(long undergarment)

A long undergarment — the nagajuban worn beneath the outer kimono — appears as both garment and compositional subject in this undated Yumeji print. Yumeji was deeply attentive to the layered sartorial world of Taisho women, and the undergarment — intimate, personal, visible only in private moments — carries a different charge than the outer kimono that is the public face of Japanese women's dress. The undergarment implies undressing, the transition between the public and the private self, a moment that Yumeji treated with his characteristic mixture of lyricism and discretion.