Japan traces its fascination with foreign fashion (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Swapping kimonos for bustle skirts and wooden sandals for leather boots, a fashion show in Tokyo on Wednesday celebrated the revolution in womenswear ignited by Japans opening up to the West 150 years ago.

In 1858, then U.S. envoy Townsend Harris pushed the Japanese government into signing its first trade agreement, effectively ending centuries of self-imposed exile.

The pact was followed within weeks by treaties with other Western nations and a year later, Yokohama opened as an international port, starting its transformation from a sleepy village to Japans second largest city and becoming the first place to offer foreign delicacies such as beer and ice-cream.

Featuring fads from 1920s flapper-style short skirts to the neat leather boots twinned with "hakama" loose pants once favored by female students, the fashion show was an advance taste of five months of anniversary celebrations to be held in Yokohama next year.

"It was not just a port in one region that opened, but a whole country that had been closed was opened up via Yokohama," said Takunori Ogawa, the director of next years celebrations.

"Looking back, there have been both good aspects and bad. We gained some things and lost others," Ogawa told reporters.

A fascination with fashion from all over the world is one lasting legacy of the dramatic events of the 1850s, but it was many years before ordinary women actually began to dress in Western style on a daily basis, experts say.

"In fact the first use of Western dress was among the military," said Reiko Koga, a media studies professor at Bunka Womens University in Tokyo.

"Japan initially tried to catch up with foreign countries mainly in military terms. So military uniforms were the first to change," she said, noting that Western styles were more practical than the traditional robes of the samurai warrior.

The imperial household was also quick to embrace change -- swapping multilayered kimonos for full length Western gowns and morning suits as official court wear.

"It was partly out of sheer surprise at Western styles. But it was also a visible means of expressing the change in administration, which is something that also happened in the French and Chinese revolutions," Koga added.

The restoration of power to the monarchy from the generals who had held the upper hand for centuries coincided with the opening up of Japan.

Upper class women sometimes favored dresses, but the working classes kept mostly to kimono well into the 1930s, Koga said. Nowadays kimono are mostly worn for special occasions, such as weddings.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)