Meisen Kimono

Japanese commoners were not allowed to wear silk until the eighteen sixties and instead were relegated to wearing coarse cloth woven of hemp or other plant fibers. Once they were allowed to wear silk the demand for patterned silk skyrocketed. The kasuri (ikat) technique was very costly and needed to be replaced. Meisen method was invented to do that. Instead of tie dyeing, the silk was woven on mechanized looms and while on the loom, before been woven, the yarns were stenciled printed to give the ikat effect.The Meisen technique was very popular at the beginning of the 20th century and fell out of favor only when Japanese women started wearing western clothes after the second world war.