Katazome: imperial fashion in Japan

The garment above is an example of Katazome. The word Katazome refers to the technique of dying used to illustrate the fabric. At the time of their greatest popularity in the eighteenth century, Katazome garments were made as an alternative to more expensive garments made of and embroidered with silk. Although they were considered less sophisticated than their more expensive counter-parts, the composition of Katazome garments required an equal amount of sophistication and artistry. The dye required for Katazome (Indigo blue - acquired from Strobilanthes Cusia) was in much more abundance than silk and although the care required when handling the silk does exceed that of applying the stencils (Katagami), the precision and definition of Katazome garments give them an integrity and sophistication equal to their silk relatives. 
   Innovative at the time, they can also be a source of inspiration and innovation for modern fashion. Katazome were made from  hemp or cotton. Compared to silk these materials are immensely more sustainable, accessible and more practical.  Accessibility was an especially pertinent factor as, during the Edo period, commoners had been forbidden the wearing of silk. This was because it was understood the sustainability of the silk supply necessitated a rationing of the material and also had the advantage of acting as a symbolic indication of a persons status. Something which would be a fundamental determinant of social dynamics during the Edo period. Katazome could be worn everyday and its ornamentation could be both simple and complex. By using the coarser, more affordable and unforbidden materials and applying already refined techniques like dyeing and stencilling, the creators of Katazome provided affordable and practical clothes, made from a genuinely organic and sustainable material with an expansive potential for pattern and decoration.
   Katazome garments are the embodiment of simplicity, beauty and practicality. They prove that garments of great sophistication can be made without the need for elaborate processes or extravagant materials. It also proves that everyday garments can be enhanced with ornamentation at very little cost or inconvenience. With the pressures of environmental realities and the gradual decolonisation of the textiles industries, the fashion industry will incrementally diminish over time. The advances in technology which will facilitate the detoxification and equitisation of the industry, will also facilitate consumers to purchase, tailor and decorate clothes themselves much more conveniently. In principle, this is no bad thing and is the logical conclusion of a world which has recognised the necessity of minimising its output of emissions and the benefits of repatriating select crafts.
   As the historical conditions of Japan during the Edo period forced the commoners of the time to innovate alternatives and create new forms to satisfy their desire for luxury and practicality, so too do the historical conditions we find ourselves confronted with demand equal innovation. However, fortunately for us, we are in a unique position. On our side is the foresight of historical knowledge. The difference lies in the fact that it is not scarcity we face, but an abundance. However, this abundance is artificial and the processes required to cultivate and perpetuate such abundance are toxic and detrimental to both social and ecological systems alike. 
   The innovation of Katazome garments was a clever and wise innovation. Because of the advantageous historical position we occupy, we can employ this wisdom. By acknowledging, sooner rather than later, which materials are and are not sustainable according to our needs, we can begin to focus on cultivating crops and techniques which will enable us to still indulge our appetite for clothing and its decoration. The success and enormity of the clothing industry is proof of clothing’s importance to humanity. The importance of clothing is irremovably woven into the essence of civilisation. Civilisation itself could be said to be the pinnacle of Homo Paramentum - undress humanity and is it the ‘human’ we are left with? Our taste for attire of aesthetic and practical value does not need to be sacrificed, yet it does need tempering. Opting for these less common materials and techniques in the western world will mitigate the damaging effects of the clothes industry. 
   Before cotton became more popular during the late-Edo period, hemp was the most commonly used material. Other than requiring half the amount of water for the same yield and having a greater capacity of carbon sequestration, in a head-to-head, Hemps environmental benignity is considerably greater than Cotton. At present, 96-98 percent of land dedicated to textile-crops is sewn with cotton. Hemp making up the majority of the remainder, with flax and other crops having a miniscule share of the whole. In very simple terms, this equates to an increase of water by 0.5 percent for each percentage of cotton crop replaced by Hemp crop. It also equates to greater returns in the forms of diminished cost of water, pesticides and soil maintenance. Neither is there the necessity of a fallow year. 
   The Edo period, in contrast to the centuries preceding it, was a peaceful time. Yet, it was a strict time characterised by a noticeable and strict social hierarchy. Silk and the forbidding of those of certain social rank to wear it reveals the very visible effects of this strict hierarchy. It was also a time of flourishing. Japans population tripled in the two hundred and sixty years of the Edo period. During this time, culture and commerce also flourished and there is the beginnings of a proto-consumer-culture. The emergence of this consumer culture is echoed in the consumer boom of the Victorian age which, like the Edo period, saw the emergence of a middle-class with superfluous and disposable income and a taste for decorative items such as prints and porcelain, both immediately inspired by Japanese trends, or Japonisme, which had become known to the world since the cessation of Japans deliberate isolationist policies. 
   No doubt the pressure of foreign influence on Japans decision to cease their isolationism was motivated by foreign interests desire to claim a stake in the growing wealth being generated by the successful Edo economy and the potential wealth which could be released by the industrialisation and marketisation of Japanese goods, as well as other cheaply manufactured goods for more general markets. In this historical moment we see the schism between intra-national economics and inter-national economics, between big and small, between sustainable isolationism and unsustainable expansionism. The aggressive insistence of America that Japan end its isolation culminated in a dismantled Edo administration and the initiation of industrialisation in Japan. It is likely this would have happened if Japan had continued their isolation. Yet, had they not ended their isolation, the industry would have been governed purely in the interest of the Japanese economy, the national interest. Whereas because of foreign pressure, Japans choice to open itself meant it had become integrated into a global network and was thereby vulnerable to the destabilising influence of foreign interests. 
   As one would expect, the end of Japans isolation from the world had social ramifications. From here on Japan modelled itself on the western model of the nation-state and within thirty years the first Sino-Japanese war began and within eighty tears after the end of isolationism, two nuclear bombs had devastated Japan. Post-WWII Japan was not entirely unlike Japan of the Edo Period. Because of certain commitments, it had little choice but to turn its attentions inwards, towards its society and its economy. It effectively became forced to function as an isolationist state. Except this time it utilized the foreign interest for its own interest and today is a significant and successful, independent contributor to the global economic system.
   Nonetheless, the economic system which it is a contributor too is the same system which coerced it out of isolationism and the same one which has normalised excessive exploitation of earth-materials and human labour and, consequently, has become a fundamental pillar of the global architecture which supports and facilitates this exploitation. In light of this, the principle of deglobulisation becomes understandable. The militaristic, political and economic strategies of colonial-imperialist power were employed for the purpose of increasing wealth through the expansion of accessible markets and reinforcing the occidental myths which legitimised and stimulated the occident’s cultural narcissism. The conquest of this resistant power was, ultimately, a validation of manifest destiny and the success of a ruthless economic opportunism.
   Yet, there is a thread which runs through the sleeve of this story. What the Edo period, the Meiji era and Post-WWII Japan have in common and is embodied in Katazome is resourcefulness. It was limitations which inspired the application of Katagami and Katazome to hemp cloth as a means of producing affordable and aesthetic clothing. The initiation of industrialisation seen during the Meiji era was also an act of resourcefulness. Confronted with the limitations placed upon it by the impositions of American drafted treaties, a means of prosperity was achieved by industrialising the country. This was in Japans interest as it was the only means by which Japan could build the necessary infra-structure which could provide the prospect of a future in which Japan was a developed country and an equal of the western world. For a time, Japan was, to a degree at the mercy of foreign interests, but it gradually regained its autonomy.
   Unfortunately, this new found autonomy, combined with an adoption of imperialist ideology, led to a period of militancy (albeit encouraged and facilitated by its new trained navy and political sponsor - America), and after a period of co-operation, which ended shortly before WWII, with what would become the allied forces, Japan formed an alliance with Germany and Italy, and this led, finally, to the dropping of the first nuclear bombs. But, again, during the fallout of WWII and the American imposed mechanisms which placed Japan in an economic cage of insularity and limitations, Japan assessed its resources and sought ways in which to use them for the benefit of Japan and now, because of the resourcefulness of its past, Japan has the fifth biggest economy in the world and a rating of 6.0 on the happiness index (0.76 behind the UK, which has the sixth biggest economy).
   The innovation of Katazome may have been catalysed by the harsh imposition of a rigid social hierarchy, but it was a reaction made possible also because of the peaceful and stable nature of the Edo period. Katazome’s creation is itself an expression of the perception that there was demand for such garments, as well as an indicator of demand itself. Moreover, Katazome is a symbol of resourcefulness, peace and prosperity. The flourishing of Japanese culture which took place during the Edo Period was itself built upon the resourcefulness of Japanese traditions. Stencilling, dying and weaving were part of the bedrock of this flourishing. As were printing, pottery and theatre. 
   Critical to this flourishing was the sustainability of Japans economy, resources and social stability. During over two hundred and fifty years of isolation, Japan achieved economic growth of enviable proportion. There is a certain irony in the fact that what the colonial powers claimed to seek was discovered to be achievable in Edo Japan. Growth, luxury and innovation were all taking place in Japan. Free from internal fighting, and free from Christianity's missionary zeal, the Japanese culture, instead of colonising others, cultivated itself. After many years of instability, the Edo period gave Japan the opportunity to explore, refine and celebrate itself and enjoy the benefits of peace-time. The economic and cultural benefits envied by outsiders could have easily been there own. Had resourcefulness and peace been the priorities of the western colonialists, they may have followed Japan’s example and focused their energies on optimising, and optimising alone, their own countries, and the history of global economics may have turned out very differently. 
   The wests vision of optimisation, which would eventually realise itself in the construction of factories, did not appeal to the Edo aesthetic of production, which held the process of the crafts and the artists in high esteem and was not concerned with manufacturing high quantities of goods for a global market. The Edo periods indifference to industrialisation was also related to the success of its economy and productivity without industrialising its manufacture. Japan was proof that isolationism could enhance a nations productivity and culture and that this could be achieved without industrial machinery, colonial strategies or global commerce. Unlike the colonial powers, Japan did not live outside its means and its successes were not dependent on the crude and inhuman mechanics of factories, the toxic fumes of coal or the colonisation of others. The Edo period was the resolution of a long period of Japanese civil/inter-tribal war which had been on and off, mostly on, for centuries and began before either Britain or America had had a civil war - the American civil war began six years after the opening of Japan. 
   The Edo culture had so much more to offer the colonial powers than commercial opportunities. It had historical wisdom, a vast tradition of craft techniques and a metaphysics which can be complimentary to Christianity and capitalism as can be seen today in modern China. In addition to these qualities, it had an appreciation of the importance of being resourceful and its success had been built on the foundations of this resourcefulness. Japans isolation was possible because of its efficient and optimal utilisation of its available resources. Being self-sufficient was contingent upon being resourceful, upon making the most of limitations and aspiring for stability rather than ascendency. Were it not for limitations of one kind or another, Katazome may not have come into existence. Japanese industrialisation did not make the traditional crafts entirely obsolete but, naturally, the change in manufacturing techniques and the commodification of style diluted the pool of crafts-people and, as Katazome had done originally, provided more affordable, less labour intensive garments. In this sense, the Meiji Era was the mechanisation and commodification of the infrastructure and cultural produce of Edo Japan. As in other countries which had industrialised, the traditional crafts, even those which were the most popular amongst commoners, receded into history and became novelties and luxuries mostly created by commission and affordable to only the rich.
   From the history of Katazome, we can learn a variety of things: it is possible to have a functional, prosperous and artistic society without industrial technology and that a degree of isolationist strategies are advantageous not only to single nations, but to the society of nations which inhabit the planet. For nations to optimise their self-sufficiency and live according to these limits is the most sustainable and nourishing course of environmental and cultural preservation. The civilisations the western nations discovered on their voyages to the east had existed at a higher standard of living for many thousands of years and had cultural histories far richer than those of the west. The lack of industrialisation in the east had more to do with the superiority of the east than with the superiority of the west. 
   Additionally, the history of Katazome elucidates the perils of free-market capitalism which was aggressively and naively weaponised by the western nations and the relationship between class and textiles. The reactionary and entrepreneurial nature of Katazome, to the ban on commoners wearing silk, spotlights how the stratification of resources determines the demarcation of social strata and commodity markets. Those who wear silk are above those who do not and those who do not wear silk are unlikely to socialise with those who do. In Edo Japan, textiles were an explicit signifier of class and status. The use of clothes to gauge a persons position is still very much with us today. Yet, whereas in Edo Japan the textiles made a persons position in the social order explicit, this is no longer the case. Except in the case of uniformed authorities, clothes today say more about which cultural group one identifies with rather than which class one belongs too. In one light, this is the success of individualism, the principle of choice, of globalism and capitalism and is, perhaps, a fair and reasonable light in which to view them. Yet, neglected and obscured in the deep shadow of this western light are the artefacts of human history, of its innovations, its techniques, of humanity itself. The variety of pre-industrial technique and culture has become almost entirely eclipsed by the profusion of mechanical production. 
   As more nations intensify their industrialisation, the homogenisation of their mechanised manufactures will eclipse the craft industries predominantly occupied by the poor. Foreign investment will very likely form a proportion of the investment which will fund the construction of factories, all of which will contribute to the diluting and obsolescence of pre-industrial technique and manufacture. Nations, cultures and economies should not be tethered to share-holders desire for return or a corporations productivity targets. Neither should cultures and traditions become disposable assets at the mercy of supply-and-demand. As self sufficiency and a non-industrial economy was the strength of Edo Japan, so too is it the strength of countries who have yet to industrialise, or progress into hyper-industrialisation. As can be seen at present from geo-political motions, there is a resource crisis. America is running low on oil, as is the E.U, Saudi Arabia and several other industrialised countries. Most of the rudimentary materials essential to the average functioning of western Europe are not found in western Europe and this puts it in a precarious position. This is the fate of participants in hyper-industrial, colonial-imperialist systems engaging in unsustainable rates of national and trans-national resource consumption - emptiness, dependence and vulnerability. The response of the west to the formation of the B.R.I.C.S alliance reveals that it is clearly concerned about its future.
   That there is a fear in the west of being economically inferior and dependent on the resources and technology of Russia, China, Iran, or India perfectly illustrates the significance of resources and the importance of being economical with them, as well as not building an economy on the domination of others resources, but on the economical use of ones own resources. This is exactly what the commoners of Edo Japan did when faced with certain social and economic restrictions. They employed traditional knowledges in a new context. Western powers teeter on the edge of the pitfalls of hyper-industrial capitalism, and as more Brexit's and Maga's emerge (an inevitability for cultures slumping into post-industrial, low-imperial phases), culture and nationhood will become ever increasingly charged and proportional to the clarity with which the complex, beneath the facade of national interest, fuelling the motions of the economy is seen by those it most exploits. In the same way that the Edo elites forbade commoners to wear silk, so too does industrialisation forbid a certain type of existence. Numerous examples of industrialisations negative effects exist, but the industrialisation of Japanese economics and the westernization of its culture plays out as an almost picture perfect reflection. 
   On a micro-scale and at an accelerated rate, what happened to Japan is what has happened to western powers: intense campaigns of industrialisation, colonisation and consumption, not being sustainable, have left the western world in an almost opposite position to the one it had occupied for around two-hundred and fifty years. What has happened to the colonial powers happened to post-Edo Japan in around a third of the time it has taken for the colonial west. Yet, the colonial-imperialist time which is presently declining has existed, in real terms, for half the time the Edo period existed.  
   As the pressure of the environmental reality intensifies and access to resources becomes more limited, we will, especially in the most catastrophic of suggested eventualities, have no choice but to once again employ traditional techniques of craft and manufacture and as happened once before, geographical limitations in climate and flora will determine the style and colour of a culture. Clothing is a fundamental quality of culture and a fundamental means of expression and identity. Non-industrial societies craft culturally specific items, items which are the unique realisations of their geographical locations and cultural ontologies, like Katazome. Katazome is easily identified as Japanese. The cut of cloth and the style of graphic make it immediately apparent that a piece of Katazome is a piece of Japanese craft. It is because this style has become culturally synonymous with Japan, as the Kilt has with Scotland, and the Sari with India. They are expressions of unique cultural ontologies and signifiers of identity. 
   Being a commodifier of culture and identity, industrialisations only interest is maximising the profits generated by a market for a specific item and the aggressive manufacture this interest leads too, unsurprisingly, causes a dramatic increase in consumption of resources, labour required, land occupation and productivity. Yet, historically, the profits of this productivity have been in the hands of colonists and the manufacture of factories predominantly orientated towards supplying supra-national demands. A completely open economy, where foreign interests are allowed to gratify themselves totally, increases the capacity for a nations economy to be usurped by bad acting, self-interested agents and, ultimately, diminishes a nations autonomy and self-sufficiency.
   This is what Edo Japan had sought to avoid and exactly what brought Edo Japan to an end. The same tides which brought an end to Edo Japan have debilitated and head-locked the western world and is leading towards further complications of global proportions. Any further contractions in global exports will effect the western world most of all, as is evidenced by current high prices in food and energy and in shipping costs. Such contractions and dependences are already causal factors in the wests explorations for alternative sources of energy. Regrettably, this global economic system of acquisition, commodification and exploitation nations are locked into is unlikely to cease entirely, but its impact can be mitigated with complimentary techniques and methods of craft and manufacture. The importance of doing so is environmental, but it is also cultural. The complimentary techniques will not only reduce rates of excessive productivity, they will also aid the preservation of pre-industrial, cultural ontologies which are essential to tempering economic forces and anchoring cultural identity. Post-industrial societies such as the U.K which underwent a paradigm shift at the advent of the industrial revolution and then another when its manufacture base subsequently collapsed, have experienced the rise, the peak and the fall of this industrial wave and is a direct product of its industrial shifts. It is no coincidence that with the decline of colonial and manufacturing benefits, culture, political autonomy and demographics have become increasingly politicised in post-industrial Britain. After very similar economic shifts, the same anxieties and frustrations were expressed also in post-Edo Japan.
   Katazome too is a reaction to economic and social shifts. It is a reaction to a nation discovering control, peace and new forms of expression and identity; of individuals creatively transcending the limits of their freedom. Katazome embodies aesthetic, innovative and practical qualities and provides us with a potent example of what can achieved by administering a creative dose of tradition and artistry. The non-industrial origins of Katazome in Japans most peaceful period ever is a reminder of the richness of a world now very distant from us and how a culture which exercises a focused cultivation of its society produces items which are representative of the unique qualities of the cultural environment. The worlds cultural identities were woven in a pre-industrial world. Ever since the beginnings of industrialisation there has been a polarisation of non-industrial and industrial societies. Cultures which had existed for millennia naturally resisted this new mode of civilisation being adopted by the west. The technological progress of the west did much to facilitate its colonial successes, yet it also did much to accelerate its decline and present resource crisis. China, India, Persia and South-America are all examples of non-industrial cultures who made great advances, some of which equal and surpass modern innovations and which, today, because of the gradual repatriation of their resources are in positions of power for some time to come.
   Edo Japan and its cultural riches such as Katazome provide us with an invaluable insight into the artistic and economic benefits of a modern, non-industrial and isolationist philosophy and the perils of capitalist-imperialism. It shows us that a highly aesthetic and proto-consumerist culture can flourish with traditional methods and crafts alone being used and that peace is the most stable and culturally stimulating of environments. Stability and cultural stimulation are infinitely more important than productivity. The stability and cultural stimulation of the Edo period gave rise to much of the work which comprises the canon of Japanese art and their relationship with the Dutch East India Company was no doubt stimulation of a sufficiently exotic kind. Edo Japan could be said to have been the beneficiary (through trade with China and the Dutch) of the best of the east and the west and precisely because they were isolated were they able to best integrate the foreign influences into their society. Through a strong sense of identity and culture, a guarded approach to imports and exports and a desire for peace and unity, Japan showed that a successful and sustainable society was achievable under these conditions and in many ways was even preferable to the aggressively militaristic style of the colonial-imperialists. For which reason it is regrettable that Tokaganwe Shogunate was coerced into de-isolating itself. Had it been allowed to continue incubating its blend of its own and drips of other cultures according to its Buddhist and aesthetic preferences, we may have seen an evolved non-industrial society gradually integrate industrial technology until it found the sweet-spot of a traditional-industrial society. Instead, Japan, and the rest of the colonial world was dragged into industrialisation.
   Katazome and the history of Japan from the the beginning of the Edo Period show us stencils of their history. The deliberateness of their design and purpose, undertaken with embroidered care, and the deliberateness of the forced redesigning of this embroidery show a micro-historic episode which uncannily resembles the trajectory, the archetypal trajectory of every expansionist endeavour, of the once imperial powers now slumping on the present macro-historic scene. When Japan faced certain pressures, it chose to adopt a new model of production, for better or for worse it made its choice. We are in the same position as Japan. However, the pressure is upon humanity and the pressure is being exerted by nature. Unlike Japan, we are not being forced to choose between our traditions or a foreign model. Rather, we are being forced to choose between a stable life in harmony with nature or a mode of living which relies excessively on industry and bounces perpetually between boom and bust. Like the creators of Katazome, it is time to accept that natures silk must temporarily be forbidden to us and be inspired by the Katazome spirit to accept limitations and begin to draw on tradition for creative solutions.