Kimono retail market size in Japan 2014-2024

In 2023, the retail value of the Japanese kimono market amounted to 224 billion Japanese yen, continuing the upward trend of the recent years. The market was forecast to remain on a similar level in the following year. Retailers specializing in the distribution of new kimonos were the main sales channels, generating over 54 percent of the retail value.

Kimono in the fashion industry

Kimonos are a traditional garment in Japan. The dress is available in various colors, patterns, and handcrafting styles, with the choice being dictated by the degree of formality of an occasion, the season, and the wearer’s gender and age. Nowadays, Western clothing has replaced kimonos as everyday attire, but various forms of kimonos are still worn for formal occasions like ceremonial services and the coming-of-age ceremony. While the market has shrunken significantly in the past century, it continued to influence and inspire new apparel designs in the Japanese fashion industry.

A sustainable national dress

Traditionally made from silk, modern kimonos also use cotton, woolen, and synthetic fabrics. The dress is sewn from rectangular pieces that can be taken apart for cleaning and repairing damaged parts. Damaged kimonos were commonly repaired or reused for crafting accessories instead of thrown away. As such, the dress had a long lifecycle and artisanal pieces were resized and passed down to children. Following the collapse of the economic bubble in the 1990s, a specialized segment developed in the secondhand goods and reuse market, which offers the garment at affordable prices. Secondhand kimonos became popular souvenirs among foreign tourist, which solidified the specialty stores as a major sales channel in Japan.