Japan's Edo period (1615—1868) was characterized by more than two hundred and fifty years of peace, fostering an environment for patrons who supported the arts for aesthetic pleasure and as evidence of their refined taste and elevated social status. Fashion and dress played a significant role in this unprecedented flourishing of the arts. Exquisitely designed and crafted examples of the period's universal garment, the kosode (a precursor of the modern kimono), were worn by men and women of the military elite—the ruling shogun, his principal lords, daimyo, and their retainers, the samurai. This kosode was made near the end of this era, created exclusively for a high-ranking samurai woman.
Although layers of magnificent robes distinguished ceremonial court dress as early as the eighth century, the kosode was originally an undergarment that was subsequently embellished and adopted as formal dress in the fourteenth century. During the ensuing years, this garment developed into a "canvas" for accomplished painting, weaving, innovative dyeing techniques, and lavish embroidery of silk and precious metals. The singular style of one type of kosode, the koshimaki ("waist wrap"), evolved in the fifteenth century from the practice of allowing a heavy outer robe, the uchikake, to slip off the shoulders but remain a part of the ensemble with its sleeves tied at the waist over the kosode beneath. In its later and most distinctive configuration, the koshimaki hung from a specially designed obi (sash) that knotted at the back of the waist. Stiff paper tubes filled with straw were inserted into the obi's long tie ends, creating a winglike extension over which yhe koshimaki's sleeves projected to their full width, permitting the remainder of the garment to spread out over the floor as a sweeping train.
In the late Edo period, the format and composition of the koshimaki became standardized as summer formal attire for elite samurai women. Its ground fabric was of dark brown, black, or gray nerinuki, a silk textile made with unglossed warps and glossed wefts. Small-scale auspicious symbols decorated the surface; flowering plum blossoms, signifying purity, and hexagonal "tortoise shells" and camellias, for longevity, are meticulously embroidered on this robe with multiple threads of gold.
The koshimaki was always worn over a light and airy unlined kosode (katabira) made of crisp linen like fibers such as hemp or ramie. LACMA has a beautifully embroidered katabira, and this exquisite koshimaki completes the summer ensemble, joining other Edo Period artworks and Japanese textiles in the collection.
