National Museum of Ethnology, OSAKA, JAPAN
Japanese

Clothing and Accessory Collection Database

Database Overview

This database contains information on clothing specimens and accessory specimens in the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku). And also, it contains photos of each area.

You can search by items such as places, materials, design and technology and so on. For clothing specimens, you can search by items such as form (cylinder type, poncho type, etc.), standard clothing names (jacket type, blouse type, etc.), and for accessory specimens, you can also search by terms such as necklace, belt, hat, bag, shoes etc.

Photos of each area can be searched using the words included in the places and remarks.

The database of photos of each area provides data on "Maya's Clothing Culture", "Nepalese Clothing Culture", "Vietnamese Clothing Culture" and "World Clothing Culture".

From photos taken by regional experts, you can get information of the clothing life of Maya, Nepal and Vietnam. Maya's clothing culture is provided by photographer Masahiro UMOTO under the supervision of emeritus prof. Yoshiho YASUGI, "Nepalese clothing culture" is provided by associate prof. Makito MINAMI, "Vietnam clothing culture" is provided by prof. Masao KASHINAGA.

And also, "World Clothing Culture" is selected from photos and paintings included in the magazines titled De aarde en heer volken 1865-1939, Peoples of all nations: their life today and the story of their past 192-, by clothing culture expert, emeritus prof. Hiroshi DAIMARU.

The photos and the specimens have been linked by the regional name, local area name, and the classification code (OWC=Outline of World Culture).

We hope to use the database widely for people who are interested in clothing lives on the world.

Originally, this database project was jointly initiated by Daimaru laboratory and Kubo laboratory in the National Museum of Ethnology, and Takahashi laboratory in the Osaka-Shoin Women's University. Currently, it is inherited to and maintained by the MCD Research Project Team organized in the National Museum of Ethology.

The current sum total of the data including images is over 200,000 items.

This database is partially funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, which is part of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

Other related databases

Photo Source

  • Second from left: Kingdom of Nepal photo by Makito MINAMI, 1987 (specimen Number NP2).
  • Center: Republic of Guatemala photo by Masahiro UMOTO, 1979 (specimen Number MY3).
  • Second from right: Republic of Guatemala photo by Masahiro UMOTO, 1996 (Specimen Number MY118).

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The copyright of this database belongs to the National Museum of Ethnology and MCD Research Project.