The Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent has devoted its 17th exhibition to Japanese theatre costumes, known as the Kabuki.

The costumes from the Shôchiku Costume, accompanied by accessories, engravings, photographs and documentary footage, serve to illuminate a traditional dramatic art which emerged in Japan in the seventeenth century.  The Fondation’s exhibition of Kabuki costumes is the first of its kind ever held in Paris.

The exhibition will display costumes and accessories worn for Kabuki performances, a form of dramatic art very popular in Japan.  The displayed pieces are on loan for the occasion from the Japanese company, Shôchiku Costume, founded in 1895 by the Otani brothers to produce Kabuki plays.

The costumes are still regularly worn by actors, and the choice of pieces displayed in the exhibition is therefore partly dictated by the current theatrical calendar.  The contemporary nature of the displayed costumes and their accessories permits us to understand not only the traditional heritage from which Kabuki theatre derives, but also the art of Kabuki as it is practiced today.  The exhibition is divided in three parts.

The first displays costumes belonging to iconic Kabuki plays, the second, to costumes used for dance scenes and the last will be devoted to costumes manifesting certain special features.