Robe

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the nineteenth century, Japan produced prodigiously for its new Western market. Economic initiative caused the Japanese to create consumer items exclusively for the export market. At the same time, Japan began massive consumption of Western goods, chiefly in the sectors of heavy industry and engineering. Quilted dressing gowns such as these two are for an occasion and of a style that would never have been operative in Japan. For the European customer, the motif of late-spring flowers, insects, and lotuses was evocative of the exotic origins that are mitigated by the accommodations to Western style. Like James Abbott McNeill Whistler and the French Impressionists, fashion embraced Japonisme with alacrity.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art