A Study on the Shape-Worning-Out of the Japanese Kimono following the Upper Limb Actions

Abstract

  Since the position of the ‘erimoto’ when a Japanese woman is dressed in ‘kimono’ is situated in the median of the human body, it is generally considered that the shape-worning-out hardly occurs at this position. In spite of the fact, however, that the ‘erimoto’ is merely a very small portion as seen from the whole dressing style, the position is in reality closely associated with the beauty of the dressing style, because the shape-worning-out involved in the arm actions occurs at the ‘erimoto’ frequently.

  Based on this finding, a dressing style preventing the shape-worning-out at the ‘erimoto’ within an upper-limb movable range in our daily life was found among four kinds of the dressing ways. The major results are shown below :

  1) It was clarified that the slippage of the ‘erimoto’ was first originated at that of the ‘miyatsuguchi’ (cf. the drawing) in response to the movements of the upper-limb. When the ‘miyatsuguchi’ slippage was most intensified, it spread strongly to the ‘erimoto’. In other words, the slippage at the ‘miyatsuguchi’ which occurred in response to the movements of the upper-limb, caused the shape-warning-out at the ‘erimoto’.

  2) When the effect of the dressing style preventing from the shape-warning-out at the ‘erimoto’ by comparing the natural dressing style (1), with the dressing style (4) to which a loosening suitable for 90°, an upper-limb movable angle, added to the ‘miyatsuguchi’, it was found that the angle in the beginning of slippage in the dressing style (4) was 111.0°, which was higher by 24° than 87° in the dressing style (1), and the angle producing the highest slippage in the dressing style (4) was 106.5°, higher by 18° than 88.5° in the dressing style (1). Thus, it was able to bring to the outside of 90° within the movable range of the upper-limb in the daily life.

  3) The slippage of the ‘erimoto’ when the upper-limb movements are large can be prevented by fixing the ‘erimoto’ with a thread attached to the positions of ‘obi’ at the frontal collars (the upper and lower frontal collars) and by attaching a thread-hole to prevent the slippage of the posterior collar.

  With these methods, i. e. with Dressing Style 2 and Dressing Style 4, the influence of the upper-limb movements from the ‘miyatsuguchi’ to the ‘erimoto’ was minimized. Especially when the upper-limb movements were large, and the angle was 180°, the slippage decreased to 0.5cm, as against 1.3cm of the slippage in the natural dressing style (1).