Meisen Kimono with Water Droplets

The finely dotted ground of this meisen kimono is overlaid with overlapping orange, red, green, white, yellow, and pink discs of various sizes and transparency to create a striking visual effect that required unusually complex techniques. Simple compositions relied on the same stencils for the warps and wefts, but this version required three stencils to dye the warps and four for the wefts. While this double-ikat technique produced dramatic, vividly colored motifs, the weaving process was painstaking. The time and expertise necessary to achieve such patterns, done by hand on a floor loom, made this type of fabric relatively expensive. In the West, polka dots rose in popularity throughout the twentieth century, and were featured on Minnie Mouse’s iconic skirt in 1928. The pattern was historically associated with Spanish flamenco dresses.