Shani Turner’s stall at the Frock Me fair picture earlier this year.
The great flowering of the kimono was in the Edo period (1615-1868) when the merchant and artisan classes, or chōnin, could not use their new-found wealth to improve their social status, so rigid was the shogun military hierarchy.
Instead, they found different outlets for their money, such as buying beautiful clothes. It was this new market that stimulated the growth of textile arts in the Edo period.