There are typically two types of clothing worn in Japan: traditional clothing known as Japanese clothing (和服, wafuku), including the national dress of Japan, the kimono, and Western clothing (洋服, yōfuku) which encompasses all else not recognised as either national dress or the dress of another country.
Traditional Japanese fashion represents a long-standing history of traditional culture, encompassing colour palettes developed in the Heian period, silhouettes adopted from Tang dynasty clothing and cultural traditions, motifs taken from Japanese culture, nature and traditional literature, the use of types of silk for some clothing, and styles of wearing primarily fully-developed by the end of the Edo period. The most well-known form of traditional Japanese fashion is the kimono, with the term kimono translating literally as "something to wear" or "thing worn on the shoulders". Other types of traditional fashion include the clothing of the Ainu people (known as the attus) and the clothes of the Ryukyuan people which is known as ryūsō (琉装), most notably including the traditional fabrics of bingata and bashōfu produced on the Ryukyu Islands.
