Weaving Words

‘The great question before the Japanese woman at present is the question of dress,’ wrote an anonymous contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1888. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, newly opened Japan sought to westernize not only its political system but also its everyday way of life. Dress was one of the central concerns in this process of modernization. Yet Western views on...

In modern Vienna, the Jewish men were the important participants in the cultural development and some of them were dressed themselves in ‘modern’ tailored suits. At the turn of the century, wearing suits became fashionable among the urban Jewish men and it also developed new models of Jewish identities beyond the externally prescribed notion of ‘the Jew’. Arisa is joined by Jonathan C. Kaplan-Wajs...

The Meiji era (1868-1912) was a major turning point in Japanese history, moving from their long-lasted samurai feudal society to the new paradigm of a modern nation-state that was greatly influenced by Western scientific, technological and political ideas. Thus, Meiji Japan is often missunderstood as super-westernized, thus losing its traditional aesthetics in art and culture. Recently published T...

To Be A Girl (2021) is a sensational novel of a transgender girl’s fight to survive as herself in Victorian England. Arisa is joined by the author of To Be A Girl , Alexandra Hamer. Alex explains why this breathtaking story was written and how she puts her own experiences into words. Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Be-Girl-transgender-breathtaking-Victorian-ebook/dp/B09BP64F1W

In Japan, since 1945, a lot of films were created in major studios and established a new pattern of Japanese cinema. Very interestingly, there were numbers of ‘effeminate characters’ that appeared in postwar films, showing unique expressions of Japanese ideas of sex and gender. Dr Kenta Kato, a Senior Assistant Professor at the School of Commerce, Meiji University, will discuss the issues not only...

Kimono is now globally known as a traditional Japanese garment. This episode examines how kimonos were represented and experienced on stage at the West End theatres during the second half of the nineteenth century. The host of the show, Arisa Yamaguchi, talks about the Victorian Japanese-themed musicals that were performed in London and beyond. The whole discussion on the Victorian and Edwardian e...

Hello! This is a brand new podcast series for the lovers of art, culture and hisrory called, Weaving Words, hosted by a dress historian in Japan, Dr Arisa Yamaguchi. The episodes will be uploaded once or twice a month.