Within Japanese culture, a decision to wear kimono is not casual. While most Western bodies do not conform to the body techniques of the kimono, neither do many contemporary Japanese bodies. Costumes are often ridiculous or exotic even in their own culture and this serves a specific function. As opposed to fashion, costumes are defined by their static and unchanging exoticism. Indeed, costumes are exotic even within the culture they represent.
Costumes communicate victories and triumphs made quaint.
Costumes are the G-rated version of cultures past that should have been. When the past seems comfortably ridiculous, as proven in the excessively mannered appearances of national costumes, the boundaries of contemporary body mapping are naturalised. The exoticness of discarded body techniques and modes of display upon which costumes depend, suddenly make the present seem all the more sophisticated and relevant in comparison. Inevitably, this process works to create boundaries between cultures both past and present. This process of caricaturing other cultures can be understood as a transition discourse 1 .