Fashion Friday: The Kimono

Today when we say the word "Kimono" we visualize the brightly printed flowing gowns as traditional Japanese dress. But the Japanese word originally just meant clothing. Nothing fancy or special, just ki (wear) mono (thing),  something you wear . The kimono evolved during the Heian period( 794-1192) in Japan when the straight-line cut method of sewing was developed. This technique involved cutting pieces of fabric in straight lines and sewing them together as opposed to the previous garments that usually consisted of two separate pieces of clothing. 

Iwasa Matabei - 1650

People began to wear their kimonos in layers during colder weather and over time they started to pay attention to how colors and patterns looked in combination together. Men and women both wore brightly colored kimonos. Sometimes the colors and patterns represented the seasonal time of year, sometimes it represented a person's social standing or political affiliation. Samurai warriors, for example, would wear a color or pattern that identified which feudal lord they served. 

Kimonos are typically hand-sewn into a “T” shape from 8 single straight cut pieces of fabric called tans and tied with an obi, or belt. Using single pieces or panels allows for easy repairs if one panel  gets faded or damaged. To make a kimono you need a piece of fabric 12 to 13 meters (39 to 43 feet) long and 36 to 40 centimeters (14 to 15 inches) wide and cut into eight pieces. These pieces are then sewn back together to create the basic form of the kimono. All of the fabric is used; none is thrown away. 

The obi (belt/sash), holds the kimono in place and keeps the front of the robe closed. Obi are about 4 meters (13 feet) long and 30 centimeters (12 inches) wide. There are two types of obi: Fukuro-obi, which have a design only on one side; and Nagoya-obi, which are narrower in the middle to make them easier to tie around the body. 

There are a few different styles of kimono and what one wears depends usually on gender and age. For example, unmarried girls were a kimono style known as Furisode (swinging sleeve), which has, as the name suggests, long flowing sleeves. Once a woman is married she wears a Tomesode, or short sleeved kimono.

Furisode

Boys wear a Haori,or half-coat kimono displaying his family crest, and flowing trousers called Hamaka underneath, while men where a straight sleeved longer coat called a Happi. (Haori are now becoming more popular among women and worn in place of a light coat or sweater)

There are specific kimonos for paying formal visits, for the hot summer season, and for causal and everyday wear. The patterns and colors of the kimono are what determines the formality and use. The bigger the pattern the more formal,  while smaller printed patterns are casual. Lighter colors are for spring while the winter season calls for dark bold colors like black and red. Performers such as actors and dancers wear Odori, which are very bold and brightly patterned so as to be seen from a distance. Solid black kimonos with a family crest or emblem are reserved for funerals and mourning. 

The kimono is no longer worn for every day dress in Japan. Today it is reserved for special occasions, tea ceremonies, festivals and particular events in a person's life. No matter when they are worn they bring back a sense of beauty, grace and artistry no longer found in today's clothing aesthetics. 

Want to learn more?! Here are a few books to check out!

The Book of Kimono: The complete guide to style and wear - Norio Yamanaka

The Social Life of Kimono: The complete guide to style and wear - Sheila Cliffe

Want to buy your own? Look Here!

Want to try your hand at sewing your own? Here's a WikiHow

The Poetess: Sappho

Sappho was a lyric poet known for her verses on romantic love between women. There is not very much known about the person Psappha, or Sappho as she is known today and most of her poetry has been lost to us due to a variety of reasons. We do know that Sappho was born some time around 620 BCE (7th century) on the Greek island of Lesbos. Her presence there, combined with the love poems she wrote seems to be where the word "lesbian" began. This word was a 19th century term and was not used during Sappho's own time. There are speculations that her family was fairly wealthy and a consensus that she did marry and had a daughter named Kleis. She was exiled to Sicily twice for political reasons, though those reasons have never been specified. One of her students opened a school for girls in her name to which she herself is sometimes given credit for founding. She did organize her own students into a group that worshiped Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. Sappho died somewhere around the year 570, though a specific date or how she died are unknown.

Sappho was known throughout the Greek world for her musical and personal lyric verses. Greek philosopher Plato referred to her as the tenth muse. She invented a completely new meter for poetry, now known as Sapphic Meter or the Sapphic Stanza which consists of three lines of eleven beats and a concluding line of five. Of course the meter is sometimes off when the poems are translated out of their original Aeoilic Greek dialect. 

Though most of her surviving poetry seems to have a focus on lesbian love, there is not definitive proof one way or the other to confirm she was (or was not) a lesbian herself. Her poems certainly can be interpreted as biographical or they can be interpreted as a character role separate from the writer. She did write verses occasionally about other topics typical of the ancient world, including a poem with verses about her own brothers. Her poems were meant to be sung and accompanied by a lyre and her lyrics became known as wedding songs. The Library of Alexandria (shake head and shed tear here for the tragic loss of such wonderful collections) compiled her poems into 9 books. Sadly only one complete poem, Hymn to Aphrodite, and a few verses from other poems survive today. She was honored and praised among her contemporaries and for many centuries after her passing. Statues and coins in her image have been found throughout the Greek world. The only reason Hymn to Aphrodite survived in its entirety is because it was fully quoted by a Roman orator named Dionysus in one of his own works. Sappho was much sought after for her performances and her image was reproduced on all kinds of "merchandise" around the Greek world. Vases, coins, bronze relief and art can be found sporting her image. She was kind of like the world's first pop star!

             

 Fragment 31 

That man to me seems equal to the gods,

            the man who sits opposite you

            and close by listens

            to your sweet voice

          and your enticing laughter—

            that indeed has stirred up the heart in my breast.

            For whenever I look at you even briefly

            I can no longer say a single thing,

            but my tongue is frozen in silence;

     instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;

            with my eyes I see nothing;

            my ears make a ringing noise.

            A cold sweat covers me,

            trembling seizes my body,

        and I am greener than grass.

            Little short of death do I seem.

Tender and longing, ardent and desirous, envious and jealous, bittersweet and rapturous in the moment; Sappho's works are heavy with emotion. Her poems are simple and profound at the same time. They capture the essence of love and life and present them to the audience to experience as well. 

I love the sensual.

For me this

and love for the sun

has a share in brilliance and beauty

I desire

And I crave.

You set me on fire.

A servant

of wile-weaving

Aphrodite...

 Eros

Giver of pain...

 Eros

Coming from heaven

throwing off

his purple cloak.

Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles me

bittersweet,

irresistible,

a crawling beast.

As a wind in the mountains

assaults an oak,

Love shook my breast.

The Three Smith Sisters

  Everyone knows Abigail Adams; wife of John Adams, second President of the United States and her famous "remember the ladies," quote. Few people have much knowledge about her sisters Mary and Elizabeth.


  The Smith girls were born to William and Elizabeth Quincy Smith in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Abigail and her two sisters did not receive a formal education like their brother William, but were taught by their father who was a preacher. Abigail was an avid reader and loved to debate with the students that often met and sometimes lived at the Smith home. She and her sisters were prolific letter writers and always tried to see who could out-write and out-wit the others. The three sisters were very close and wrote to each other as often as their busy home lives would allow. They also believed in equal education for both sexes and all were upset that their brother regarded it disdainfully when it was so accessible to him. All three sisters made sure that their own daughters were taught the classics, philosophy, languages and math and science; subjects that were decidedly male.

  The sisters also became caught up in the politics of the world. As the times in which they lived began to change, so too did the sisters thinking and political ideas began to change. Abigail especially, as the wife of a congressional delegate and then ambassador in Europe, felt the pull of politics and always kept up with political news and ideas and worked tirelessly to help John as he became more important to the formation of the new country. At first all of them craved anything to do with their "Mother Country" of England. As Parliament began to enact taxes that the colonies felt were unjust, so too did the Smith sisters begin to think less of England as home and more of America as their true country. Abigail wrote in 1773 "... the tea that baneful weed is arrived. Great and I hope effectual opposition has been made to the landing of it." Betsy,  writing to her cousin Isaac at Harvard remarked that "A glorious spirit of Liberty prevails among you." The sisters also began making their own homespun clothes instead of fabrics imported from England. 

  Mary, the oldest sister, was born December 9, 1741. When Mary was 14 she met the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life. Richard Cranch was an Englishman staying at the Smith home. He was a quiet, studious man from a poor family, and he was 15 years older than Mary. Richard decided to take it upon himself to tutor Mary and her sisters and he taught them all about Shakespeare, the Enlightenment, French and many other subjects. This of course endeared him to all the females in the Smith household. After Mary and Richard were wed in 1762, they moved to Braintree and then on to Salem. Mary gave birth to her first baby, a daughter she named Elizabeth. Another daughter, Lucy followed. Shortly after their son Billy was born the Cranches moved to Boston after they were chased out of Salem by Tory sympathizers in 1774. Richard was not much of a business man and most of his endeavors did not prosper so the Cranches were not as well off as the Adams. They finally settled in Quincy, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. For the most part, Mary was content to arrange the lives of her children and nieces and nephews along with the people in Quincy. The Cranches outlived their daughter Betsy and took in their 8 grandchildren. Mary wasted away under the harsh life with tuberculosis and she and Richard died just a few days apart in 1811.

  Abigail was born November 11, 1744. When she was very young, she was sick with rheumatic fever that was so severe she became paralyzed for two weeks. She would have recurring bouts with this sickness throughout her life. It was through Mary's beloved Richard Cranch that Abigail first met John Adams in the summer of 1759. Each had an unfavorable impression of the other. Two years later, upon meeting again, John decided that nothing would do but for him to marry Abigail. Her parents still weren't fond of John and insisted on a long engagement. John and Abigail were married on October 24, 1764. They moved to Braintree and lived in a small house beside John's mother on 23 acres of land. Their first daughter Abigail (Nabby) was born in 1765 and John Quincy was born two years later. Another girl was born but died fourteen months later. Two more boys, Charles and Thomas would complete their family. She did become pregnant again but the baby, a girl, was stillborn.
  
  Since John was away from home for long periods of time, Abigail was tasked with the daily management of their farm; as landlord, farmer, and banker. As John's eminence in America rose so did Abigail's popularity but she missed her husband terribly. When John went off to play ambassador to France, Abigail was beside herself with loneliness and reproached him often for not writing to her. This dismissal from her husband's affections led to a bit of a scandal with another married man named James Lovell. They began a writing correspondence in which he boldly flirted with her and to which she made no move to stop. A letter Lovell wrote to another congressional delegate was intercepted by the British and was printed in a Tory newspaper. In it was sexual reference that made Lovell look bad and embarrassed his wife. This apparently woke Abigail up to the dangers of their correspondence. She sent him a letter scolding him for being so forward but her letter sounds like she was more angry at herself for letting things progress so far out of moral bounds. "No situation more delicate, more critical or more liable to censure than that of a Lady whose Husband is away," she wrote to Lovell. Finally John asked his wife to join him in London. Sister Shaw took in Abigail's youngest sons and saw to their education while she was away. They weren't in England long before John was sent back to France. In 1787 after John had been in Europe for over a decade and Abigail with him for four of those years; the Adams's set sail for America. When John was elected Vice-President of the newly formed United States Abigail was happy for him but not ready to part again. Eventually she went to New York and then to Philadelphia to be with him. As Vice-President, Adams received $5,000 a year but this was not enough to support their two households and Abigail had to scrimp to get by.  When Adams became the second President his salary increased to $25,000. In 1800 the capitol was moved to Washington D.C and Abigail became the first First Lady to live in the White House. When John lost the next presidential election Abigail was happy to return to some kind of normal life at her home Peacefield, located in Quincy. She still worried about money since at that time there was no pension offered to former presidents. The lost of the presidency was compounded by the death of their son Charles from liver failure. They settled into retirement at Peacefield but sadly they outlived their son Thomas, who like Charles and Abigail's brother, died from alcoholism and their daughter Nabby who died from breast cancer. Abigail herself died in 1818 of typhus fever. She was the last of the Smith sisters.

 Elizabeth (Betsy), born on April 7, 1750 was the youngest of the girls. When she was just a young girl she became so ill that the doctor gave strict orders that she was not even to read or write. After Abigail was married, Betsy lived off and on with her in Braintree while John was away working as an ambassador for the colonies. Since Betsy was the youngest, she spent the most time at home nursing her parents as they grew older. Judging from her letters to their Cousin Issac Smith, it appears that Elizabeth may well have been in love with him. Though she refused to confirm her feelings, she wrote to him of their "friendship formed in infancy, which has been cemented by the most rational esteem in maturer years." Eventually, she and Isaac drifted apart and letters became less frequent as life pulled them in different directions, especially when Isaac admitted he was a Tory; sympathetic to the British. In 1773 Elizabeth met John Shaw. She was 22 and he was 24. Abigail did not like Shaw but Betsy assured her that neither had any designs for marriage; writing up a fake official document and attaching Shaw's signature that she cut off from another letter and sending it to Abigail. "We...have no such purpose in our hearts, as has been unjustly surmised." But contrary to the protests John Shaw and Elizabeth were married in 1777. John became a minister and Elizabeth was happy to tend her new home and garden and the new society she met in her new parish of Haverhill. By 1781 the Shaws had two children and when Elizabeth turned 39 she was pregnant with her third child. She named her new daughter after her sister Abigail in hopes of reconciling her to the new baby. Sister Adams was appalled by this late in life pregnancy and even after baby Abbey was born, Abigail refused to write to Elizabeth for months. In 1793 John Shaw passed away in his sleep at the age of 47. In letters later sent between the Smith sisters and the townspeople of Haverhill, it came to light that John Shaw had been an alcoholic and possibly abusive. Elizabeth didn't stay a widow for long. In fact she was courted by several eligible men in the area. One of those men was her old friendly correspondent and cousin Isaac but he waited too long. Another minister, Parson Peabody, was already there proposing on the same day that Isaac had ridden over to do the very same thing. On the day the ceremony was set to take place came a horrible snow storm. The Parson would not wait and arrived promptly on time to pick her up. During the ceremony itself someone came running into the church yelling that her own house was on fire! Their marriage seemed to run much more uneventfully than their wedding day. They set up a school in their home and Elizabeth felt she had found her place in helping to mold future generations. Unfortunately tragedy marred her happy home when her oldest daughter, Betsy Q, contracted tuberculosis and by September 1798 she had passed away. The Peabody's Atkinson Academy continued to prosper. In 1815 Elizabeth passed away in her sleep.

  All three sisters spent their lives living for each other and living to make changes in a changing world. Their letters are lasting evidence of the deep bonds that sisterhood and a collective shared experience can create. They were witness to revolution, rebellion, war, and reform, death, and life. The Smith sisters fought to challenge societal norms by teaching their own children and their grandchildren that a woman's intellect was no less than a man's. Even though they participated in separate spheres, men and women should work to complete and compliment each other. Mary, Abigail and Elizabeth fought to make history and to change the future. 

For further reading:

Dear Abigail: The Intimate Loves and Revolutionary Ideals of Abigail and her two Remarkable Sisters - Diane Jacobs

John Adams - David McCullough

Abigail Adams: Letters - Abigail Adams, Edith Gelles

Abigail Adams - Woody Holton

First Family: Abigail and  John Adams - Joseph J. Ellis



  

Anne of Cleves -

  Anne was the fourth wife of Henry VIII and was able to survive his beheading obsession and go on to live a full life. 

  Anne's father was duke of Cleves (German: Kleve) and her mother was the daughter of the duke of Julich, which means she was pretty well connected in Germany. Where the heck is Cleves anyway? Cleves was a duchy located on the Lower Rhine region of northwest Germany near the Dutch border. Cleves had been an important town since the 11th century and became a duchy in 1417. Her father John established Lutheranism throughout his duchies so it makes sense that she would be proposed as a possible match to the king who brought Protestantism to England.

  Anne was born on 22 September in 1515 in Dusseldorf, Duchy of Berg. She was 24 and Henry was 48 when they married on the 6th of January in 1540 at the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, London. Henry objected to the marriage and tried to find a way out of the betrothal contract but no one could find a way to end it. He told Cromwell on the day the marriage took place that "if it were not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that which I must do this day for none earthly thing." So, why did Henry agree to marry her in the first place? He needed political Protestant allies. So, why did Henry become so against the marriage? Who know? It's Henry VIII. Actually there were a few reasons, though they might not make much sense to us.

  While marrying site unseen to make political alliances was totally the norm back in Henry and Anne's time, this idea did not appeal to Henry. He preferred to prowl on his own to find a wife he desired. He asked for a painting of Anne so that he might know what she looked like. Being put off by Anne's people, Henry sent his own painter to Cleves to paint a portrait of Anne. Henry wasn't keen on the marriage idea after seeing her portrait but was convinced to carry on because of the Protestant alliances that was to be made. 

Portrait of Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger commissioned by Henry VIII

  Henry contrived to meet Anne by surprise as she made her way to London. The first time they met he was in disguise. Henry loved to disguise himself to see if people could see through his costume. His true love surely must be able to see the man behind the mask. Unfortunately when Anne met Henry in his disguise she did not instantly recognize him as her true love. Accounts of this first meeting say that Henry embraced and kissed her and presented her with New Year's gift from the King. Anne, not knowing who he was, rejected him and pushed him away. This was a great disappointment and turn off for Henry. No true love for him with Anne.

  Even though Henry thought Anne "well and seemly," she was not the great beauty that she had been reported to be and her appeal grew less and less. She did not speak English and was uneducated. This was another turn off for Henry who liked his women smart and witty. He was reportedly so repulsed by her looks that after four days of marriage their union had still not been consummated. Anne described their nightly ritual to one of her ladies in waiting saying he would take her hand, kiss her and wish her a good night and would leave the same way in the mornings. On July 9th, six months after their marriage took place it was unanimously declared null and void by Parliament. 

  The fact that Anne kept her head figuratively through all of this drama is why Henry allowed her to keep her head literally. She had been made aware of Henry's plans to annul the marriage from a letter sent by him in June. At first she was upset and fainted, but after giving it some thought and consulting with her clergy, she was satisfied with the arrangement. I mean, who wouldn't be? She got to remain with the living, with an attached head and was granted lands worth £4,000 a year. All Anne had to do was renounce the name of Queen of England for that of the King's "sister" and stay in England the remainder of her days.

  So what did Anne think of Henry, their brief marriage and her life in England after the annulment? We don't know much about her thoughts and actions before coming to England. She did convert from Lutheranism to Anglican when she arrived in England. Since Anne had no education she was probably very innocent and naive but the fact that she accepted Henry's wishes for an annulment shows she certainly wasn't stupid. After their marriage was annulled, Anne became an honorary member of Henry's household and was invited to court often. She reported that the King was always kind to her. Henry was so grateful she didn't make a stink over the dissolution of their marriage that he decreed she had precedence over all other women at court except for his wife and daughters.

  When Henry's daughter by his first wife ascended to the English throne as Mary I, Anne of Cleves rode beside Mary's sister (and future Queen) Elizabeth in the coronation procession. Anne once again changed her religion, this time becoming Catholic since Mary I was a Catholic herself. Anne eventually fell out of favor with Mary because of her close connection to Elizabeth and Mary stopped inviting her back to court.

  Anne died at Chelsea Manor in July of 1557, just eight weeks before her 42nd birthday. In her will she asked Mary and Elizabeth to employ her servants. She also left some money for her servants who described her as generous and an easy-going mistress. She was buried on August 3rd in Westminster Abby and is the only wife of Henry VIII to be buried there. 

For further reading on King Henry's probably least known wife check these books out:

Anne of Cleves: Fourth Wife of Henry VIII - Mary Saaler

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's Discarded Bride - Elizabeth Norton

The Marrying of Anne of Cleves. Royal Protocol in Early Modern England - Retha Warnicke