This talk is part of the V&A Academy Lunchtime Lecture Series. No booking is required.

The colourful woodblock prints of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century played a vital role in Japan’s vibrant fashion culture. Drawing on the V&A’s important collection, curators Anna Jackson and Masami Yamada reveal how these ukiyo-e, ‘pictures of the floating world’, provided powerful advertising for kimono retailers, fabric workshops, make-up brands, theatre managers and brothel keepers and offered inspiration for those eager to emulate the famous actors, courtesans, geisha and other stylish men and women they depict.