Abstract
This chapter examines the little-known history of the global trade in Japan’s industrially fabricated textiles, taking as case studies a number of textile brokers who were able to modernize manufacturing, particularly of printed textiles, for export. It explores how innovations in Japan’s rapid industrial modernization—from dyes to weaves—and in export marketing from the late nineteenth century drew on historic expertise in kimono manufacturing and brokering in the towns of Osaka and Yokohama. The chapter also reveals how the quality of Japanese fabrics and their value-for-price help to explain the enduring popularity of Japanese printed fabrics with consumers in the Indian Ocean World, especially Africa, even after World War II.
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Notes
- 1.
Moses E. Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown: Northern Nigeria in the Great Depression (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009), pp. 38–39.
- 2.
Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown, p. 38.
- 3.
‘Ukiyo-e’ is a genre of woodblock prints that developed into a popular art and flourished due to the achievement of well-known artists such as Utamaro, Hokusai and Sharaku from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, ukiyo-e production went into steep decline.
- 4.
Yuzen is a process of dyeing, drawing white patterns with glue made of rice flour at first and adding colours inside patterns later. Kata-Yuzen is a process of dyeing, using engraved papers and glue.
- 5.
Yokohama City Labor and Welfare Foundation, A Special Exhibition of Yokohama Scarves: from Wooden Printed Sarasa to Contemporaries (Yokohama: Yokohama City Labor and Welfare Foundation, 1989), pp. 9–25.
- 6.
Yokohama used to be noted for these women workers, called ‘Hankechi Onna’ (handkerchief women), who earned as much as men and could be seen dressing up and attending a Kabuki theatre in the centre of Yokohama during the two monthly holidays; they became so well-known for this that the theatre was called ‘Hankechi-za’ (handkerchief theatre) and their favourite actors were known as ‘Hankechi.Yakusha’ (handkerchief actors). See Yokohama City Labor and Welfare Foundation, A Special Exhibition of Yokohama Scarves, p. 27.
- 7.
Inabata had made the acquaintance of Auguste Lumière, attending the same school in Lyon. After establishing himself as a successful businessman, he was followed by François-Constant Girel, a Lumière Cinématographe operator, on his return from his second journey to France in 1896 and showed the first projected film in Japan at the Nanchi Theatre in Osaka in 1897.
- 8.
Yokohama City Labor and Welfare Foundation, A Special Exhibition of Yokohama Scarves, p. 9.
- 9.
Gilda Yokohama Scarf, Yokohama Printing: The Path of 120 Years (Yokohama: Kagenn-sha, 1997), p. 9.
- 10.
Research on the history and economics of the Yokohama silk handkerchief industry increased especially over these thirty years. For examples of such scholarship, see The Society for the Publication of the History of Yokohama Silk Industry for Export, The History of the Export Silk Industry of Yokohama (Yokohama: The Society of Publication of the History of Silk Industry for Export of Yokohama, 1958); The Industrial Guild of Japanese Scarves for Export, The History and Development of Printing Industry in Yokohama (Yokohama: Industrial Guild of Japanese Scarves for Export, 1980); The Industrial Guild of Japanese Scarves for Export, The Genealogy of the Industry of Yokohama Scarves: Its Organization and Members (Yokohama: Industrial Guild of Japanese Scarves for Export, 1989); The Research Center of the Economy of Kanagawa, Outline of Yokohama Scarves, The Handbook of Yokohama Scarves (Yokohama: Research Center of the Economy of Kanagawa, 1981); The Research Center of the Economy of Kanagawa, The History of Yokohama Scarves: The Handbook of Yokohama Scarves (Yokohama: Research Center of the Economy of Kanagawa, 1981); Gilda Yokohama Scarf, Yokohama Printing: The Path of 120 Years (Yokohama: Kagenn-sha, 1997).
- 11.
The Society for the Publication of the History of Yokohama Silk Industry for Export, The History of the Export Silk Industry of Yokohama, pp. 110–121.
- 12.
Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants 1750–1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 195.
- 13.
K. Kitagawa, ‘Japan’s Economic Relations with Africa between the Wars: A Study of Japanese Consular Reports,’ African Study Monographs, vol. 11–13 (1990).
- 14.
S. Nishizawa, A Monologue (Yokohama: Matrix Co. Ltd., 1953).
- 15.
Kitagawa, ‘Japan’s Economic Relations with Africa between the Wars’, pp. 133–136.
- 16.
Ochonu, Colonial Meltdown, pp. 38–39.
- 17.
A. Nomoto, ‘My memories of the days when I joined the company at the time of post-war economic rehabilitation’, Reminiscence, Memories of Daido Maruta Dyeing Factory Co. Ltd. (Kyoto: Daido Maruta-Kai, 2009), p. 11.
- 18.
Research Centre of the Economy of Kanagawa 1981: front page.
- 19.
A study is currently being conducted on 40,000 samples from the collection of the Industrial Guild of Japanese Scarves for Export by the research group organized by Yokohama Industrial Technique Promotion Center.
- 20.
S. Sugimoto, ‘Product Distribution of Japanese Scarves for Export to Asian and African Markets and Change of Local Fashions – a research on the collection of sample scarves for export of Yokohama Industrial Technique Promotion Center’ (Research Report-Project for Revitalizing Industry with Effective Utilization of Regional Resources (Yokohama: Economic Affairs Bureau of Yokohama City, 2013), pp. 50–53.
- 21.
M. Matsui, ‘The Construction of the Production System of Japanese Spinning Industry—with a view of International Comparison’ (Tokyo University Manufacturing Management Research Center, Discussion Paper No. 31 (2009), p. 41.
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Sugimoto, S. (2018). Handkerchiefs, Scarves, Sarees and Cotton Printed Fabrics: Japanese Traders and Producers and the Challenges of Global Markets. In: Machado, P., Fee, S., Campbell, G. (eds) Textile Trades, Consumer Cultures, and the Material Worlds of the Indian Ocean. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58265-8_4
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