Cloth: Japanese fiber banana (bashō) and cotton; two-color tate-gasuri (warp ikat)expand_more
The John R. Van Derlip Fund and the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; purchase from the Thomas Murray Collectionexpand_more 2019.20.182
This robe is typical of Okinawan-style garments, which lack the long, detached sleeves of mainland Japanese kimonos. When Japan annexed the Ryūkyū Kingdom in 1879, renaming it Okinawa Prefecture, it required Okinawans to learn Japanese and dress in the Japanese manner. Still, garments like this continued to be made and worn. The light and dark brown sections are made of Japanese fiber banana (bashō), but the vertical stripes dyed white and black are cotton. This unlined garment would typically have been worn in summer; however, the integration of cotton into the fabric suggests fall.
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