Dreams of Empire, Japanese Propaganda Textiles
As part of my information-gathering for the Oxford Bibliography Online of Children’s Clothing I’ve been looking at changing dress-codes for children in Japan. I was put in touch with Dr Barak Kushner at the University of Cambridge, who has written about a fascinating collection of children’s kimonos from 1920s-40s Japan. The Marcuson & Hall Collection has textiles printed with children dressed as soldiers or writing ‘comfort letters’ to the troops, and girls’ kimonos with candy-coloured tanks and military helments. The disconnection with the realities of war is striking, even more noticeable than in the textiles for adults studied by Jacqueline Atkins.