A Pieced, Lined Cotton Jacket: Stripe and Spare Kasuri

mid twentieth century
36" x 43", 91.5 cm x 109 cm

This wearable, lined cotton coat is stitched from two different types of striped cotton and two different types of kasuri cotton.

It is partially hand stitched and partially machine stitched: the detail photos here will show that the layers of the body of the jacket is held together by regularly spaced, parallel rows of machine stitching.

The design of the jacket is interesting because the front folds over itself much in the way a kimono does. Short jackets of this type are usually not constructed like this which might mean this was once a kimono or under kimono or, on the other hand, that this was simply designed in a fairly interesting way.

The contrast in kasuri designs is interesting: the bottom shows a fairly large-scale repeat while the sleeves and back show a starkly design kasuri, probably northern or eastern in origin, that depicts swallows in flight.

Lovely in design and execution and still very wearable, the dimensions of the cotton jacket are noted above as shoulder to hem x sleeve tip to sleeve tip.