Since ancient times, one clothing item has come to symbolize Japan, "The kimono."

Sometimes practical, sometimes luxurious, and sometimes carrying covert messages.

In recent years, the garment has made a comeback.

An exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg celebrates the history and splendor of the kimono.

The exhibition that we're in right now is called, "Kimono The Triumph of Japanese Dress."

It is put together with three private lenders, two of them from the Tampa Bay area.

The exhibition covers about 200 years, but they were worn long before that in different variations.

Kimono is an all encompassing word.

It just means something to wear.

So it is a very generic term, and kimono is also the plural.

It's singular and plural.

I think most people in the United States hear the word kimono and they think geisha.

These professional hostesses and geisha certainly do wear kimono.

They wear very specialized types.

Most of the objects in the exhibition, however, are from everyday people.

They're wearing it for special occasions weddings, funerals, festivals just to go to the grocery store.

Until after World War II, t his is primarily what people would wear.

Some of the kimono that I love the best are the ones that I associate with a Japanese term, " Mono no aware."

And that is a term that describes the appreciation for the fleeting beauty of something ephemeral, something that's going to pass away and change.

And there are several kimono that clearly are associated with this that show falling autumn leaves that show camellias blooming in the winter or that show cherry blossoms.

And for me, those are just incredibly poignant.

All kimono are made from one long piece of silk that's about 30ft long.

And then it's cut into specific pieces that's then put together.

What will make it expensive is the type of processes that are used to make it, to design it or to decorate it, including gold embroidery, silver leaf gold leaf Shibori, which is a tie dye technique.

A designer would come to your house, especially if you're a wealthy.

You could look through design books like we have a few on view, and you could choose what you want out of the book and then customize that to fit your personality.

We have another kimono in the front gallery worn by a younger woman before she was married, and there's embroidery all over it that shows books and art supplies.

So she's really advertising.

I'm literate, I'm artistic, and that's what she was wearing in order to find a husband.

So the man would see that and they would understand who this woman was.

Most brides will wear a wedding kimono.

We have one on view here that was worn in a wedding in about 1910.

Typically, a woman nowadays would wear an all white kimono.

Kind of looking back to the Western idea of all white, the kimono that we have on view is actually darker colors.

There's always been a strict code on what people can wear, so if you're a younger woman, you're going to wear flashier pieces.

As you get older, you start really wearing more muted colors, but they will do little design decorations.

So there's one on view where if you look at the kimono, it's completely all in gray.

But the bottom corner, when she walks, it flips out and it has a little decoration at the bottom so it can catch your eye just a little bit.

It's this whole idea of the importance of understated elegance for an older woman.

Kimono is something that we tend to think of as being a very specific garment associated with women, but it's actually a much broader term than that and encompasses not just clothing for women, but for men, for boys and girls.

The men are not as flashy as the women.

They usually dress in black, brown, blue, maybe an olive color.

But once they take off their outer kimono, you'll see highly decorative pieces underneath it.

And the only people that would see that would be their family, their wife.

And the men's decorations are different than women's because they show power.

So you'll see tigers, you'll see sumo wrestlers.

You'll see ninjas.

Everything that's a symbol of power to show that that man is powerful.

Country clothing is a really important aspect of kimono wearing.

These are everyday clothes, and at least before World War II, many of these objects were made from materials that were actually grown on farms in rural areas.

So that would be cotton most importantly.

And even though they're simpler objects, they still have incredible sophistication in their design.

It was important to put in the country and the workers section because that's what really everyday people are going to be wearing.

What you mostly see in this exhibition are going to be for the wealthier classes.

As soon as the West was associated with Japan, as soon as the United States had opened the ports, it was flooded with all sorts of outside influence.

There were people from all over Europe coming to trade with the Japanese, and the Japanese were very clever in what they were doing, and they realized that there was a market for kimono in the West.

And so what they almost immediately did was change the style of the kimono and the cut of the kimono, so they fit Western need.

Kimono today in Japan are still worn, but the influence of the West, and particularly the United States, has really taken a toll upon traditional garments.

So if you're Japanese, you probably wouldn't wear kimono except for really special occasions.

Because kimonos are so expensive.

One of the things I learned recently is especially for weddings and for formal occasions for festivals.

There's a whole rental market now for kimono.

So you see a lot of shops that cater to rental pieces, and we have a few pieces that you can tell that they're rental pieces, because on the interior there may be a number.

So you know I want number 316 for this formal occasion.

Today also, however, you will see people in Japan wearing kimono more informally.

And this is true around the world.

I think people have really come to appreciate them as simply exquisite garments.

So I think that the idea that somehow or another, there's cultural appropriation associated with wearing kimono or any of the related types of clothing, I don't think that really is true.

And instead, what we understand to be the case is the Japanese themselves see this as an appreciation of their culture and appreciation of these objects as art, which is what they are.

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