Question For You Manly Men

[Ki no Kotori]

A question for ya'll manly bushi out there, and also for the ladies who may have to help sew for you:

After much cute pouting and batting of eyes convincing, my Norse husband has agreed to do Japanese, at least for the upcoming Japanese-themed Raid-n-Trade event happening here in Calontir in July.

Said Norse husband is, to put it kindly, a burly man: over 6 foot in height and about 280 lbs. For some of you larger men, as I start on my lord's clothing, are there things I need to watch for? Some problems that you may have dealt with in the past with male Japanese garb that I should look out for?

My husband is especially broad in the shoulders and carries his weight in the middle.

All advice would be greatly appreciated.

For now, I am just making a simple kosode and hakama for him. If he likes those, I may branch out into other things. He likes his Viking things, so this may be the only Japanese garb he wants.

Many Thanks,

Ki no Torahime

(ps: am asking this because so often in the past, patterns favor medium-sized people, and I end up having to re-do things. I don't have time for that right now! )

[Kitadatedenka]

I am possibly offended by your first sentence, though I admit that I may be overly senitive, due to too many years of having fabric store cashiers asking me who was going to do my sewing for me.

I am 6' and 260 currently. I am also broad of shoulder and do carry weight in the middle (great for that impromptu Buddha or Hotei impression at a party). My size for jeans is 38, but my largest waist is probably 43 or so (the weight is a little higher, rather than lower).

That said, the clothing made by the measurements at
www.raito.com/clothing.htm
is the clothing I wear. It fits, and looks correct for my place and time (very late period). Yes, there's some oddities in the hakama, but there it is.

Aesa-hime recommends putting a square gusset in the crotch of the hakama, at least the ones of this pattern. She claims that it keeps them from splitting, like mine sometimes tend to do a bit.

My suggestion for the hakama is to not skimp on the length of the crotch seam and the open sides. Hakama aren't just funny-looking bellbottoms. If your husband isn't comfortable wearing anything that doesn't fit like jeans, he probably won't like hakama, at least at first. There's no eay to delicately put this, but some guys jsut feel weird without proper... support (yeah, that's the right word).

As you say you have no extra time, make them longer than you'd like, then cut them to the correct length. For me, with only a 30-32 inseam, I find that cutting the panels 42 works for me, but I've done this before.

Fortunately for him, a properly made kosode fits somewhat in the same vein as his favorite comfy tunic.

Make sure that the neckline goes a few inches below the waistline, so that the hakama bind it up nicely. Make sure that when you sew up the sleeve openeings, there's enough room for the arm to move about freely. If it binds, something will rip.

As for overall suggestions, I would say that a kataginu kamishimo would work well for him, as it does for me. White kosode, colored kosode, hakama and matching kataginu, and an obi. Part of the reason this works for larger men with bellies and shoulders is that the broad shouldered look so popular in the late period is accentuated by the kataginu. Larger shoulders cause the panels of it to stick out and give a good silhouette. If the kamishimo is in a darker color relative to the kosode, some would call that good taste, but it does take emphasis away from the middle. Unfortunately for me, a white obi undoes most of this good work. It also works better to have the waist of the hakama further up, along with the obi. Nothing accentuates a large stomach like having it hang over the waistband. That's also a good tip if he's got shorter legs, like me (Aesa-hime is a good 8 inches shorter than I, with the same inseam). It evens out the look between upper and lower body.

Aesa-hime and my current plans include going to Coeur d'Ennui for this event (we were going to go even before last weekend). Are you aware that her physical address is within the Barony?

In any case, I look forward to meeting you and your husband at that time, but you'll probably have to seek me out, and I'm likely to forget that I'm supposed to meet someone.

[Ki no Kotori]

Ma, oji-sama, I meant no offense by that statement. (Oh, please use the kanji for "prince" not "old man" ). I know several men who are skilled with the needle--I only meant to include responses from women who helped their men sew, not only from men who sewed. My phrasing was poor. Gomen nasai.

Thank you for the link--Alfgeirr is a bit larger than you, but of similar build, so I appreciate the advice.

Very glad to hear you will be at the event--I had heard that Aesa-hime lived in Des Moines, but did not know she still resided there. It should be a lot of fun!

--Ki no Torahime

Actually, we have met a few times before (most recently at Triskelion last year, here at Riverwatch, which I autocratted), but people tend not to recognize me.

[Kitadatedenka]

Yes, I guess we did. (I'm crap with names).

[Saionji Shonagon]

Go look at the "My First Garb" note by Masahide, he's done a very nice job of scaling Japanese clothing to his body size.

To scale a kosode for a larger body, take a measurement of your man's "wingspan" - wrist to wrist. Divide by 4, then add an inch to the resulting figure (1/2" seam allowance on each side). This will give you the width your fabric panels need to be. Use full panels for body and sleeve pieces, 1/2 width for overlaps and collar.

Does this make sense?

M.

[Ki no Kotori]

Yes, thank you. I'll be working on it some this weekend.

Question about your block-printing process: would that work on linen, do you think? Or would cotton be better? I need to use up some stuff from my fabric stash, most of which is either wool (no good), linen or cotton, in plain colors.

Alfgeirr was watching "Toshiie to Matsu" with me, and really liked some of the prints on the men's clothes, and when I told him about your block-printing fabric painting, he was all "Let's DO IT!" I should thank you. I haven't seen the man get this excited about garb in ...well, ever.

But, I have to head off for a school in 3 weeks, so hopefully it's not a project that takes a long time?

Thanks again!

--Ki no Torahime

[Saionji Shonagon]

I've printed and painted on cotton broadcloth, muslin, percale sheets and silk. There's no reason linen or cotton won't work, but I highly recommend doing some paint tests on scrap swatches of whatever you're going to use before attacking the main piece of fabric! Ideally, you want to load your block (or stencil brush) with the least amount of paint it takes to leave pigment on the fabric so you don't get bleeding or smudging.

Depending on how much room you have to spread out fabric to paint/dry, it might take several hours or a weekend. Block printing an entire garment took most of an afternoon. Stencilling the target kosode took three evenings after work.

Have fun.
M.