kamakura period clothing

[Lash]

good morning ,
my good friend Masahiro from kamakura Japan uploaded this video to his my space profile for me I thought you might like to see them they are 2 short clips of one outfit but very beautiful piece.
myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=32416468

myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=32416445

have a great day!

[roninpenguin]

Those are some GREAT videos! Thank you for sharing!

[bovil]

Apr 15, 2008 8:17:16 GMT -5 Lash said:

good moring ,
my good friend Masahiro from kamakura Japan uploaded this video to his my space profile for me I thought you might like to see them they are 2 short clips of one outfit but very beautiful piece.

That is pretty cool.

The example is Early Kamakura (or maybe even late Heian) style-based. The "pompon", seam reinforcements are a key, as is the fancy brocade. Later Kamakura hitatare kamishimo styles featured simpler "figure-8" cord seam reinforcements and were made of simpler (but in many cases, graphically bolder) hemp fabrics. They often also had purely decorative sleeve-end cords.

[Mushime]

I'm at work and can't play the videos but I know where to find it when I get home!

I am loving this discussion on kamakura era clothing as that is the era I have chosen. I would also appreciate further direction on where to look for more examples. Being new to this area I'm not very successful on my searches right now for specifically kamakura era clothing.

[Mushime]

On my to do list is trying shibori on the hem of an uchiki that will be used at Pennsic to pull up over my head for shade. I have a pale (very pale) blue linen fabric and I'm thinking of a dark green overdye. My persona is early kamakura. Please share your thoughts. Maybe a lighter shade of green, maybe hints from someone who has done shibori, any thoughts you would like to share.

[Saionji Shonagon]

Will respond in more detail after work, but I have not seen hem-only decoration on garments this early. When decorated, Kamakura period clothing tends to have large motifs repeated all over the fabric.

Kamakura era women wore a less layered version of what the court classes were wearing in the Heian period. White kosode, scarlet nagabakama, and perhaps a layer or two over that.

From personal experience, if you want to wear a kazuki (kosode specifically for wear as a veil) in high summer, make it out of something lightweight and light colored! Dark colors absorb heat, light ones reflect it.

Go look around the Wafuku board. I'm positive I posted a link to some videos on shibori, tsujigahana and other dyeing techniques not too long ago.

EDIT: Yup. I did. Go here: tousando.proboards18.com/index.cgi?board=garb&action=display&thread=1658

I'm contemplating some experiments with shibori this summer. I plan to start with something small to test my technique - and see if I have the patience for it. THEN I can think about moving on to a larger item.

[Saionji Shonagon]

What the Kamakura-jidai lady is wearing for casual occasions: detail from the Oeyama Emaki, Muromachi period scroll, Tokyo National Museum Collection.

Ganked from a posting I did for the sca_silkroad at Livejournal.
community.livejournal.com/sca_silkroad/25033.html

"And for all I know it might even have been you who asked, but I've had "What did girls wear in the Kamakura jidai?" question come up at least three times in the last month.

Original question:
> I finally understand the layers of robes and seasonal colors for the Heian era but how did it change in the Kamakura era?

It didn't in the Imperial court. Lady Nijo's diary, chronicling events in the middle of the Kamakura period, indicates that the court was still harking back to the glory of the Heian period, fashion wise.

The kasane color combinations specifically refer to your hitoe and the five (or fewer in summer or really informal situations) layers worn over it. The color of the uwagi worn over that is not specified anywhere that I know of.

Best place to look online is the Kyoto Costume Museum website.
www.iz2.or.jp/english/

Outside the court, it's likely that the rigorous color combinations of kasane did not remain in fashion. Layering continued to some extent, but nagabakama went away and kosode became the basic unit of one's wardrobe. However, season-appropriate colors and design motifs probably did exist. While the following link is to a poetry site, it
may give you some ideas as to what motifs (and related colors) are appropriate in certain seasons. renku.home.att.net/500ESWd.html
For example, a kosode or uchikake with plum, pine and bamboo (the "Three Friends") on it would be just the thing to wear in winter, cherry blossoms are spring, maple leaves autumn, and so forth...

If you don't have it, Liza Dalby's "Kimono: Fashioning Culture" explores the Heian kasane in great detail."

(And from further along in that thread....)
"Things did not just start and stop because of a date on a calendar. People did not just say "We have to completely change what we're wearing because it's now The Kamakura Era!"

The samurai class, wanting to be perceived as up-and-coming, simultaneously imitates elements of court clothing and derides others as "decadent." The number of layers goes down. The nagabakama eventually go away. Samurai men adopt hitatare kamishimo, considered VERY casual by the aristocracy, as their "formal" look.

Now look. Look CLOSER because you're missing details.
By kosode, I mean garments with sleeves that are sewn closed up the front edge with a small opening for the wrist. "Ko-sode" means "small sleeves."
If this is the link you meant, she's only wearing ONE kosode. www.iz2.or.jp/fukusyoku/busou/images/083-a.gif It's white, probably plain, unpatterned silk. All you can see of it is her collar - because it's her undergarment. Over that, she is wearing two other visible layers in patterned brocades. These are definitely NOT kosode as they have wide, open sleeves - just like Heian robes. Because they ARE just like Heian robes, she's just not wearing as many as a court lady would. She is wearing an uwagi - again - look at the open ended sleeves - on her head katsugu style.
www.iz2.or.jp/fukusyoku/busou/images/083-a.gif

Another thing you need to know - and which is impossible to see in this picture thanks to the hat and the katsugi, her robes are longer than her height - indoors, they would be worn trailing. For travel, she has them belted up high with her obi. If you look at Bughat Lady here www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/busou/7.htm you can see a fold at about thigh height where her uwagi is bloused over an obi that you can't see.

(I'm gonna warn you right now, do not use a slippery fabric for anything you plan to wear draped over your head. It won't stay put. Trust me.)

The lower classes start wearing kosode as outerwear sooner (see the women in yumaki and mobakama), but a lady of the upper echelons of the warrior class has appearances to keep up. Clothing does denote rank in feudal Japan! It's not until later that samurai ladies start exchanging their o-sode for kosode layers, like this Muromachi-jidai gal. www.iz2.or.jp/english/fukusyoku/busou/23.htm "

Hope this helps.

[solveig]

Noble Cousins!

Greetings from Solveig! Just read portions of Heike Monogatari. The text obsesses over what people are wearing.

[takadainotora]

Interesting! What's the context? The palace press reporting what the queen wore to open the new veterans' hospital? Clothing as characterization? Oh-my-god can you believe he/she actually wore THAT?

[Saionji Shonagon]

May 24, 2008 19:30:49 GMT -5 takadainotora said:

Interesting! What's the context? The palace press reporting what the queen wore to open the new veterans' hospital? Clothing as characterization? Oh-my-god can you believe he/she actually wore THAT?

It's been awhile since I read it, but a lot of it is what color hitatare So-And-So was wearing with his what colored-laced-armor, as I recall....

There's some description of clothing in the diary of Lady Nijo, but in the version* I have, the translator calls everything a robe (which drives me buggy). The worst is the description of "tight sleeved" robes she exchanges with the retired Ex-Emperor. This sounds to me like a mis-translation of the word kosode, which refers to the small wrist openings of the sleeves.

*Wilfrid Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa (trans) Lady Nijo's own story; Towazugatari: the candid diary of a thirteenth-century Japanese imperial concubine. Tuttle, Rutland, Vt. 1974. ISBN: 0804811172.

[takadainotora]

So maybe it's a cross between palace press and political reporting/insider gossip to contemporaries since colors used on armor lacing could have indicated clan affiliations or alliances. Some of the patterns on the lacings have other meaning, for example the hexagon-ish, honeycomb pattern is a tortoise shell, meant to give the wearer long life and better protection in battle. It's not directly a symbol of rank, but would have been more expensive per length of cord than something plain, so you'd have to be wealthy or have a patron to have it.
The color and structure of the cords used on the sword hangers were symbolic of rank as were the colors and structures of men's braided obi.
(Masako Kinoshita, "Traditional Silk Braids of Japan")

[Saionji Shonagon]

May 25, 2008 11:21:47 GMT -5 takadainotora said:

So maybe it's a cross between palace press and political reporting/insider gossip to contemporaries since colors used on armor lacing could have indicated clan affiliations or alliances.

Or not. The Tale of the Heike was transmitted orally before it finally got written down in the 1300s.

For that matter, much of the art depicting Heian dress is from the Kamakura period (or later), simply because those are the scrolls/paintings that still survive.

It's grain of salt time. As usual.

[takadainotora]

So what's your guess as to the origin of the details about clothing? Made up in the kamakura, based on their expectations of what a story should have, or are there some traditional elements of how certain people should be described, or even some genuine details from the earlier oral versions.

[Saionji Shonagon]

Bear in mind that I read Heike in English. That translation (by Hellen McCullough) is of a manuscript that is based on an earlier oral-tradition of performances by roving biwa-hoshi. Certain elements of the tale, even filtered through McCullough, have a formulaic feel to them.

Me, thumbing through at random:

"That day, Nobutsura wore a green-laced corselet under a pale green hunting robe and had a guardsman's sword at his waist..." McCullough, p. 140.

I remember a number of people being described as wearing "corselets"with lacings of a particular color.

Now, further into the narrative, I find this:

"Naozane was attired in a dark blue hitatare, a suit of armor with red leather lacing, and a red cape....Naoie was attired in a hitatare with a light water-plantain design and a suit of armor laced with blue and white rope-patterned leather....The standard bearer was attired in an olive-gray hitatare and suit of armor laced with redyed cherry-patterned leather...." McCullough, p. 307.

Leather lacing? Did they use leather lacing for armor in the 1100's (actual period of the Genpei War)? In the 1300s (period the manuscript comes from)? I didn't think they did, but anyone who knows different, please chime in! Is this a misunderstanding by a translator whose expertise is in literature rather than clothing, textiles and armor? Why does McCullough write a hunting robe instead of kariginu, but a hitatare is a hitatare?

Some of the court diaries are quite detailed on who was wearing what, but again, if the translator is not a costume/textile geek, one often has to puzzle over the details of the description and try to make educated guesses based on the pictorial record or extant textiles and garments.

Ain't homework fun?

[takadainotora]

1100s, I don't know about the armor lacing. Kinoshita-sensei suggests hand-loop braided silk lacing by 1300s and there is some archeological evidence, suits of armor that were given to temples, to back it up. The oldest braided silk cords in Japan apparently date to the 9th century.