About This Print

It is spring and the cherry trees are in bloom as two women and a child all dressed in Western fashion are  strolling through Tokyo's Tōshō-gū Shrine. The shrine dedicated to shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) and founded  in 1627, has been spared the many natural and man-caused disasters that have visited Tokyo and today remains largely unchanged from its renovation in 1651. The trio likely entered the grounds through Karamon gate, seen in the left panel. Five small figures, three priests and two groundskeepers, can also be seen. While the print is a "scenic view" of this Tokyo landmark, the real scenic view is the high-fashion Western dress of the women and child. 

1887-88, the years when Westernized fashion in Japan were at a height, were the pinnacle of fashion for the bustle. Thus, these ladies had to not only take on the weight of copious layers of fabric, but also distort their figures into the unnatural shape dictated by the bustle. Additionally, even though dresses could be ordered from both native and foreign dress designers in Tokyo, it was difficult to afford for many of the public servants required to wear them.2

     

While Western dress was still in fashion in 1889 when this print was produced, "by the 1890s, most women were again wearing kimono, reinventing as fashion does, the traditional styles of times past."³