Shiseido at MIT

Shiseido, the Japanese cosmetics and skin care company, started as a Western-style pharmacy in 1872. In 1888 they became the first Japanese company to manufacture toothpaste, and in 1897 their cosmetics line launched with Eudermine, a scented skin toner still sold today.

Shiseido is one of the meticulously documented subjects of Visualizing Cultures, a program launched by MIT in 2002 to exploit the Web as a platform for image-driven scholarship. Of particular interest was the ability to study and present large quantities of previously inaccessible images.

The result is a website rich with visual and textual information. It’s kind of like a bottomless, scholarly, coffee table book, where you can wander as you please, through historic details and scores of hi-res color images.

As for the Shiseido archive, the past hundred plus years of Japanese history is all there. Industrialization, mass-market consumerism, urbanization, Western influences, modern warfare, and of course the enormous shift in the lives of women.

Here is just the tiniest taste of the ads, posters, and magazines you will find on the site …


As a company focused on image and aesthetics, Shiseido was a constant innovator in product design, promotion, advertising and marketing. There were customer loyalty clubs, promotional giveaways, and magazines.

Shiseido cemented its chain store network’s shared corporate identity and values through the circulation of engaging public relations publications such as Shiseido Monthly (Shiseido Geppō) launched in 1924 (later renamed Shiseido Graph [1933 to 1937] and then Hanatsubaki), which was a free giveaway geared toward customers, and Chainstore (later renamed The Chainstore Research [1935 to 1939], The Chainstore [1938 to 1939], and then Shiseido Chainstore Alma Mater [1939 to 1941]), which was an in-house organ that communicated practical product and promotional information to chain store affiliates.

Above, newspaper ad from 1915.

Berlei Type Indicator

In 1926, Berlei Ltd. of Australia embarked on the ambitious project of measuring 6000 women. 23 individual measurements were recorded for each subject. The purpose of this historic anthropometric study? None other than to achieve proper fit for the corsets they manufactured. It seems that in the years between lace-up corsets and advances in stretch textiles, foundation garments contained only small strips of elastic for give. With little room for error, construction for proper fit was a tricky business. The study resulted in a classification system of five basic body types and a patented nomogram—a calculating device, with which to identify the body type of any woman’s figure.


The Powerhouse Museum archive explains: “The chart featured a moveable disc for indicating bust measurement and a moveable pointer for indicating waist measurement. Hip measurement sizes were printed on the border surrounding the moveable disc. An instruction sheet with illustrations was pasted onto the back of the chart…”

The exact body types and the colors of the device varied slightly over the years, but the Berlei fitting system set a standard for the industry and remained in use for some 30 years.

Delighting in the Details

The first six of these embroidery details are from 18th and early 19th century “pockets” that were gathered from museums throughout the UK and comprise the online archive called ‘Pockets of History.’
The ‘Pockets at the V&A’ site explains that “women's pockets weren't sewn on the outside or into the seams of their clothes as they are today. Until the middle of the 19th century, pockets for women were a separate item and they were worn tied around with waist with a tie or string.”

It’s a fascinating bit of fashion/textile history that you can learn more about at the two sites above. Most compelling to me, however, were the close-up images of the sumptuous stitching. Truly glorious color and variety.