Figure 1.--This Japanese photographed is undated, but it looks to be taken in the late-19th century somewhere in the countryside. All the children are wearing traditional dress. Note how common it was for girls to be caring for younger siblings. This is a colorized, not a color photograph.

For the first time in Japanese history, we see two styles of dress during the late-19th century, traditional and Westrern styles. Traditional clothing continue to be the principal dress for the great bulk of the Jspanese populstion throughout the 19th century, even the lte-19th century. Japanese boys in the years right after the end of Japan's isolation (1868), continued to wear traditional attire. With the opening to the west, western clothes were introduced. Western clothes gradually became associated with progress and modernity. Japan began to rapidly modernize after the Menji Restoration. Some Japanese in the cities began to wear Western dress. We believe this was at first largely the urban elite. Western dress continued to be relatively rare among the common people through to the the turn of the century. We note images from the country side in which everyone is wearing traditional clothing. We belierve this countinued to be the case into the early 20th century. While the traditional clothing was not age specific, Western clothing was. This thus introduced a new dimension to Japanese fashions.

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Created: 3:38 AM 6/23/2009
Last updated: 3:39 AM 6/23/2009