Kimonos, yukata surge in popularity among foreign visitors to Japan’s ancient capital Nara

NARA — This western Japan city has seen increasing numbers of inbound visitors strolling around tourist spots wearing kimonos and their summer counterpart, yukata.

Westerners in particular appear to want to try on traditional Japanese clothing, and rental shops are seeing more people come through their doors looking to don kimonos. Even at stores selling the traditional garments, sales have surpassed those to Japanese people, making customers from overseas an essential clientele. The number of male patrons is also rising.

At around 3 p.m. one day in early July, a 35-year-old woman from Italy visited the rental kimono store NOEL in the Suimoncho district of Nara. She chose a pink kimono with a subdued pattern, and the dressing process took about 40 minutes to complete. She said the obi sash was a bit tight, but added with a smile that she was looking forward to going out in it. With a spring in her step, she and her male partner walked off toward Nara Park, where the heat of the day had eased.

From 2023, the number of foreign visitors to Nara began to surge, fueled by the downgrading of COVID-19 to the same level as influenza under Japan’s infectious disease control law, and the depreciation of the yen, which has dipped to 38-year lows. While visiting the historical city, especially French and American visitors have been seeking out Japanese attire. Some, it seems, want to dress up like anime characters, while there have also been more people drawn to kimonos’ silken texture.

At NOEL, many customers choose rentals priced between 5,000 and 7,000 yen (approx. $35-$49). Sales between January and June 2024 were 1.7 times higher than during the same period the previous year — the highest level since rentals began in 2018.

Store owner Akari Seki, 43, commented, “During the coronavirus crisis, people would just ‘look and enjoy’ via Instagram or other means, but now there has been a shift to in-person ‘experiences.’ There’s been quite an increase in the number of people taking photos of themselves against the background of the historical capital and sharing them on social media.”

While such sights have been seen in Kyoto and other tourist spots since before the coronavirus crisis, the trend is now spreading to Nara. There are apparently many small groups that book kimono experiences with individual guides, and Seki says, “Since the beginning of this year, I’ve really noticed groups of young men enjoying wearing yukata.” She is not sure how long the momentum will continue, but hopes that it will last until at least the time of the 2025 world exposition in Osaka.

Meanwhile, shops selling kimonos and yukata, as opposed to renting them, are also enjoying an inbound tourist-driven surge in business. Yumeori Honpo, a kimono store in Nara’s Mochiidono shopping street, saw a 20% increase in sales for the first half of 2024 compared to the corresponding period in 2023. Foreign customers now account for 70% of sales, making up for the decline in domestic clientele.

Female customer numbers have remained high for about the past 10 years, but since last year, there has been a wave of male customers buying yukata and samue, or traditional work clothing. Store manager Hideki Nose, 57, commented, “One strong trend is for people to get hooked by the soft feel of the yukata they wear at the hotels and inns where they’re staying, as well as by the Japanese designs, and more people are buying them as loungewear.” He said some people buy two or three outfits, including souvenirs for their friends. And thanks to anime, samue are also popular.

Responding to this trend, the store has changed its layout, placing men’s items in a prominent position at the entrance and expanding the space for yukata to three times its previous size. It has enriched its lineup of products for foreigners, and yukata, which were previously limited to the summer, have now become a mainstay item throughout the year.

Sets that include a yukata, an obi sash and a waist cord, retailing from around 10,000 to 20,000 yen (about $70-$140), sell best, but some customers opt for higher-quality items priced at 30,000 to 40,000 yen (approx. $209-$279). “With souvenirs included, some customers put as much as 70,000 to 80,000 yen (approx. $489-$559) on their credit card,” a delighted Nose said. The store also provides descriptions of promotional goods and products in English, and staff are now accustomed to communicating with customers in English or by using smartphone translation apps.

“Many people equate kimonos and yukata with Japanese culture,” Nose says. “We want to put our effort into the product lineup as needed so that people don’t get bored of it, and provide attentive customer service.” For the time being, he expects the kimono boom to continue.

(Japanese original by Kazugi Yamaguchi, Nara Bureau)