Kitakyushu's Loudest Coming-of-Age Outfits Are Coming to Kensington High Street

Japan House London is giving its winter gallery to the loudest coming-of-age outfits in Japan. Tradition/Rebellion: Coming-of-Age Style in Kitakyushu, Japan opens on Wednesday 11 November, and entry is free, with timed tickets for the first weeks already bookable.

Every January, towns across Japan hold ceremonies for everyone who has turned 20 that year, and the usual dress is a long-sleeved kimono, a suit or a formal haori hakama. In Kitakyushu, an industrial port city on the southern island of Kyushu, many of the new adults go a lot further. Japan House's press notes list fur-trimmed kimono, platform sandals, purple hair dye, glittering parasols and tall personalised banners, and compare the look to basara, a 14th-century taste for luxury and spectacle that ignored social rules.

The exhibition follows eight of the city's new adults from their first fitting to the ceremony itself. It shows outfits that were actually worn, along with video interviews and hands-on displays. It also covers the kimono rental shops, designers, hairdressers and photographers who work round the clock in the weeks before the day. According to Japan House, the reasons behind the outfits range from wanting to be the best in Japan to wearing the kimono a mother wore at her own ceremony.

It is co-curated by fashion director Yamaguchi Souta, whose past work includes creative direction for Kansai Yamamoto and the staff outfits for the Tokyo 2020 medal ceremonies, and Simon Wright, Japan House London's director of programming.

Japan House is at 101-111 Kensington High Street, open 10:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday and 12:00 to 18:00 on Sundays. Booking is free and guarantees entry at busy times, and Japan House plans each visit around 40 minutes in the gallery. The exhibition runs until 18 April 2027, according to its press release.

Kitakyushu's next ceremony is in January, so the London show will still be up when the class of 2027 makes its entrance.