Shifting fashion tastes and a shrinking market base have resulted in a large supply of historical kimonos, which designers are recycling to create contemporary costumes better suited to today’s sensibilities and trends. The process of transformation is both an art and a science.

As the garments fall out of vogue and the country’s population diminishes, vintage kimonos, which are often regarded as family treasures and passed down through generations, are piling up in Japan’s second-hand marketplaces. Long, loose clothing is traditionally wrapped around the body in a succession of careful folds, lifts, and adjustments in a dressing process that can take up to 25 minutes. Designers are now reusing high-quality fabric from discarded kimonos to create modern ensembles that are more suitable to today’s tastes and trends. The process of transformation is both an art and a science.

“People used to wear kimonos every day, but now they don’t because they’re uncomfortable,” says Duni Park, whose Tokyo-based Gallery Shili creates jumpsuits, blouses, and scarves from clothes from Japan and her native South Korea. “Things must develop with lifestyles if they are to be used in the future.”

Park is part of a circular economy movement that aims to extend the life of products. She has been selling her clothing online and in pop-up shops in department stores like Takashimaya for the past few years. It’s a trend that even some major stores are embracing, as they employ old clothing resales to reduce their environmental effect while also appealing to younger customers.

Between 50 and 60 percent of the 140,000 metric tonnes of textiles collected through collection services at H&M Group brands like H&M, & Other Stories, and Weekday were destined for re-use and re-wear. The Swedish design conglomerate also owns a significant stake in Sellpy, a second-hand online apparel retailer. Patagonia Inc., a US outdoor clothing retailer, offers customers the option of buying or trading in worn clothes and gear on its Worn Wear website, as well as encouraging repairs in its stores.

According to Bryony Collins, an editor at BloombergNEF, fabric quality is a major aspect in the ability to reuse or repurpose clothing, and many of the garments manufactured in the “quick fashion sort of retail” have a substantially shorter life trajectory. Kimonos were traditionally made of silk, cotton, or wool, but contemporary versions are also available in synthetics.

Kimonos used to have a lengthy lifecycle that benefited entire families and communities. According to Eisaku Hida, founder of Kimonoya Japan, once the garments were too worn out to be utilised as apparel, they may be used as pillow covers, rags, or baby diapers before being burned and strewn over fields as fertiliser.

“Kimonos are highly eco-friendly,” Hida, who frequently purchases his supplies at auctions, added. “There isn’t any waste.”

Park from Gallery Shili wandered around the stalls at Tokyo‘s Oedo Antique Market on a recent Sunday. The event, which takes place every two weeks in an outdoor plaza across the street from a Bic Camera and next to a Shake Shack, is a modest celebration of softly worn materials and artefacts, some of which have been in use for decades.

Park was on the lookout for used things to add to her collection. She points out that kimonos are normally manufactured from a single bolt of Japanese tanmono fabric, which is a narrow-loomed cloth approximately 40 centimetres wide and 12 to 15 metres long, making them ideal for repurposing.

“To produce a kimono, you only need to make minor changes to the tanmono,” Park says. “And when you dismantle a kimono, it returns to its original tanmono cloth.”

Park’s clothing line incorporates weathered fabrics, which provide something that companies made of virgin materials do not: stories and a connection to the past. Park occasionally comes across fabric with shunga — a sort of Japanese sensual art — that men used to line the interiors of their kimonos or wear beneath them. The scenes weren’t designed to be seen in public, and some people thought the fabric made them more virulent. “It was highly secretive, and no one spoke about it, but everyone knew about it,” Park says.

Details like these add to the appeal of her creations. Although global consumers are increasingly considering the sustainability of apparel when making purchases, emotional connections also play a big role.

“Branding and marketing have a lot to do with clothing and fashion,” said BNEF’s Collins. “However, the most effective way to encourage individuals to wear clothes is to make them feel good in them.”