The Stevenson College Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series Presents:
MITSUKOSHI at WAR: Rationalizing Luxury
Wednesday, March 12 at 4:00 pm
Stevenson Wagstaff Fireside Lounge (177)
Although Mitsukoshi, Japan’s preeminent department store, did its best to rework luxury and play for the total war state through such efforts as a fashion spread on Vichy French style, the state’s demands stripped the retailer bare by 1945. Yet opposing “luxury” and “war” gives Mitsukoshi an unwarranted alibi: collaboration with imperialism had been hitherto profitable. Mitsukoshi at war exposes the tangled nature of alliance and opposition between civilian and state institutions as negotiated in the midst of crisis.
Co-sponsored by East Asian Studies, History, and the Institute for Humanities Research.
