Maggs Bros. Ltd.

A complete trio of manuscript albums with beautifully detailed designs for kimono.

What is especially interesting about the present set is that it belonged to the collection of the Mitani-kei (Mitani house/family). Mitani were a kimono repair company, who provided services of re-dyeing and reworking old or damaged kimono. While Mitani did not design or make kimono themselves, books such as these would have served as an important reference for how kimono could look. Still to this day, Kyoto has a guild system for the production of kimono – with dyers, weavers, embroiderers etc. – and repair shops such as Mitani are part of this ecosystem. We have previously handled a similar book of designs for woven textiles, which had the ownership stamp of a different kimono repair company. Such albums are an interesting reflection of the variety of reference materials in the libraries of kimono repair shops.

The title is written on each volume of the set in slightly different way, but they all read Taga sode. This is a reference to Muromachi and Edo period high culture, when nobility would place scented pouches in the sleeves of their kimono which would emit their fragrance like a perfume. The term itself was derived from a classic poem in the Kokin Wakashu.