Post by Nagamochi on Oct 18, 2009 23:09:45 GMT -5
Go to Griffin's Needle Challenge, make an outfit in 20 hours, and try not to lose my sanity while doing it, of course! We made a hitatare kamishimo sugata with concessions made as explained in the research paper below with pics of final product.
Hitatare Kamishimo Sugata
Muromachi Era, 1313-1570
Who and When
The style of a hitatre outfit fairly varied for the given man wearing it. Under the influence of the styles of the military houses, this outfit came to be worn as an extremely leisurely outfit by the court nobility during the previous Kamakura period. For the military, it was standard day wear from late Heian through the latter part of the sixteenth century, when the kataginu kamishimo began to take its place as day wear, and the hitatare became (for the military) a dressier item.
What
This outfit consists of several pieces, with the outermost upper layer called a hitatare, thus where it receives its generic name. Kamishimo refers to the material of the hitatare and the hakama matching, often delineated with white belting to indicate separate pieces. For our efforts, we used separate dyeing methods for both pieces to keep with this custom while making concessions for SCA customs. The word “sugata” is difficult to translate into English but roughly means “form” or “appearance.”
The core pieces are as follows, from skin out:
Fundoshi- loincloth. For this and the next two layers, concessions were made due to budgetary restrictions. Traditionally, hemp was cheap and most commonly used, though at modern prices typically ranging from 30 to 40 dollars per yard, most in fairly narrow widths, we opted to fake the look with much more reasonably priced linen.
Kosode- Under-kimono. The name literally means “small sleeve” in reference to the opening at the wrist due to the majority of an upper piece’s variation stemming from the sleeves’ style and cut. This piece was universally standard regardless of a person’s class or station, and near always white.
Juban- Chemise. Worn to improve drape and add a touch of fullness to an outfit so as to better show off one’s wealth by making them look all the fatter. Sometimes this piece was left white, but often was made of a contrasting color to better the overall effect of the outfit.
Hitatare- Outer-vestment. With upwards of 85 inches of material wrapped around one’s mid-section, it became tradition to wear this with hand-tucked pleats in back resembling one large box pleat. Many styles of fabric were used based on the wearer’s needs and wants, however due to a large stitch size, decorative knots or pompons were used to reinforce key stress points, as well as add decoration, and cording was applied to tie at the chest to decorate and maintain nominal modesty. We chose to go with a court noble’s styling and hand dyed both outer garments using alum mordant with madder root on silk. For the hitatare, we chose to use a shibori tie-dyeing technique called kumo meaning spiderweb because of the tracery it creates. We used this particular technique since it not only reached its height of popularity in the Muromachi era, but also creates for a fairly dramatic effect with the greatest of ease in overall coverage of all the shibori styles available to us. We deviated from tradition here once again to accommodate for time and skill level. Typically, each element is tightly packed together and a mere average of one inch in size, not the larger four inches we created. On the tying alone we logged a collective 28 hours.
Obi- Sash. Usually thin strips of material no more than six inches wide, not the large corset-like ordeals that we see today which exist because of Edo period influences from Western culture.
Hakama- Skirt. In the Japanese mindset, now and then, no such concept exists as “pants” per se, but rather a simple matter of the wearer wanting its skirt regular or divided. Some say the latter developed as a means of making the wearer more comfortable while on horseback, but I have no hard evidence to verify this. As stated earlier, we chose to go with the ombre graduated dyeing technique for this piece to make concessions between customs.
Other pieces:
Tate eboshi- roughly “tall cap”. Eboshi were used purely to indicate rank, unlike straw kasa that provided shade. This style is a general design used by court nobles, especially of lower ranks. It’s made with a heavy, black silk gauze which is lacquered nearly to death then shaped to dry. We substituted hypo-allergenic shellac for health reasons.
Sensu kawahori- Folding fan. Sensu refers to a fan made specifically of paper and ribs, versus a folding fan made of wood slats known in Japanese as a hiogi. Kawahori means “bat” due to the fan having five or seven ribs and thus resembling a bat’s wing.
Tabi- Socks. Originally these were little more than loose bags tied off at the ankle, which is why the literal translation of tabi is “bag” even though by the Muromachi era they took on the fitted, split-toe style that we see still in use today.
Waraji- Straw sandals. These were a daily wear item across all classes consisting of hemp rope for the warp while rice straw was used to weave through as the weft. We substituted raffia for the rice straw due to its greater availability.
Where
One could see this worn all across Japan, particularly by men of the mid and upper class levels, often most prominently in urban centers. Being a fairly common outfit, we can see many examples of it in paintings from the era, as well as extant, occasional pieces donated to Buddhist temples.
Once our competition is done, the model will wear it mainly as formal court garb, for it is too nice an outfit to sully it with daily use.
Why
We selected the hitatare style and Muromachi era because it allowed us the greatest amount of freedom in fabrics. Though other styles and eras had their strong suits, fabric decoration figuratively exploded in this era from the rise in wealth and status of the merchant and artisan classes. We chose the hitatare to best display this. We originally wanted to use period width fabrics, but with a 17 inch width at 40 dollars per yard, we went with dyeing as a more cost-effective means of honoring our chosen culture and as a means of providing us a challenge for an otherwise overly simple garment where construction is concerned.
How
Some scholars believe that the design of a particular culture’s clothing stems from what it had as an original clothing material. Thus the Japanese and Greeks have garments using the whole section of cloth to make loose fitting garments, while many early Europeans had leather and so create fitted pieces. Thus Japanese clothing is made in reference to the number of panels used, not the wearer’s personal measurements.
Original outfits were constructed entirely of silk, hemp, ramie, or a combination thereof in typical widths from 17 to 24 inches, the comfortable width for a weaver to work. Thus a typical kosode was about four panels wide to reach across one’s “wingspan” with additional bisected overlap pieces at the front opening and a collar. The custom was to sew it together using a running stitch of two to four stitches per inch. This allowed the garment to be taken apart after a season, re-assemble it as it existed on the bolt for washing, then rotate the parts to even out wear and tear before sewing it all together again. Such a width and cleaning method is why we only see hemming on the bottoms of upper garments and on the bottom edges of hakama, but not at any under arm openings, cuffs, or overlap edges.
We constructed our hitatare with as much dedication to the original as prep time, budget, and skill would permit. Besides allowances stated in previous sections, we will be using a whipstitch to retard fraying at raw edges as well as false seams, and rolled hems.
Bibliography
Carey, Jacqui. Creative Kumihimo. Carey Company, 1994. ISBN: 0-9523225-0-1
Minnich, Helen Benton. Japanese Costume: and the Makers of Its Elegant Tradition. Rutland, VT and Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1963.
Stinchecum, Amanda Meyer. Kosode: 16th-19th Century Textiles from the Nomurna Collection. New York, N.Y: Japan Society and Kodansha International. ISBN: 0-87011-429-8
Takeda, Sharon Sadako. Miracles and Mischief: Noh and Kyogen Theater in Japan. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002. ISBN: 0-87587-188-7
Wada, Yoshiko Iwamoto/Kellogg-Rice, Mary/Barton, Jane. Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing: Tradition/Techniques/Innovation. New York, NY: Kodansha International, 1983, 1999.
Yamanaka, Norio. The Book of Kimono. 1982. ISBN: 0-87011-500-6
Internet sources:
Joseph, Lisa. Kosode Made Simple, and Samurai Eye for the SCA Guy. www.wodefordhall.com/
Kyoto Costume Museum. Courtier in Regular Court Dress, Hitatare, like Warrior, in Muromachi Era, and Warriot’s (sic) Son in Uwa-haramaki armor. www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/busou/index.htm
Hitatare Kamishimo Sugata
Muromachi Era, 1313-1570
Who and When
The style of a hitatre outfit fairly varied for the given man wearing it. Under the influence of the styles of the military houses, this outfit came to be worn as an extremely leisurely outfit by the court nobility during the previous Kamakura period. For the military, it was standard day wear from late Heian through the latter part of the sixteenth century, when the kataginu kamishimo began to take its place as day wear, and the hitatare became (for the military) a dressier item.
What
This outfit consists of several pieces, with the outermost upper layer called a hitatare, thus where it receives its generic name. Kamishimo refers to the material of the hitatare and the hakama matching, often delineated with white belting to indicate separate pieces. For our efforts, we used separate dyeing methods for both pieces to keep with this custom while making concessions for SCA customs. The word “sugata” is difficult to translate into English but roughly means “form” or “appearance.”
The core pieces are as follows, from skin out:
Fundoshi- loincloth. For this and the next two layers, concessions were made due to budgetary restrictions. Traditionally, hemp was cheap and most commonly used, though at modern prices typically ranging from 30 to 40 dollars per yard, most in fairly narrow widths, we opted to fake the look with much more reasonably priced linen.
Kosode- Under-kimono. The name literally means “small sleeve” in reference to the opening at the wrist due to the majority of an upper piece’s variation stemming from the sleeves’ style and cut. This piece was universally standard regardless of a person’s class or station, and near always white.
Juban- Chemise. Worn to improve drape and add a touch of fullness to an outfit so as to better show off one’s wealth by making them look all the fatter. Sometimes this piece was left white, but often was made of a contrasting color to better the overall effect of the outfit.
Hitatare- Outer-vestment. With upwards of 85 inches of material wrapped around one’s mid-section, it became tradition to wear this with hand-tucked pleats in back resembling one large box pleat. Many styles of fabric were used based on the wearer’s needs and wants, however due to a large stitch size, decorative knots or pompons were used to reinforce key stress points, as well as add decoration, and cording was applied to tie at the chest to decorate and maintain nominal modesty. We chose to go with a court noble’s styling and hand dyed both outer garments using alum mordant with madder root on silk. For the hitatare, we chose to use a shibori tie-dyeing technique called kumo meaning spiderweb because of the tracery it creates. We used this particular technique since it not only reached its height of popularity in the Muromachi era, but also creates for a fairly dramatic effect with the greatest of ease in overall coverage of all the shibori styles available to us. We deviated from tradition here once again to accommodate for time and skill level. Typically, each element is tightly packed together and a mere average of one inch in size, not the larger four inches we created. On the tying alone we logged a collective 28 hours.
Obi- Sash. Usually thin strips of material no more than six inches wide, not the large corset-like ordeals that we see today which exist because of Edo period influences from Western culture.
Hakama- Skirt. In the Japanese mindset, now and then, no such concept exists as “pants” per se, but rather a simple matter of the wearer wanting its skirt regular or divided. Some say the latter developed as a means of making the wearer more comfortable while on horseback, but I have no hard evidence to verify this. As stated earlier, we chose to go with the ombre graduated dyeing technique for this piece to make concessions between customs.
Other pieces:
Tate eboshi- roughly “tall cap”. Eboshi were used purely to indicate rank, unlike straw kasa that provided shade. This style is a general design used by court nobles, especially of lower ranks. It’s made with a heavy, black silk gauze which is lacquered nearly to death then shaped to dry. We substituted hypo-allergenic shellac for health reasons.
Sensu kawahori- Folding fan. Sensu refers to a fan made specifically of paper and ribs, versus a folding fan made of wood slats known in Japanese as a hiogi. Kawahori means “bat” due to the fan having five or seven ribs and thus resembling a bat’s wing.
Tabi- Socks. Originally these were little more than loose bags tied off at the ankle, which is why the literal translation of tabi is “bag” even though by the Muromachi era they took on the fitted, split-toe style that we see still in use today.
Waraji- Straw sandals. These were a daily wear item across all classes consisting of hemp rope for the warp while rice straw was used to weave through as the weft. We substituted raffia for the rice straw due to its greater availability.
Where
One could see this worn all across Japan, particularly by men of the mid and upper class levels, often most prominently in urban centers. Being a fairly common outfit, we can see many examples of it in paintings from the era, as well as extant, occasional pieces donated to Buddhist temples.
Once our competition is done, the model will wear it mainly as formal court garb, for it is too nice an outfit to sully it with daily use.
Why
We selected the hitatare style and Muromachi era because it allowed us the greatest amount of freedom in fabrics. Though other styles and eras had their strong suits, fabric decoration figuratively exploded in this era from the rise in wealth and status of the merchant and artisan classes. We chose the hitatare to best display this. We originally wanted to use period width fabrics, but with a 17 inch width at 40 dollars per yard, we went with dyeing as a more cost-effective means of honoring our chosen culture and as a means of providing us a challenge for an otherwise overly simple garment where construction is concerned.
How
Some scholars believe that the design of a particular culture’s clothing stems from what it had as an original clothing material. Thus the Japanese and Greeks have garments using the whole section of cloth to make loose fitting garments, while many early Europeans had leather and so create fitted pieces. Thus Japanese clothing is made in reference to the number of panels used, not the wearer’s personal measurements.
Original outfits were constructed entirely of silk, hemp, ramie, or a combination thereof in typical widths from 17 to 24 inches, the comfortable width for a weaver to work. Thus a typical kosode was about four panels wide to reach across one’s “wingspan” with additional bisected overlap pieces at the front opening and a collar. The custom was to sew it together using a running stitch of two to four stitches per inch. This allowed the garment to be taken apart after a season, re-assemble it as it existed on the bolt for washing, then rotate the parts to even out wear and tear before sewing it all together again. Such a width and cleaning method is why we only see hemming on the bottoms of upper garments and on the bottom edges of hakama, but not at any under arm openings, cuffs, or overlap edges.
We constructed our hitatare with as much dedication to the original as prep time, budget, and skill would permit. Besides allowances stated in previous sections, we will be using a whipstitch to retard fraying at raw edges as well as false seams, and rolled hems.
Bibliography
Carey, Jacqui. Creative Kumihimo. Carey Company, 1994. ISBN: 0-9523225-0-1
Minnich, Helen Benton. Japanese Costume: and the Makers of Its Elegant Tradition. Rutland, VT and Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1963.
Stinchecum, Amanda Meyer. Kosode: 16th-19th Century Textiles from the Nomurna Collection. New York, N.Y: Japan Society and Kodansha International. ISBN: 0-87011-429-8
Takeda, Sharon Sadako. Miracles and Mischief: Noh and Kyogen Theater in Japan. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002. ISBN: 0-87587-188-7
Wada, Yoshiko Iwamoto/Kellogg-Rice, Mary/Barton, Jane. Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing: Tradition/Techniques/Innovation. New York, NY: Kodansha International, 1983, 1999.
Yamanaka, Norio. The Book of Kimono. 1982. ISBN: 0-87011-500-6
Internet sources:
Joseph, Lisa. Kosode Made Simple, and Samurai Eye for the SCA Guy. www.wodefordhall.com/
Kyoto Costume Museum. Courtier in Regular Court Dress, Hitatare, like Warrior, in Muromachi Era, and Warriot’s (sic) Son in Uwa-haramaki armor. www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/busou/index.htm
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