ABSTRACT
Japan’s Meiji Emperor oversaw Japan’s transformation from a weak country ruled in a feudal, samurai tradition that was in danger of being imperialized to an imperialist nation in its own right. Though Japan did not undertake a wholesale adoption of Western models, it was nonetheless substantially reconfigured by its late nineteenth-century interactions with the imperialist powers. This process was perhaps most immediately apparent in the change in clothing and hairstyles sported by elite Japanese. The young Meiji Emperor led the way by cutting off his topknot and adopting Western, military-style dress, clearly modeled on the attire then popular in Prussia.
