000 printed documents.

Costume materials consist primarily of Western clothing and related items such as underpinnings, lingerie, and accessories. Undergarments make up a particularly comprehensive part of the collection, as the KCI believes that lingerie evokes an essential characteristic of costume history in the West. Related printed matter provides important reference to further examine the history and social background of Western clothing.

The collection ranges from the early seventeenth century to the present and encompasses rare treasures such as a seventeenth-century iron corset with embroidered bodice, worn in Elizabethan times and later.

Both male and female clothing from the eighteenth century are represented in the collection, but from the nineteenth century on, the collection represents primarily women's clothing, as the KCI feels it reflects the ideal beauty of the time more faithfully than male apparel. The contemporary branch of the collection comprises clothing created by world-famous designers, including numerous pieces from Japanese designers who have been active since the 1970s, like Comme des Garçons, which donated over 2,000 items, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and other designers of the new generation.

The Kyoto Costume Institute has lent its collections to longer-established museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), among others. The KCI has also received numerous donations from individual fashion collectors and designers from all over the world, including Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, and many Japanese designers. A professionally controlled environment in which temperature and humidity are constantly monitored with great care ensures that the collection is preserved from aging and other types of deterioration. The KCI only restores items in the collection when absolutely necessary, and then with the utmost attention to detail.

The key to costume exhibition

These high standards and the extensiveness of its collections ensure the success of the exhibitions held by the Kyoto Costume Institute. The KCI stands in opposition to the general trend of the past two decades where the establishment of a museum structure is privileged above the quality of the collections inside. Despite the fact that the KCI has mounted superior exhibitions every four to five years, often in conjunction with the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, the institute itself still does not have its own largescale exhibition space.

The Kyoto Costume Institute's first major exhibition, "The Evolution of Fashion 1835-1895," was held in the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, in 1980. This exhibition and others that followed were designed to introduce the world history of Western fashion as an enjoyable, beautiful, and universal cultural property. Several of the KCI's exhibitions, such as "Revolution in Fashion 1715-1815," "Japonism in Fashion," ("Japonism & Mode") and "Visions of the Body: Fashion or Invisible Corset," have also traveled to Paris and New York, receiving accolades for their presentation and their accompanying catalogues. An exhibition of clothing requires a different approach from the exhibition of a painting or a sculpture. For example, for clothing, mannequins are frequently used to mount the show, and most museums do recognize

that mannequins are an essential part of an effective clothing presentation. However, because fashion has changed not only the shape of clothing over time, but also has especially altered the basic shape of the female body, the KCI has given much thought to the construction of mannequins uniquely appropriate to each exhibition.

The KCI specially made its own mannequins for its first exhibition, "The Evolution of Fashion 1835-1895," held in conjunction with the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Understanding that modern-day mannequins could not be used to represent the mid-nineteenth century body shape, the KCI measured its entire collection of costumes from this period to find an average size, then successfully constructed mannequins perfectly shaped for clothing from the middle of the nineteenth century. Due to their specially designed joints, the mannequins could also assume remarkably realistic and active poses.

The Kyoto Costume Institute now has four types of specifically designed period mannequins, and they are recognized worldwide as sensational innovations. Kyoto Costume Institute mannequins are used by forty-eight museums in eleven countries, including the Musée de la Mode et du Costume, Paris (Palais Galliera), the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In this volume, all photographs of costumes dating from before the nineteenth century were mounted on special KCI mannequins.

At the KCI the dressing of mannequins is also considered an essential part of a costume exhibition. Great care must be taken to faithfully reproduce the unique silhouette of the clothing of each period. Furthermore, to precisely reproduce the fashion of a given period, the KCI attempts the full styling of mannequins with accessories such as hats, gloves, and shoes, carefully examining and researching accurate details from related materials such as fashion plates, magazines, paintings, and photographs. As a result, the dressed mannequins appear astonishingly life-like, reflecting the postures of their time in a manner almost poignant to behold.

Costume exhibitions for the world

The exhibition "The Evolution of Fashion 1835-1895" focused on the transformation of Western clothing in the nineteenth century. Clothing in this period reflected significant shifts in the social structure of modern times: the rise of the middle classes, the introduction of new cultures, and the Industrial Revolution. It was also appropriate that the Kyoto Costume Institute, the first Western fashion research institute in Japan, should concentrate on this period for its first exhibition, since it was around that time, during the nineteenth century, that the Japanese themselves first adopted Western clothing.

In 1989, the year of the two-hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, the KCI held an exhibition entitled "Revolution in Fashion 1715-1815" at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. The exhibition showcased the dramatic changes in fashion that occurred around the time of the French Revolution. The costumes exhibited ranged from magnificent rococo court fashion to the simple cotton dress that appeared after the Revolution. The dynamic shift from the flamboyant rococo style nurtured in the court culture to the simple style of neoclassicism, which evolved after the Revolution, fully captures the aftereffect of the French Revolution in history. The record-breaking number of visitors who saw the exhibition underscored the value of the show.

This exhibition was subsequently mounted at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in late 1989 under the title "Ancien Régime", and in 1990 in theMusée des Arts de laMode et du Textile at the Louvre in Paris, under the title "Elégances etModes en France au XVIIIe siècle." The French newspaper Libération commented favorably on the show in its cultural pages, stating that the old costumes of the eighteenth century had been revitalized with sensual and realistic beauty by the KCI exhibition. This assessment, from Paris, the center of the fashion world, is one indicator of the appreciation the KCI has received. "Japonism in Fashion," an exhibition held in the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, presented an overview of Japanese influence on Parisian fashion from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, and examined the impact of the kimono on modern fashion. The study of Japonism in fashion had been undertaken previously, but not in a truly academic manner. The KCI felt the need to study the subject further. Due to considerable cooperation from professionals in various fields, including the museums of many countries and the world-renowned International Research Center of Japanese Studies in Kyoto, the exhibition was a sensational success.

"Japonism in Fashion" then went on an international tour of five major cities and developed into a six-year traveling exhibition. It was held at the Musée de la Mode et du Costume, Paris (Palais Galliera), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and in Tokyo. The show also looks set to travel to yet another location in the near future.

We who work at the KCI have reevaluated fashion history through the exhibitions we have held, and our activities in turn have stimulated creativity in contemporary fashion. The exhibition "Visions of the Body: Fashion or Invisible Corset" was held in 1999, just at the close of the twentieth century, at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. This exhibition presented the works of renowned artists and designers of the twentieth century in their attempts to reinterpret fashion in relation to the wearer's body. The exhibition also aimed to predict the relationship of fashion to the future by establishing an overview of this past century, on which so much work remains to be done.

Dedication to all people who wear clothing

How will fashion evolve in the twenty-first century? In the late nineteenth century, few people believed that women would ever be freed from corsets or that one day they would wear skirts revealing their thighs. It is therefore easy to imagine that surprisingly new and innovative ways of dressing will be enjoyed in the near future. The future transformation of fashion might be glimpsed by achieving an overview of the past history of fashion within its historical context.

The Kyoto Costume Institute aims to reassess our past through the study of Western fashion, examine the relationship between fashion and clothing, study the essential meaning behind the wearing of clothes, and suggest the direction that clothing will take in the future. The KCI believes that now, as ever, clothing is an essential manifestation of our very being.

This book presents the beauty and skill involved in the craftsmanship of fabric production and clothing design with high-quality images by excellent photographers. It is the goal of the Kyoto Costume Institute that this collection will be enjoyed as a common heritage shared by all peoples of the world. Finally, I would like to express my sincerest appreciation to all who have unstintingly offered their time and effort on behalf of this publication, and especially to Issey Miyake, Midori Kitamura, and especially Jun Kanai, who offered their expertise. Without her efforts this book would never have reached completion.

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