In the late 1800s, Japanese dress was increasingly influenced by the West. Many Japanese men and women combined their traditional clothing with Western apparel. For example, a man wore his short coat (haori) with Western-style trousers. Some women wore American-style blouses or European-style shoes under their kimonos.

The Influence of Japonism on the Parisian Fashion Journals 1860-1900
In the second half of the 19th century, Europe’s enthusiasm for the hitherto almost unknown Japanese culture was enormous (Chesneau 1868, p. 21). Since fashion always seeks the new and original, the newly discovered Japanese aesthetic was predestined to shape the style and taste of an entire era, from 1860 to 1900 and beyond. 

Marco Polo
On September 15, 1254, Marco Polo was born in Venice, then an independent city-state and today part of Italy. Marco, his father Nicolo and his uncle Maffeo, while not the first Europeans to visit the area we now call China, had such a storied journey to the Far East that its telling helped inspire European journeys of discovery for centuries.

The Polo family were merchants, which in the Venice of the 13th century often meant travel to remote locations in order to secure sought-after items. Niccolo Polo and his brother Maffeo were successful traders and spent a large portion of their careers in the area around the Black Sea and as far east as modern day Uzbekistan. In 1264, the two met the brother of the Grand Khan Kublai. He was headed to the Mongol capital of Khanbaliq, which today is Beijing, China. After a journey of two years, the brothers and the traveling party reached Khanbaliq and received a gracious welcome and an audience with the Khan.

The Khan sent the men back home with precious cargo: a man who was to be the Mongol ambassador to the Pope, a letter from the Khan asking for teachers to be sent east to instruct his people about Christianity and Western life, and a small golden tablet that granted them safe passage anywhere within the Khan's lands. The ambassador left the brothers near the halfway point of the journey, but they continued on with their letter to His Holiness.

They eventually delivered the letter and were given a reply from the Pope that was to be delivered to the Khan. The brothers set out again for Cathay (as the area of China was then known) in 1271, but this time they took other travelers: Nicolo's son Marco, who was 17, and two friars. The route, which would become known as the Silk Road, contained its share of danger and disease. Marco fell ill on the way and the group had to stop in Badakhshan (an area that is now northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan) for a year in order for him to recover.

Marco traveled far and wide in China, Burma and India on special missions. He became an excellent speaker who could converse in at least four languages.
After his return to Venice he ended up in prison for several months, during that time, he dictated the story of his journeys to another prisoner, Rustichello da Pisa. When Marco was released in 1299, he had his book published with the title Il Milione, or "The Million". It was an enormous success, no easy feat in the days before the printing press.

Silks, spices, tea and porcelain.
These and other exotic products of China have been eagerly sought by Europeans since Roman times. But the land route through the Euroasian deserts along the "Silk Route" allowed only a trickle of Oriental products to reach the Western World. In the 16th century the sea route to the Orient was discovered.
In the centuries that followed, the seafaring nations of Europe vied for control of the China Trade. In the early 18th century, the collection of Oriental products became an obsession among the European aristocracy. Separate rooms and castles were built to display the collections of the most devoted, such as Alexander the Strong of Saxony.

It was to be the end of the 17th century, or even the beginning of the 18th, before all the West European maritime powers were represented by companies on the new trade routes to the Far East.
Smaller powers with access to the sea, such as Denmark, Sweden, the Austrian Netherlands and Prussia got the chance to make a name for themselves, next to the old powers of Spain and Portugal, and even to the newly established powers of England, the Dutch Republic (V.O.C.) and France, which meanwhile had expanded to become world empires.

 The North Route