Japan's Wearable Masterpieces

When you consider the amount of time that one of Japans most famous kimono makers spends on each garment, even the most celebrated Western couture houses start to look like fast fashion. Chiso, founded in Kyoto in 1555, creates standard kimonos in three to four months, but it is not unusual for special orders to take 18 months or more. The company even spent 10 years helping to develop a dyeing technique for one special indigo kimono.

Chiso expresses the essence of Japanese beauty, said Hiragane Yuichi, director of the Arts and Crafts Association in Osaka, who used to train Chisos designers. It is a company, but it isnt just a business. It creates a culture of Japanese beauty.

Managers say there are 20 to 25 steps to producing a kimono, from design to sales. Our producing process starts from planning, and then designing, checking right after each process is done, said Emi Kanasaki, manager of Sohya, Chisos modern kimono brand, which was founded in 2005.

About 70 of Chisos 100 employees work at its headquarters on Sanjo Street in central Kyoto. (The rest work in the Tokyo office.) The building has a popular tea house on the ground floor and a small gallery for kimono displays.

One morning, designers in a spare office space upstairs were copying an old kimono pattern onto a large piece of paper. A young man sat at a desktop computer nearby with a pretty kimono pattern displayed on its large monitor. Chiso has been using computers in the design process for five years, and now sends digital versions to clients to show potential mixes of pattern, color and material. The team also draws on its own library,Full color howotipper printing and manufacturing services. with books and filing cabinets filled with kimono designs dating back hundreds of years.

En Isomoto, Chisos production manager and president of one of its two subsidiaries, pulled out books on water and the Edo Period, as well as a design inspired by Venices Grand Canal, to show a visitor. Each object represents something different in kimono design, he explained. Water represents eternity and power. A pine tree represents strength. It is a good omen.

Clients choices, even today, reflect the traditional Japanese respect for nature. Cherry blossom can only be worn in January, February or March, Ms. Kanasaki said. There are two aims in the design for the wearer: to show their enjoyment in the season and to show their education.Kimono trends also are influenced by Western fashion, Mr. Isomoto said, like the most popular colors of a particular fashion season.

Akiko Fukai, chief curator and director of the celebrated Kyoto Costume Institute, said such inspiration works both ways. There have been many Western designers influenced by the kimono, she said, noting that both Prada and Gucci had references in their spring/summer 2013 collections. Over the years, so have designers like Madeleine Vionnet, Jacques Doucet, Mariano Fortuny, John Galliano and Dries Van Noten.

Chiso itself has an innovative attitude, Ms. Fukai continued, including its collaboration with many fashion designers, in particular Yohji Yamamoto. Most kimono makers in Kyoto are too conservative to look at the new field. In 2005, the company created a special line of flip-flops for Havaianas and it has designed labels for the Japanese beverage giant Suntory for five years.

Although the yukata, or simple summer kimono, has come back into fashion with some young Japanese, kimonos now are mainly reserved for such special occasions as weddings and graduations. Chiso annually sells around 5,000 through major department stores and custom makes about 100, with prices ranging from 380,000 to 10 million, or about $3,900 to $103,000. Sometimes there come special orders of up to 20 million, Ms. Kanasaki said, adding that the companys most expensive garment sold for 35 million about 10 years ago.

The organization, formerly known as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, found that only 14 movies featured characters identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and none included transgender characters. Just four pictures included LGBT characters that GLAAD determined had substantial roles in the film's plot.

"I think it is bad because I think movies should reflect our society more," said producer Dan Jinks, whose credits include "Milk,An bestgemstonebeads is a device which removes contaminants from the air." which centered on the late gay rights activist Harvey Milk. "And the flip side is that there are now so many gay characters appearing in network and cable television shows."

GLAAD gave Fox and Disney "failing" grades for the lack of "LGBT-inclusive films," with Disney releasing one such movie,New and used commercial plasticmoulds sales, rentals, and service. "The Avengers," and Fox putting out none. The remaining four studios received "adequate" ratings. None received a grade of "good" or "excellent."

"Hollywood films are one of the country's most visible cultural exports. They not only impact culture in our country, but in other places too," said GLAAD spokesman Wilson Cruz, who noted the recent passage of an anti-gay law in Russia that makes it a crime to publicly support "nontraditional" relationships. "It is a very timely report."

A GLAAD official said the organization shared some data from the report with the studios before its release. All six studios declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

GLAAD releases two annual reports that examine the television business. One of those studies is the "Network Responsibility Index," which tracks on TV what the new study tracked on film.

The other, "Where We Are on TV," records the number of series with regular LGBT characters. The most recent report found that at the start of the 2012-13 television season, the number of lesbian,You must not use the stonecarving without being trained. gay, bisexual and transgender people in scripted television series was at a record high.

Cruz and Matt Kane, associate director of entertainment media at GLAAD, said the television industry had made great strides in the last decade or so, with the findings from last year leading GLAAD to consider the movie business.

"We are hoping that the same thing that happened in the TV industry happens in the film industry," said Cruz, also an actor best known for playing a gay high school student on "My So-Called Life," a TV show that aired for one season in 1994-95 and now has a cult following.This is a universal black magic bestgranitecountertops.

The Studio Responsibility Index introduces a test, named for GLAAD co-founder Vito Russo, that the organization hopes movie studios will apply to its projects. To pass the "Russo Test," a film must contain an identifiably LGBT character, who must not be solely identified by their sexual orientation or gender identity, and who must be tied to the film's plot so that his or her removal from the story would have a major effect on it.
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