I designed my piece of artwork to revolve around the Westernization of Japan. This in itself is a very broad topic and I found myself having to trim it quite a bit. In particular I would be focusing on how the culture and society of the time period effected the clothes then as well. As we are in Japan, I used a Kimono for the piece of clothing. Instead of leaving it how it was, however I cut it in half in order to better represent the style here which seems to be, as in many westernized locations, the shorter the better. This much is apparent just walking down the main street here in Hiroshima where it is more common than not that you will see girls (and on occasion men as well) garbed in mini skirts. I purchased the original Kimono from a second-hand store near the main part of town and proceeded to cut, iron and dye it. I changed the color from the simple, faded beige to a bright and noticeable scarlet for two reasons. The first was to show the desire of the west to stand out which is slowly starting to spread to Japan (a good example would be the Harajuku girls which we have yet to see) and the second was to symbolize the ancient associations with the color of the sun as well as good luck. On the back of the garment I used gold paint to illustrate a traditional Japanese fan that had been pixelated. This measure was taken to show how Japan is known today for both it’s technology and it’s traditions, although the nation is increasingly moving away from the traditions and onto the world of technology.