Author: Kimono design. Shirokiyagofukuten?
Title: [Ashide Oyo Moyo?].
Description: n.p. [191-?]. 54x39cm limp cloth with brushed title label; 30 original colour designs in gouache. A working book and pretty good for such a thing. ¶ A giant (comparatively) early 20th century set of finished designs for customers or maybe a pattern book; certainly they had a life before they were made into this book. They have been numbered one to thirty and some captions or annotations added at much the same time as they were painted. A couple have had a top corner cut out and a piece painted the same colour with the number and an annotation has been over laid. Two that had annotations that would have been cropped when the sheets were trimmed and bound have been retained, folded over. The subtitle above the main title translates more or less as 'pending designs'.On the back cover is written Shirokiyagofukuten which was an Edo/Tokyo kimono seller, haberdashery, department store for about three hundred years until it petered out in the 1960s. These mostly plant based designs, though, and the pattern books which came from designs like this, seem much more Kyoto than Tokyo.This is the second Shirokiyago album I've found. I'd like to think more might be out there but I won't hold my breath.

Keywords: applied art design textiles c20th Japan costume fashion kimono pattern books meiji