open the kimono (1974)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

The business expression "open the kimono" was previously dated to 1979, by
Bill Mullins and Grant Barrett:

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506C&L=ADS-L&P=R6744
http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/open_the_kimono/

Antedatings from Google Book Search:

---
1974 Robert Kirk Mueller _Buzzwords: A Guide to the Language of Leadership_
117 _Open the Kimono, to_.  To reveal to the prospective customer (or other
person to be impressed) secrets about new products planned or other goodies
of interest.
http://books.google.com/books?id=gEIsAAAAMAAJ
---
1974  Nancy Foy _The IBM World_ 185 As one executive put it: 'We have to
decide how far we are going to open the kimono.' The all-encompassing kimono
is closed tight over some perfectly respectable porions of the IBM anatomy.
http://books.google.com/books?id=brxYAAAAMAAJ
---
1976 _From strategic planning to strategic management_ 133 Greater
stakeholder understanding, though, means 'opening the kimono" more: more
willingness to have what the enterprise is doing and what it is planning to
do reviewed and reported by journalists.
http://books.google.com/books?id=XDkMAAAAIAAJ
---

(The last cite might actually be dated 1973: the book "chiefly presents the
proceedings of the first International Conference on Strategic Management,
1973.")


--Ben Zimmer

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