Meisen (textile)

[2] Meisen was first produced in the late 19th century,[3] and became widely popular during the 1920s and 30s (late-Taishō to early-Shōwa period), when it was mass-produced[2] and ready-to-wear kimono began to be sold in Japan.

[4] Meisen is commonly dyed using kasuri (Japanese ikat) techniques, and features what were then overtly modern, non-traditional designs[5] and colours.

[3] Between 1910 and 1925 (late Taishō to Shōwa period), the ability to spin[6] as well as weave[2] noil by machine (see tsumugi) was developed into mass production.

[14][15] Later, cloth made from blends of other fibers, but with similar properties or social roles, was sometimes marketed as meisen.

[2] Unlike in Meiji-period clothing, no attempt was made to match the colours of the older dyes;[4] vivid, obviously synthetic shades were commonly used.

While traditional kasuri involved tying bundles of threads and dying them by hand, meisen was often patterned using less labour-intensive techniques.

These produced kasuri-style blurred edges to the patterns, but with lower labour costs than hand-tying.

[2] For instance, for warp-faced fabrics, the warp threads might be dyed (printed) on the loom,[citation needed] or dyed by the hogushi ("unravelling") technique: weaving the warp with a very sparse, temporary weft (called tane-ito),[3] laying the cloth on a printing-table,[3] stencil-printing the pattern, letting the dye dry, removing the temporary weft, and re-weaving the now-coloured warp threads with a permanent weft.

[3] These thread-dying techniques produce a double-sided pattern,[5] unlike painting or printing cloth, so when a meisen garment begins to show wear on the outside, it can be resewn with the panels flipped inside-to-out.

[5] Motifs may be taken from portions of traditional patterns, and are largely abstract, often bold, geometric, or with op-art-like dazzle effects.

[citation needed] The market was highly competitive and had a rapid pace of technical innovation.