The Book of Kimono

NORIO YAMANAKA was born in Shiga Prefecture in 1928. In 1964 he founded the Sodo Kimono Academy, the first institute of its kind to encourage the wearing of Japan's national dress in everyday life. His philosophy is that wearing the kimono properly depends as much on the person's inner nature as on the garment itself. His movement has spread throughout Japan, and more than five million people have been taught how to wear the kimono by the fifty thousand consultants the academy has graduated. Mr. Yamanaka was appointed chairman of the AllJapan Kimono Consultants Association when it was formed in 1969. He is the author of several books on the kimono in Japanese, and since 1970 he has annually led delegations of more than a hundred members each, traveling to forty-five countries in Asia, Europe and North and South America to familiarize other people with this form of dress. In 1980 and 1982 he was invited to the United Nations headquarters in New York, where he lectured and gave demonstrations on the theme of the kimono and Japanese culture.