WWII Propaganda Kimono (Child-Size)

This WWII propaganda kimono was made in the mid-20th century in Japan. It is a child’s padded kimono (tanzen) made out of cotton, printed with images of battleships flying large Japanese battle flags.

During the Meji period (1868-1912) Japanese officials began to embrace Western-style clothing, even as Europeans and Americans became increasingly interested in kimono. The kimono remained an important part of Japanese daily wear, though, and clothing designers experimented with the dyes and machinery they began to import from the United States and Europe. This trend continued into the Taisho period (1912-1926) as designers used new types of materials and techniques to create bolder patterns, some of which were inspired by Western-style painting. This period was marked by the newly inexpensive and fashionable kimonos that designers were able to make with new technologies. Into the Showa period (1926-1989) clothing designers used these techniques to create garments decorated with themes reflecting current political events, the most striking of which are the propaganda kimonos of the 1930s and 1940s.

Japanese clothing designers working around 1900 to 1950 explored themes of modernity. Many designers were using Art Deco and Cubist styles to decorate kimonos with cityscapes, industry, and new technologies in the early 1900s. Beginning in the 1920s, those designs began to reflect the increasingly nationalistic and militaristic Japanese government, which came to a head during World War II. This kimono reflects that historic period.