Ambiguity as a Sign of Degeneration?: Japanese Kimonos in Art, Fashion and Criticism of fin de siècle Britain

Several important studies of Japonisme in fashion have considered the design and cultural influence of Japanese kimonos on the art and fashionable world. However, there is much more to discuss when it comes to how the kimono trend as a phenomenon actually correlated with the beliefs, thoughts and spirit of the time. Using Max Nordau’s Degeneration as a critical starting point, this article intends to explore what the adoption and the representation of kimonos could mean concerning the Victorian idea of progress and degeneration of human bodies by analysing the radical use of kimonos in the artworks by a Decadent artist, Aubrey Beardsley, and the adoption of kimono-related gowns among mainstream fashion. While the artistic representations of Japanese kimonos cover up the wearers’ bodies to stress ambiguity, ‘kimonos’ that were widely accepted by upper- and upper-middle-class women were greatly modified to recreate the hourglass silhouette that most Victorians were accustomed to seeing. This article shows the power of kimonos to allow Victorian bodies to escape, transform and hide from the conventional norms of the period, which proposes an entirely new direction of studies of Japonisme in fashion.