Vintage Sunflower Haori Kimono Jacket, Grey & Ivory Silk with Red Details

An open front silk kimono jacket dappled in leopard print, grey and ash drifting across a pale ivory ground with dots of red. The sleeves fall wide, the silhouette loose enough to throw over slip dresses or bare shoulders alike.

Patterned haori like this one belong to the meisen tradition that flourished in Japan from the Taisho period (1912–1926) through the 1950s. Meisen kimono and haori were woven from lower-grade silk using power looms and stencil-dyeing techniques imported from Europe, which made bold, all-over modernist patterns, drawing on Art Deco and Art Nouveau design, both technically possible and affordable for the first time. This let Japan's newly modern working women wear silk that looked strikingly current rather than traditional. Geometric and abstract motifs were part of that vocabulary. The patterning here fits squarely within that meisen sensibility: a Japanese textile tradition borrowing a bold, Western-coded motif and making it entirely its own.

Estimated era: mid to late 20th century, read from the loose kimono construction, the hand of the cloth, and the faded, painterly quality of the pattern.

Materials: 100% Silk.

Size & fit: One size.

Patina note: One of one. Carrying the soft patina that only time can give; significant flaws are always detailed above.