On May 6th, I spoke about my research on mental wellbeing and kimono at the Fashion Objects and the Changing Landscape of Fashion conference which was part of the Fashion Festival Debrecen. This research is inspired by a short, investigative article I wrote for the ‘Collecting Covid-19’ project initiated by the Centre for Digital Anthropology at University College London which encouraged scholars to collect responses to the unfolding covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.

During this time, I noticed a particular activeness of some of the kimono designers and enthusiasts I follow on Instagram; while life as we know it was drastically changing, members of the community reached towards kimono to provide them with a sense of stability and belonging in these challenging times. Imaginative challenges and exercises were set up to engage each other in creative endeavours, with individuals sharing images of affectionately coordinated kimono outfits which incorporated some of their newly learned kitsuke (kimono dressing) skills. I became fascinated by the ways in which the community took care of their mental health through an engagement with the garment, and decided to conduct some further research into the topic.

Besides the presentation at the conference, I am currently preparing a manuscript summarising my findings which I hope will become a published journal article titled ‘Sustaining Wellbeing through Kimono: Responses from the kimono fashion network to the covid-19 pandemic’.