WWafuku means “clothes of Wa(Japanese)”. In the Meiji Era (1868-1912), It was born as a word for Japanese clothing against Western clothing.
AAccording to Koike Arike, a clothing historian, the kimono means “clothing” originally, it was simply a word meaning “clothes”.
However, after clothes were imported at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate (1853 – 1869), it became known as “Wafuku (traditional Japanese clothing)”, distinguished from “clothes (Western clothing)” and further to ” has also been replaced.
When the times advanced and the clothes were used frequently in everyday life, the original meaning of “clothing” faded away from “kimono”, meaning of “wafuku(kimono)” became.
IIn modern times the word “wafuku” means exclusively “kimono” and in a narrow sense it is shifting to a term referring to a certain form of Japanese clothing (kimono in the case of kimono and haori, long wear).
Wafuku (Japanese kimono), which the Japanese called poetry of clothes at the time of the 16th century long before the Meiji era in which the term Japanese clothes was born, is known to the Europeans as the word for kimono It is now called kimono what is called Japanese clothing.
Kimono may refer not only to Japanese clothes in Japan but also to general clothing in front of the East Asian region in general.