Disentangling Intimacy: A Material Analysis of Power and Meaning in the 1950s Japanese ‘Lingerie Boom’

Feminist and queer theorisations of intimacy unsettle binary categories of hierarchised differences. They rethink the appearance of difference, as contingent and emerging in context, rather than as essentialised. Building on feminist and queer scholarship that theorises intimacy as an affective or physical touching through which relations of power and perceptions of difference are unsettled, I interpret how intimate objects like lingerie reconfigure power and meaning. In so doing, I highlight the engagement of two crucial phenomena in the post-war Japanese lingerie boom: the introduction of lingerie in Japan by an avid nationalist Tsukamoto Kōichi, and lingerie designer Kamoi Yōko’s tactile resistance. Particularly through my analysis of Kamoi’s subversive garment design and fashion shows, I contribute to feminist and queer dialogues on intimacy by examining how other-than-human bodies like lingerie unsettle dominance. Empirically, I offer a materialist understanding of gender history in post-war Japan by engaging with fashion, meaning, and power.