Ayako Koshino, a veteran fashion designer in her own right and mother of the three famous designer daughters Hiroko, Junko and Michiko, died of a stroke early Sunday, her family said. She was 92.
The daughter of a kimono retailer in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, Koshino dropped out of school to study dressmaking and opened a dressmaking shop in her home town in 1934.
After her husband, who was himself a tailor, died in World War II, she single-handedly raised their three daughters.
Even after her children became successful designers, she continued to make clothes at her own shop, and was active in recent years in designing clothes for the elderly.