Two Exhibitions Reflecting the History of Postwar Japanese Fashion

From spring through summer 2026, major retrospectives of two pioneering women designers who shaped the history of postwar Japanese fashion, Hanae Mori (1926–2022) and Hiroko Koshino (b. 1937) were held in Tokyo almost simultaneously.

“The Centennial of Hanae Mori: Vital Type” at The National Art Center, Tokyo (April 15–July 6, 2026; previously presented at the Iwami Art Museum in Shimane, September 20–December 1, 2025) presented approximately 400 works, including haute couture garments, design drawings, films, archival materials, and works shown publicly for the first time, tracing Mori’s remarkable creative career.

Meanwhile, “(UN)KNOWN HIROKO KOSHINO—New Theory/True Theory” at The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (May 26–July 26, 2026) featured approximately 200 works spanning more than five decades of Koshino collections, alongside some 130 paintings. Together, these works revealed her creative trajectory beyond fashion, encompassing painting and other forms of artistic expression.

Although Mori and Koshino developed distinctly different aesthetics and approaches, both opened Japanese fashion to the world and expanded its possibilities. Viewed together, these two retrospectives not only reexamined their individual achievements but also offered a compelling reflection on the evolution of postwar Japanese fashion and the possibilities of its future.

The fact that these two major retrospectives, looking back on the careers of two pioneering women masters of fashion, were held in the same year and in the same city of Tokyo is more than a coincidence. Together, they can be viewed as a symbolic moment through which to reflect on more than eight decades of postwar Japanese cultural and industrial history and the evolving role and advancement of women in Japanese society.

Postwar Japan achieved an extraordinary economic recovery from the devastation of war. One of the key industries that supported this transformation was the textile industry. Since the Meiji era, Japanese raw silk had dominated global markets, and before World War II, it had grown into the country’s largest export industry.[1] After the war, cotton spinning and synthetic fiber industries continued to develop rapidly, becoming important export sectors that helped drive Japan’s high-growth economy.[2] Companies such as Toray, Teijin, and Kuraray successively developed advanced materials including nylon and polyester, while Japan’s expertise in weaving, dyeing, and garment manufacturing evolved to a level that earned international recognition.[3] Without these sophisticated textile industries and the exceptional skills of the artisans who supported them, Japanese fashion could not have made its breakthrough onto the international stage.

However, industry alone does not move the world. It takes visionary creators who can give new value to exceptional materials and transform them into a form of culture that can be shared with the world. Among those who played this role were Japanese designers such as Hanae Mori and Hiroko Koshino. They elevated Japan’s sophisticated textile technologies and traditional dyeing and weaving traditions beyond industrial products, transforming them into creative expressions imbued with aesthetic sensibility—and in doing so, helped establish the value of Japanese fashion on the international stage.

At the same time, their achievements paralleled the advancement of women in postwar Japanese society. At a time when it was still far from easy for women to succeed internationally as business leaders and cultural figures, Mori became the first Asian woman to be admitted as a full member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris, while Koshino became the first Asian designer invited to Rome’s Alta Moda. Each forged her own path at the highest levels of the international fashion world, demonstrating to the world the possibilities and potential of Japanese women.[4][5]

Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan pursued modernization by actively embracing Western culture. In the process, Western-style dress spread rapidly, while the centers of fashion remained predominantly in Europe and the United States for many decades. Yet, viewed together, these two retrospectives reveal that the source of the designers’ distinctive voices on the international stage was, in fact, deeply rooted in the traditional culture Japan had cultivated over centuries—including the kimono, textile arts, kabuki, Japanese painting, and a profound sensitivity to the changing seasons and the natural world. Rather than simply imitating the West, they creatively reinterpreted Japanese culture, leaving an unmistakable Japanese imprint on the history of global fashion.

Through the journeys of these two remarkable designers, this article examines how, in the early stages of their careers, they established pathways for presenting “Japan” to the world; how they drew upon Japanese culture as a source of creative inspiration while integrating it with Western aesthetics and techniques; and how, ultimately, they transformed these distinct cultural influences into a universal language that transcended national borders.

Chiyo Tanaka—A Pioneer of Japanese Fashion Who Brought the Kimono to the World

Before turning to Hanae Mori and Hiroko Koshino, it is essential to acknowledge another pioneering figure in the history of Japanese fashion: Chiyo Tanaka (1906–1999). Long before Japanese designers began gaining international recognition in the postwar era, Tanaka sought to introduce Japanese culture to the international community through modern fashion. As a true pioneer, she helped establish a path for the generations of Japanese designers who followed.

Tanaka was born in 1906 as the eldest daughter of Keishiro Matsui, a baron who later served as Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his wife, Teruko. She traveled to Europe accompanying her husband, Kaoru Tanaka, a geographer, and studied dressmaking, art, and design extensively in Switzerland, Britain, Germany, and France. Among the institutions she attended was the Die Mode und Tracht Schule in Zurich, founded by the German designer Otto Ludwig Haas-Heye (1879–1959). At a time when very few Japanese women had the opportunity to receive systematic training in the most advanced European approaches to fashion and dress, these experiences became a foundation for her creative philosophy. 

After returning to Japan, Tanaka became the first designer for Kanebo, playing a leading role in the modernization of Japanese apparel design. In 1935 (Showa 10), she organized Japan’s first full-scale fashion show at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, opening the way for a fashion-show culture in Japan. She also made significant contributions as an educator, training generations of designers. In 1955, she published Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dress and Fashion, Japan’s first comprehensive encyclopedia of clothing and fashion, further contributing to the systematization and development of Japan’s fashion culture.[6]

One of the most remarkable aspects of Tanaka’s career was her early international outlook and her determination to introduce Japanese culture to the world. In 1950, at the Traphagen School of Fashion in New York, she presented a solo exhibition titled “From Jūnihitoe to the Modern Age,” where she unveiled her concept of the “New Kimono.”[7] She continued to serve as a cultural ambassador for Japan, presenting fashion shows in Paris, Bonn, Rome, and other cities. In 1967, she held a fashion show at the Plaza Hotel in New York titled “From Edo to the Space Age,” continuing to introduce Japanese culture to international audiences through contemporary fashion.

What is particularly significant is that the theme Tanaka presented to the world was, once again, the kimono. Her approach was far from simply presenting a traditional garment as it was. Respecting the kimono’s flat construction and distinctive aesthetic, she incorporated Western dressmaking techniques, functionality, and contemporary design to create what she envisioned as a “free and functional improved kimono.” It was a creative proposal that translated Japanese culture into a form suited to modern life.

This idea of modernizing Japanese culture and communicating it to the world represents an important lineage that can also be traced through the work of Hanae Mori and Hiroko Koshino. Behind the international recognition these two designers achieved lies the intellectual and creative foundation established by Chiyo Tanaka, who, from before the war, began forging a connection between Japanese cultural traditions and Western fashion.

Hanae Mori—Translating Japanese Aesthetics into a Global Language

In 2026, marking the centennial of her birth, the late Hanae Mori is remembered as the first Asian designer to become a full member of the Paris Haute Couture Syndicate, elevating Japanese fashion to the highest levels of the international fashion world. Her career spanned major cultural and fashion centers including Tokyo, New York, Paris, London, Monaco, Milan, Barcelona, and New Delhi. Her work extended far beyond haute couture and ready-to-wear to encompass publishing and media ventures, making her a defining force in the development of Japan’s postwar fashion culture.

Born in 1926 in Kanoashi District, Shimane Prefecture, Mori moved to Tokyo with her family in 1937. After the end of World War II in 1945, she graduated from Tokyo Woman’s Christian University in 1947 and married Ken Mori, whom she had met through wartime labor service. The following year, in 1948, she began studying dressmaking at a branch of the Dressmaker Gakuin in Kichijoji, embarking on a new path in the turbulent years immediately following the war.

Mori opened her first studio, Hiyoshiya, near the East Exit of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo in 1951. At the time, Japan was entering the golden age of its film industry. Before television became widespread, cinema was one of the country’s most popular forms of entertainment and an influential medium through which fashion reached a broad public. [4]

In 1954, Mori’s career in film costume design began when she was commissioned to create the costumes for the Nikkatsu film There Is Such a Dream (Kakute Yume Ari). She went on to design costumes for productions by Japan’s major film studios, including Nikkatsu, Daiei, Toho, Toei, and Shochiku, ultimately creating costumes for several hundred films.

Among her most iconic designs was the floral aloha shirt she created for Crazed Fruit (Kurutta Kajitsu, 1956), based on the novel by Shintaro Ishihara and starring Yujiro Ishihara. The shirt became a symbol of a new youth culture that rejected established conventions. The free-spirited lifestyle of the postwar generation, known as the “Sun Tribe” (Taiyōzoku), became a major social phenomenon, and through her film costumes, Mori helped give visual form to the sensibility of a new era in Japan. [4]

Success in film costume design alone did not satisfy Mori, however. In 1960, as Japanese cinema reached an all-time peak in annual film production, Mori herself collapsed from exhaustion and was forced to take an extended period of recuperation. Even during this period of rest, she continued to explore ways of incorporating uniquely Japanese aesthetics into contemporary fashion. She developed her “Kiku Mode” (Chrysanthemum Mode), drawing inspiration from the chrysanthemum, one of Japan’s national flowers, and began translating this distinctly Japanese motif into modern fashion.

A major turning point came in 1961. Mori first traveled to Paris, where she encountered the world of haute couture firsthand, visiting the houses of Christian Dior, Balenciaga, and Chanel. She even had a suit made for herself at Chanel’s atelier. That summer, she made her first trip to New York.

What Mori witnessed in New York left an indelible impression. At Saks Fifth Avenue, European luxury fashion houses occupied the upper floors, while in the basement, piles of poorly made Japanese “one-dollar blouses” were being sold. At the time, “Made in Japan” was largely synonymous with inexpensive, low-quality mass-produced goods, while Japan’s sophisticated textile traditions and exceptional craftsmanship remained largely unknown to the international fashion world.

The experience gave Mori a profound sense of purpose. If she was to bring Japanese fashion to the world, she realized, she could not simply imitate the West. She had to demonstrate what could be created precisely because she was Japanese. [4]

After returning to Japan, Mori immersed herself once again in Japanese art, literature, textiles, and traditional motifs. She came to understand that in order to reach the world, she first needed to develop a deeper understanding of her own country and its cultural heritage.

The result was “MIYABIYAKA,” a collection she presented at the Hotel Delmonico in New York in January 1965. Boldly incorporating Japan’s finest textile traditions, including Nishijin-ori brocade and Yūzen dyeing, the collection presented Japanese aesthetics through the language of contemporary fashion. The show was a major success. Eugenia Sheppard, one of America’s leading fashion journalists, described Mori’s work as “East Meets West,” praising it as a sophisticated fusion of Japanese and Western cultures.

Thereafter, leading New York department stores, including Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue, began carrying Mori’s designs. Diana Vreeland, the influential editor-in-chief of Vogue, praised the vivid red used in Mori’s dresses as “lacquer red,” helping introduce a distinctly Japanese sensibility toward color to the international fashion world. [4]

Mary Griggs Burke, one of the world’s foremost collectors of Japanese art, commissioned Mori to create an evening ensemble inspired by White Plum Blossoms Under the Moon by Itō Jakuchū, a work from her own collection. She wore the ensemble at the opening of an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mori’s clientele also came to include numerous prominent figures in Europe and the United States, including Nancy Reagan. Through haute couture, Mori’s distinctive Japanese aesthetic gradually found its way into the international social elite.

Mori’s designs incorporated a rich vocabulary of motifs long cultivated within Japan’s kimono tradition, including chrysanthemums, cherry blossoms, bamboo, peonies, tortoiseshell patterns, waves, ripples, birds, and fans. Above all, the butterfly became her most iconic symbol.

When Mori first encountered the opera Madama Butterfly in the United States, she was deeply troubled by its portrayal of a Japanese woman as a submissive and tragic figure. In response, she adopted the butterfly as a symbol with which to challenge and overturn such stereotypes. Representing transformation and freedom, the butterfly eventually became an internationally recognized icon synonymous with Hanae Mori herself. [4]

What Hanae Mori ultimately brought to the world was not simply a collection of Japanese motifs, but the essence of a distinctly Japanese aesthetic sensibility. Her journey began in New York, where she set out to redefine what “Made in Japan” could mean—not as a mark of inexpensive mass production, but as a signature of refinement, artistry, and cultural identity.[4]

Hiroko Koshino—Transforming Japanese Culture into New Forms of Creation

Hiroko Koshino presented Japanese culture to the world from a distinctly different perspective than Hanae Mori. While Mori elevated kimono motifs and other Japanese symbols into the realm of contemporary haute couture, Koshino translated the Japanese aesthetic traditions of space, structure, and proportion into the language of modern fashion. Her approach was not simply to incorporate recognizable Japanese motifs, but to reinterpret the underlying principles of Japanese aesthetics as a new form of clothing and creative expression.

Born in 1937 in Kishiwada, Osaka, Hiroko Koshino grew up surrounded by fashion and traditional Japanese culture. Her grandfather was a kimono merchant, her father a tailor, and her mother, Ayako Koshino, ran a dressmaking shop. From an early age, her grandfather took her to see kabuki and bunraku, while she also became familiar with the world of geisha and the paintings of the renowned Japanese artist Uemura Shōen (1875-1949).

“The roots of my creativity lie in the kabuki and bunraku performances I saw with my grandfather when I was a child. That glamorous world has remained with me ever since. What enters you as a child can shape your entire life.”

As Koshino explained in an interview with me, these encounters with traditional Japanese performing arts and visual culture became the formative landscape of her creative imagination.

Yet from childhood, Koshino’s greatest passion was drawing. Even during the wartime years, when materials were scarce, her mother managed to obtain pastels for her and sometimes encouraged her to draw with chalk on the streets. After graduating from high school, Koshino hoped to attend an art university, but abandoned the plan at her mother’s urging. Her encounter with the fashion illustrations of Junichi Nakahara (1913-1983), however, led to a pivotal realization: fashion could be created through drawing, without ever having to sew a garment. This insight ultimately inspired her to pursue a career in fashion design.[8]

In 1955, at the age of 18, Koshino moved to Tokyo to study at Bunka Fashion College. Her talent was recognized early on; while still a student, she won first prize in a design competition organized by the Japan Designers Club (NDC).

She began her professional career in 1961 as an exclusive designer for the Ginza Komatsu Store. In 1964, she opened her own haute couture atelier in Shinsaibashi, Osaka. The following year, she presented a collection at Club Arrow in Osaka, establishing herself as one of the leading designers of the Kansai region.

The door to the international fashion world opened for Koshino in 1978, when she became the first designer of Asian descent to be invited to present a collection at Alta Moda in Rome. The invitation came from the prestigious Venetian textile manufacturer Luigi Bevilacqua. For the occasion, Koshino created a “Japonisme Collection,” boldly fusing elements of Japanese fashion—including obijime cords, the structural principles of the kimono, and textiles woven with gold and silver threads—with modernist design.

Yet the innovation of the collection went far beyond surface-level Japanese ornamentation. What Koshino presented was a distinctly Japanese approach to constructing clothing from a two-dimensional plane.

Western garments traditionally developed around a three-dimensional understanding of the human body, using cutting and tailoring techniques to shape fabric around its contours. The kimono, by contrast, begins with a flat plane of fabric, which is wrapped, folded, and layered around the body to create a three-dimensional form. This fundamental concept also resonates with the principles of origami, in which a flat surface is transformed through folding into a new form.

Koshino translated this distinctly Japanese approach to form into contemporary fashion by creating garments with seams reduced to a minimum.

The collection made a powerful impact in Europe. The Italian edition of Harper’s Bazaar devoted an extraordinary 30-page feature to her work, praising it as a “reinvention,” “re-presentation,” and “renewal.” Japanese culture was no longer being viewed merely through the lens of exoticism; it was beginning to be recognized as a source of innovative ideas about form and design.[8]

Koshino’s creative vision, however, extended far beyond Japanese tradition. Shortly before her Rome collection, she had traveled to Afghanistan, where she encountered traditional garments, vivid colors, and decorative motifs that she boldly incorporated into her designs. She freely combined Japanese culture with influences from other traditions, reconstructing them through the filter of her own sensibility rather than treating “Japanese-ness” as something fixed or prescribed. This fluid fusion of diverse cultural influences would eventually evolve into a distinctive visual universe that might be described as “the Hiroko Koshino kind of chaos.”

By 1983, Koshino’s growing international reputation had reached New York. At the newly opened Trump Tower’s indoor shopping mall, renowned buyer Lina Lee secured three retail spaces and established a Hiroko Koshino boutique as the centerpiece of the complex.

Her Rome collection was offered to New York’s affluent clientele at prices far higher than those in Japan, yet the designs achieved considerable success. It was a symbolic moment: Japanese design itself was beginning to be embraced as a form of luxury on the international stage.

As Koshino entered her forties, her creative expression deepened further. In 1981, she built a home (now utilized as KH gallery) designed by architect Tadao Ando (b.1941) in the mountains of Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture. She believed that to understand Japanese culture more deeply, one needed to live in close dialogue with the changing seasons.

The winter landscape, white as though painted with flowing sumi-ink; the yellow and ochre tones interwoven with autumn foliage; the delicate blush of cherry blossoms in spring; the blues and violets of hydrangeas in early summer—the subtle shifts of color revealed by the mountain landscape became a direct source for Koshino’s approach to color. In her work, the Japanese seasons themselves seem to unfold like paintings, translated into a sophisticated language of color, form, and texture.

Architect Tadao Ando has described Koshino’s design in these terms: “By valuing the texture and character of materials and building up details to create elegant silhouettes, Hiroko Koshino’s designs are neither Western nor Eastern. They transcend both, speaking instead to something fundamental in the human experience.”[9]

Her international career expanded from Rome to Paris, New York, China (Shanghai, 1984), South Korea (1987), the Czech Republic (1994), and Germany (Hamburg, 2000). When I asked Koshino why she had chosen to hold the New York solo exhibition “A Touch of Bauhaus,” which I curated, she explained:

“There are times when Japanese people do not recognize the value of something until it is appreciated overseas.”

Her goal, therefore, was not simply to gain recognition in New York. It was also to reaffirm and communicate the value of her work to the Japanese market by having it recognized on an international stage.

When asked about Hanae Mori, Koshino recalled, “Mori-sensei was someone I deeply admired. She sent me flowers for my collections, and after seeing my show in Rome, she told me, ‘You are the haute couture designer who will follow me.’”

Yet the “Japan” that the two designers presented to the world was distinctly different. Mori expressed Japanese beauty through iconic motifs such as butterflies, chrysanthemums, and cherry blossoms. Koshino, by contrast, conveyed a uniquely Japanese sense of space itself—through the enveloping structure of the kimono, its two-dimensionality reminiscent of origami, the colors of the changing seasons, and her bold fusion of influences from other cultures.

This difference is precisely what reveals the richness and diversity of Japanese fashion culture.

The Japanese Aesthetic as Seen Through Two Masters

What emerges from the two retrospectives of Hanae Mori and Hiroko Koshino is more than the story of two Japanese designers who achieved international success. Each, in her own distinctive way, posed the question “What is Japan?” to the world, elevating Japanese aesthetic sensibility within the context of international fashion.

Their journeys are intertwined with the broader history of postwar Japan, including the development of its textile industry and the expanding role of women in society. Tracing their creative lineage further back leads to Chiyo Tanaka, who, from before the war through the postwar period, pioneered the idea of modernizing the kimono and introducing it to the world. Building on the path Tanaka had forged, Mori elevated kimono motifs and Japanese art into the realm of luxury fashion, presenting a new synthesis she described as “East Meets West.” Koshino, meanwhile, challenged conventional Western notions of clothing through the structural principles of the kimono, the transformation of flat surfaces into three-dimensional forms reminiscent of origami, the colors of Japan’s changing seasons, and her fearless fusion of influences from diverse cultures.

What is particularly compelling is that neither designer simply reproduced Japan as an image. Instead, both developed a profound understanding of Japanese culture and brought it into dialogue with Western techniques, ideas, and values, transforming that encounter into new forms of universal expression. It was precisely this approach that allowed their work to transcend “exoticism” and establish a distinctive and enduring place in the history of global fashion.

Hanae Mori conveyed the spirit of Japan to the world through motifs such as butterflies, chrysanthemums, and cherry blossoms, while Hiroko Koshino opened a new realm of beauty—neither exclusively Eastern nor Western—through her exploration of two- and three-dimensional form, Japan’s sensitivity to nature, and the expressive potential of materials and color. Though their approaches were fundamentally different, both were rooted in a profound understanding of and deep pride in Japanese culture, cultivated from childhood.

It is also significant that both designers regarded New York as a crucial stage in their pursuit of the international market. Mori redefined the meaning and value of “Made in Japan,” while Koshino brought the distinctive aesthetic she had developed in Japan to New York, using the city as a place to test and affirm its international resonance before bringing that recognition back to Japan. Their international ambitions were not simply about entering overseas markets; they sought to demonstrate the value of Japanese culture within the broader international community.

More than eighty years after the end of World War II, Japanese culture is widely admired and appreciated around the world. This recognition did not emerge naturally. It has been built upon the accumulated efforts of pioneers such as Hanae Mori and Hiroko Koshino, who translated Japanese traditions into contemporary forms and continued to engage in a dialogue with the world.

These two retrospectives were held in Tokyo in the same year,  offering a rare opportunity to look back on a century of Japanese fashion culture and to consider its future. What these two designers shared was not a desire simply to preserve “Japanese-ness,” but the creative ability to continually renew Japanese culture and communicate it to the world.

That spirit of continual reinvention may be the greatest legacy these two designers have left behind—and it will remain an important guiding principle as Japanese culture continues to engage with the world.