P1+Kimono

By: Kate D. Dre R. ** INTRODUCTION:  Dress and appearance is important in Samurai culture during the Tokugaui period because it included what the samurai wore every day. Each person in Japan had a different clothing style. Dress and appearance includes swords and armor, women’s clothes, men’s clothes, make-up and accessories, and everyday wear. This essay will be very informative on all the different things samurai and samurai’s family wear. The essay will be full of true information on how dress and appearance is important to samurai culture.
 * Dress and Appearance

SWORDS AND ARMOR: A Samurai has many uses for a sword and armor back in the age of the Samurai. A Samurai has two swords, one is for battle and fight and the other is used for seppuku also known as human suicide. You commit seppuku when you disobey your master. The sword used for battle is made from over a dozen folds in the metal. Two types of steel are combined to make a soft core and a hard outer edge for cutting good. The sword is made to be both flexible and sharp. The sword for battle only weighs three pound. The sword is meant to weigh very light. A samurai always had a trick up their sleeve and always thought ahead about what they were going to do and always kept the sword moving swiftly. Samurai had beautiful armor. Some swords have a personality of their own. If the person who built the sword was evil the sword would be evil and if the person who built it was nice and good the sword would be nice and good. Armor is very expensive and took over a year to make a piece of armor. Each plate overlaps one another so it makes flexible panels of metal to overlap the suit of armor. The armor is supposed to be flexible enough to be won in unarmed combat. Therefore swords and armor have a big part about samurai when they are in battle. Some swords were worn on men’s clothing.

MEN'S CLOTHING: Men’s cloth is very different from women’s cloths, but at the same time man and women wear lots of the same cloths. One thing they wore is a Hôko sugata. A hôko sugata was worn when not participating in court functions. Only high rank men wear a sword with this outfit. If they do wear a sword with this, it is very uncommon. Lastly, they also wore something called a Samurai hakama. A samurai hakama is produced in many woodblock prints. A samurai hakama is like a skirt and baggy pants. The samurai hakama is worn during martial arts like archery and fencing. This is a part of Samurai topic because it is very useful when not participating in court functions. It is just a free time. Lots of men held the same accessories as woman.

MAKEUP AND ACCESSORIES: Makeup and accessories were mostly used to make people pretty, but they have many other uses as well. Makeup and accessories were mostly used to make people pretty, but they had many other uses as well. Makeup is important in the Samurai culture because it is part of everyone’s culture. It is part of the code of conduct that everyone follows. Tar was put on their teeth to blacken them so no one sees them when woman open their mouth. They use powder was used to whiten the face. They used rouge was used to color the cheeks and lips. They used vegetable dye was used as finger nail polish. Woman shaved their eyebrows and then drew what was called a moth wing in its place. Oil-paper umbrellas colors made it look like it was blooming like a flower. Fans and parasols were carried by both men and woman. Clothing was perfumed by holding it over smoking incense burners. The different makeup people wear, the different level in society they are. In a photo, they have a white face with pencil thin eyebrows. The cheeks are red and so are the lips. It is important in Samurai culture because everyone wore make-up, but mostly just the woman. Some men wear makeup just like women do.

WOMAN'S CLOTHING: Woman’s clothes are mostly very decretive but they wear the same things as the men. Woman wear kimonos just like the samurai do, though woman’s kimonos tend to more elaborate. Woman’s clothes have different styles for the difference in ages. Young, unmarried woman wear kimonos with long sleeves and bright colors. Older, married woman wear kimonos with short sleeves and dark colors. They all would wear multiple layers of silk gowns. All women prided themselves by having long hair. They would show it off with jeweled pins and clips. In a photo it is seen that young woman have very long sleeves on their kimono. The sleeves almost reach their ankles. The older women’s kimono has a much simpler pattern and the sleeves aren’t as long. Lots of woman are samurai too, and there kimono’s are a great cover for when they want to attend theater. Even samurai wear everyday wear, almost every day.

EVERYDAY WEAR: It is part of Samurai culture because it includes what they wear to sleep. Some things they wore in everyday wear included Geta, leather sandals and cotton loincloth. Cotton loincloth was used for many things such as for sleeping, bathing; informal wear at home and cotton loincloth was basically just a cotton kimono called yukata. Leather sandals were worn outdoors and the sandals were woven from rice straw. Next geta were also worn for everyday wear. Geta were worn when walking around and mud and walking in snow. Geta were made out of wood. Also, geta’s purpose was to not get mud and snow on the samurai feet, so it was made to have a wooden platform fitted on top of two blocks, which rose the foot above wet ground. The importance of the geta was to raise the peoples feet up so it didn’t get snow or mud on them.

CONCLUSION: Our topic, dress and appearance is an essential part of Samurai culture during the Tokugua period because it shows what everyone wore all the time to show respect toward what event is taking place.

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CITATIONS : Websites: Yûsoku, Nihon Ron. "Men’s Clothing and Accessories." //A History of Japanese Clothing and Accessories//. 3/24/04. Web. 19 Feb 2010. Mann Horace, “Medieval Japanese Clothes, Make up, & Hair Styles.” Web, 2/19/2010. "Kimono Patterns and Kimono Styles". //Kimono, Kimono fabric & Japanese clothing//. Google. []. 2-19-10

Books: Odijk, Pamela. //__The Japanese__//. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1989