Fashion as a Form of Resistance in Taisho Japan
by Faith Stellmaker
During Japan’s Taisho period (1912 – 1926), fashion was used as aform of resistance by the Modaan garu or Moga (modern) girl who challenged maleauthority and embraced Westernization. Although her image became politicallycharged, the Moga girl differed from past feminist movements in Japan as she did not becomedirectly involved in traditional politics or women’s suffrage. Conflictingideas of how Japanese women should dress and behave became disseminated in art,magazines, literature and advertising. During the Meiji period (1868-1912), the‘good wife, wise mother’ catchphrase was endorsed and used to promotemotherhood as essential for nation-building and nationalism.[1]Nineteenth-century feminists such as Hiratsuka Raichō (1886 – 1971) challengedthis gendered ideology, however it was the Moga girl who gained the mostmedia attention. The Taisho period which experienced economic prosperity brought byindustrialization and rapid modernization gave rise to new consumer cultures.The Moga girl became an icon of consumption as she challenged gendernorms by seeking financial and emotional independence from the patriarchalfamily structure whilst adopting Western fashion and behaviors.[2] The Moga girl was not politically motivated,but her body became a site for political discussion and debate about the properroles of women in Japan.
During theMeiji period, early feminist movements advocated for increased rights and greaterpolitical involvement of women who had been excluded from the sphere ofnational politics and economics. Radical feminists such as Hiratsuka Raichō advocatedfor the ‘New Woman’ (atarashii onna) who was the precursor of the Mogagirl. The New Woman contested patriarchal structures by engaging intraditionally male activities such as drinking and smoking.[3]Raichō disseminated feminist thought through the women-run literary magazine, Bluestockings(鞜, Seitō). Bluestockings advocated for the equalrights of women as well as the need for female self-awareness.[4]During the Meiji period, girls’ schools were established by the government and attendedby daughters from upper class families. The government’s acceptance to educatewomen was fostered by the ‘good wife, wise mother’ rhetoric which encouraged a curriculumthat consisted of mostly domestic activities. Educated women became promoted bythe Meiji government and were believed to be able to raise better sons. Womenwere viewed by the state as vital contributors to the Meiji program of nation-buildingand modernization. The increase in women’s literacy during this period createda demand and market for women’s magazines such as Bluestockings whichchallenged Meiji models of femininity. Difference feminism was promoted by the Bluestockingsmagazine and heavily influenced by Swedish feminist Ellen Key (1849–1926) whochallenged traditional norms about motherhood and marriage.[5]Raichō's activism createdtensions within Taisho society as the role and place of women became critiqued.
Thetraditional Meiji woman was promoted by the state as the protector of Japaneseculture and her image was used to defend anxieties about modernization andengagement with the West.[6]Traditional femininity was defined by wearing the kimono as it was believedthat women who “dressed in Japanese costume, must behave according to Japanese custom ofmodesty and quiet”.[7]As a result, the kimono became national attire in for the Meiji period; a nationalistsymbol in an era of mass Western goods and influences entering Japan.[8] Thisnational identity became heavily gendered as the kimono became associated withfemale attire in contrast to men who were encouraged to wear Western fashions[9]. Thisimage of the traditional Japanese woman as a national symbol was reinforced onthe global stage at the Exposition Universelle in 1867. At the Japanesepavilion, women in traditional dress served tea and images of the ‘kimonobeauty’ became widely disseminated in France.[10]Kuroda Seiki’s painted works also generated an influential art style thatshowed that Japan could be modern and adopt Western painting techniques but alsoembrace traditional subjects. His painting Lakeside (1897) depicts hiswife in a summer kimono (yukata), holding a rigid fan and seated by alake in the hot spring town of Hakone. Although painted in the Westernimpressionist style, Seiki has chosen to represent the female form as the embodimentof Japanese culture. During the Meiji period, the kimono promoted Japanesenationalism and was used to construct female identity that adhered to Meijiideals of the ‘good wife, wise mother’.
In the Taisho period, fashion became atool for women to confront Meiji patriarchal structures and disrupt traditional gender roles.Although the Moga girl’s freedomsgrew out of ideas of difference feminism in the Meiji period, she adopted ideassimilar to independence feminism in her desire to separate herself fromtradition in the Taisho period. Strict fashion norms werechallenged as the Moga girl began wearing pants and shorts, one of thelatest fashion trends in Europe and America. Her pants marked a sexual andsocial liberation that allowed the same everyday movement and mobility as men.[11]The introduction of Western fashions gave these young women more mobility and enabledthem to engage in sports and other leisure activities. Not only did women startriding bicycles but they also began participating in sports such as swimming,hiking and skiing. This newfound interest in outdoor activity by young womenwas endorsed by magazines such as Asahi Weekly Lifestyle Magazine whichcreated a link between sports and beauty. An active body and a bobbed hairstyle, as seen in image four, became the new standard of beauty in Taishoperiod. This magazine edition shows two women hiking in the outdoors, with one womanin western shorts and both wearing bold red lipstick. Nothing about theirappearance indicates domesticity or motherhood. Asahi Weekly LifestyleMagazine targeted young women and included articles on travel, music andsport. The Moga girl therefore challenged established patriarchalstructures by adopting fashions that allowed her to exercise new socialfreedoms.
The Moga girl’simage became threatening for the Taisho government because she challenged maleauthority and gender norms. Moga girls exerted resistance toestablished gender roles through Foucoult’s definition of power through performanceby abandoning traditional clothing and wearing tight dresses, shorts andcropped hair.[12]However, their resistance was apolitical as they did not become involveddirectly in politics. In the media, the traditional woman was juxtaposed with the Moga archetype who wasassociated with promiscuous activity based on their Western appearance. As she engaged intraditionally male activities such as drinking and smoking[13], the Moga girl’s behaviour defied Japan’sConfucian society that valued quiet, modest and submissive women.[14] The notion of leisure became contested duringthe Taisho period as the Moga girl embraced Western cafés, dance halls,cinemas and new modes of entertainment. These places were associated withmodernity and became sites to display their fashionable clothes andindependence as young women.[15]However, these activities were criticised by the state for being frivolous andindividualistic compared to the pursuits of the traditional woman who supportedher family and whose work was running a household. These tensions are evidencedin the semi-autobiographical novella Horoki (1930) by Hayashi Fumiko(1903- 1951) who embodies the Moga girl with her desire for personalfreedom and independence from men. In June, she records in her diary “It wasdistressing to be supported by a man” as she contemplates the life of thetraditional women.[16]Fumiko criticised maternal expectations of women and contested Meiji genderroles by engaging in traditionally unfeminine activities such as working andearning her own income. Fumiko represents the Moga girl who createdtensions within Taisho society as she became increasingly independent andactive in the public space.
The Moga girl recodedtraditional meanings of the kimono, giving it new symbolic connotations in theTaisho period. Her kimono no longer used traditional motifs such as the sakura,peony, fan or phoenix and instead she could be found in vibrant, geometricprints influenced by Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Cubism styles fromEurope.[17] Dueto mass industrialization of the 1920s, textiles became more affordable for themiddle classes and could be changed with frequency.[18] Thiswas a radical change from the traditional kimono that was made from expensivefabrics and silks. The boldness of the Taisho kimono symbolised the newfreedoms achieved by the Moga girl. This modern girl participated as anew force in market consumerism which disrupted domestic values that expectedwomen to put their family and community first before their own needs. This new body culture is evidenced in KashoTakabatake’s illustration for the magazine Girl’s Illustrated, April1928. Image five shows how the Moga girl became an icon in her adaptionof the traditional kimono whilst also adopting Western fashions.[19]The woman on the left dons a bright pink kimono with a striped obi in vividblack, green and orange strips. On the right, a woman exposes her bare legs tothe viewer as she models the latest Western fashions of a blouse paired with amatching jacket and skirt. In reality, the Moga girl archetype had manyforms. Hybrid modern girls emerged who engaged in Western fashions butsupported conservatist views that women’s place in society belonged to thehome.[20] Thisalso included women who wore the traditional kimono but chose a Western croppedhaircut to show that they were comfortable in both cultures.[21] What made these women unique as Moga girls wasthat they were not politically motivated but adopted new fashions and exercisedautonomy in ways that differed from the Meiji period.
During the Taisho period, women’s bodies became contested space as they challenged tradition through exhibiting modernfashions.[22] Withincreased mobility through Western clothing, the Moga girl exercised newsocial freedoms such as participating in sports, attending dance halls andengaging in traditionally unfeminine activities. The Moga girl’sappearance was associated with a degradation of traditional values andbehaviour as her image fuelled anxieties about modernization and theinfiltration of Western goods into Japanese society. This new female identity rejectedthe prescribed behaviour norms of the Meiji ‘good wife, wise mother’ as sheadorned her face with bright lipsticks, revealed her legs and exhibited acropped hair style. The modern girl’s image was both contested and endorsed bythe media. She became juxtaposed with the traditional women who representedJapanese culture uncorrupted by Western and modern influences. The Mogagirl differed from previous Japanese feminist movements as she was notpolitically charged. However, her image successfully challenged patriarchalstructures constructed during the Meiji period by using fashion as a form ofresistance in interwar Japan.
References
[1]Kaoru Kojima, “The Image of Woman as a National Icon: Modern Japanese Art1890-1930s,” PhD thesis, University of the Arts London, (2006): 55.
[2]Mariko,Nagai, “Moga: the audacity of being a modern girl,” National Gallery Victoria,last modified 26th February 2020. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/moga-the-audacity-of-being-a-modern-girl/
[3]Miriam Silverberg. The Modern Girl as Militant.Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945. Edited by Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1991) 244.
[4][4]Barbara Molony, “Women's Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925,”Pacific Historical Review, vol. 69, no. 4, (2000): 645-6.
[5]Dina Lowy, “Love and Marriage: Ellen Key and Hiratsuka Raichō ExploreAlternatives,” Women's Studies, vol. 33, no. 4 (2004): 363.
[6]Shelby Wright, “Fashion, Feminine Identity, and Japan ’s Interwar Period,” HistoricalPerspectives, vol. 19, no. 10 (2014): 99.
[7]Ibid, 99-100.
[8]Kaoru Kojima, “The Image of Woman as a National Icon: Modern Japanese Art1890-1930s,” PhD thesis, University of the Arts London, (2006): 55.
[9]Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni, “Kimono and the Construction of Gendered and CulturalIdentities,” Ethnology, vol. 38, no. 4 (1999): 351.
[10]Kaoru Kojima, “The Image of Woman as a National Icon: Modern Japanese Art1890-1930s,” PhD thesis, University of the Arts London, (2006): 58.
[11]Julie Grossman, R. Barton Palmer (ed.), Adaptation in Visual Culture:Images, Texts, and Their Multiple Worlds, Cham: Palgrave Macmillion (2017):245.
[12]Paul Rainbow (ed.), The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books,1984): 66.
[13]Mariko Nagai, “Moga: the audacity of being a modern girl,” National GalleryVictoria, last modified 26th February 2020. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/moga-the-audacity-of-being-a-modern-girl/
[14]Shelby Wright, “Fashion, Feminine Identity, and Japan ’s Interwar Period,” HistoricalPerspectives, vol. 19, no. 10 (2014): 99.
[15]Shelby Wright, “Fashion, Feminine Identity, and Japan ’s Interwar Period,” HistoricalPerspectives, vol. 19, no. 10 (2014): 98.
[16]Hayashi Fumiko. Diary of a Vagabond, Translated by Joan E. Ericson. InJoan E. Ericson. Be A Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women'sLiterature (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997): 155.
[17]Hylan Booker, “Kimono: A Garment of Change”, LACMA, last modified 14 July,2014, https://unframed.lacma.org/2014/07/14/kimono-a-garment-of-change
[18]Cooper Hewitt, “Kimono (Japan), Taisho Period, 1926–45,” Cooper Hewitt. https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/35460593/
[19]Barbara Hartley, “Performing the Nation: Magazine Images of Women and Girls inthe Illustrations of Takabatake Kashō, 1925–1937,” Intersections: Gender andSexuality in Asia and the Pacific, Issue 16, March (2008) http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue16/hartley.htm
[20]Kendall H. Brown and Sharon Minichiello, Taishō Chic: Japanese Modernity,Nostalgia, and Deco. Art Gallery of New South Wales (2001): 21.
[21]Ibid 24.
[22]Kendall H. Brown and Sharon Minichiello, Taishō Chic: Japanese Modernity,Nostalgia, and Deco. Art Gallery of New South Wales (2001): 18
Image
Kuroda Seiki, Lakeside (1897), oil painting