The Look of Oiran Versus Tayuu
Buckle up guys, this is a long one…
The comparison between Oiran and Tayuu comes up with almost every account and just a few years ago, there was a genuine confusion as to their title, their rank and their looks. But why is there a distinction in the first place? Why have these two ranks of women of the pleasure quarters survived in popular culture to the modern day while other ranks have faded to a footnote? And why is it so important to set these two ranks apart?
Before we dive into this topic there are some points to keep in mind when discussing the appearance of Oiran versus Tayuu:
The most important thing to note is that Tayuu still practice today while Oiran do not. In the Shimabara district in Kyoto the last active Tayuu still work to this day and have been doing so despite the decline of their counterparts in the Yoshiwara in the 1760ies and Osaka Shinmachi’s destruction during World War II. Up until then, the Tayuu of Kyoto and Osaka were famed for their style and sophistication, promoted by books, guides and art to legendary status, the Oiran have always played catch up and tried to emulate the high class flair of Tayuu. When the last Tayuu of the Yoshiwara retired it seemed as if an era had come to an end. Now the highest ranks of Courtesans had no or very little artistic merit and the job description of the Tayuu of Edo now was split up into two professions: That of the Oiran and that of the Geisha. Then Oiran started to vanish with the downfall of the Yoshiwara, burned to the ground by fires and eradicated by the great Kanto Earthquake but the Geisha, strong and resilient like the willow tree, survived. It is unknown when the last Oiran of the Shimabara, the ultimate pleasure quarter retired but the prohibition of the trade dealt the final blow to their profession.
further, since the prohibition of prostitution in 1958 and the standardization of the karyukai after the second world war, the look of the Tayuu has reached its ultimate form. Modern Tayuu are rather restricted in their choice of apparel and money has a lot to do with this. Not only are these women bound to the most important visual cues as a part of their trade but the expense of commissioning the pieces of their wardrobe is significant so many pieces are antiques. In the meantime we see the role of modern Oiran as mascots of a different time, the actresses playing Oiran in parades are dressed up like Disney princesses at the parks. Even though their costumes are expensive in their own right, it is in no way comparable to the quality of modern Tayuu.
Lastly, we know and recognize Oiran and Tayuu mainly through their outrageous parade attire which consists of susohiki, uchikake, front tied Obi, geta and nihongami with many ornate hair decorations. In daily life though both the Oiran and Tayuu dressed more practically but not less expensively. It is a bit harder to discern a Tayuu from an Oiran in these rare instances and there are not that many examples of either dressed casually as it effectively missed the point to photograph these exclusive birds of paradise if they were dressed like any other girl of the district, with that said, there are some photos of important Tayuu dressed more casually but those went mislabeled for many decades. We can be sure that modern Tayuu have remained true to the documents of vintage photos as much as possible and using antique wardrobe helps to create an authentic image to this day. But the stylistic differences of Oiran and Tayuu are a relatively new invention and does not reflect history very well. As can be seen in contemporary ukiyo e prints, it is oftentimes hard to tell Oiran from Tayuu apart and most of the time both ranks would have tried to dress as ostentatiously as humanly possible.
Japanese pop culture loves Oiran! Through Kabuki, the theater of the common folk, the look of these women has survived into the modern consciousness as the image of glimmering superstars of the Edo period. And Edo is everywhere in modern media: Manga, novels, television shows, plays and movies as there is a direct line to be drawn from Edo’s flourishing cultural landscape with developments as Kabuki, Ukiyo e and Bunraku, all of them targeted at the growing class of merchants and townsfolk. Most of them would never have seen an Oiran in person so they definitely had the mystique of the other. And popular culture was a radical wave of democratization for Edo’s people but they not only wanted to see the lives and loves of any Joe Shmoe, they wanted to see the stars of the Ukiyo e prints onstage, they wanted to hear from their scandalous lives in the brothels, they wanted to feel their pain through songs. And through this catapult of popularity the Oiran managed to capture the attention of the first photographers in Japan who documented their impressive looks, it was to be the last hurrah of a faded Courtesan aristocracy.
So the fact that we know how the Oiran looked like even though they might have gone extinct 100 years ago has a lot to do with their importance to popular art. When we see the portrayal of Oiran in Kabuki, one of the contemporary accounts of their lives, we see that they are romanticized as these noble ladies, locked in cruel contracts but suffering in proud silence as was deemed worthy for a samurai’s companion. They are always gifted in great beauty and stoic in appearance and many times they are artistically unrivaled. It seems as if they were talking about Tayuu, not Oiran. Might they have chosen to title their heroines as Oiran because of the flowery connotation of the title? The word Tayuu is used to describe the most talented in artforms, it has this imposing and masculine energy to it, maybe it was just too much to get into for a Kabuki play. The Tayuu were the tippy top of the pyramid of Oiran, for every Tayuu, there were three Oiran aspiring to her talent and privilege. In the beginning of Oiran culture, there might have been some very talented artists among them but that gloss vanished with time, taking a back seat to the flamboyant outer values.
To have actually met a Tayuu was a rare incident even for popular playwrights and poets, they might have been more familiar with Oiran. In the Yoshiwara your rank as a patron wasn’t that significant as the language of money is universal. An Oiran would not have cared so much if her client was a samurai or a merchant as long as he had enough coin. Not so for a Tayuu, she would never have mingled with merchants but only the most prestigious of patrons. The Oiran was easier to portray because she might have been easier to meet as a client could amass money but he could not buy prestige. So Oiran it was.
Still, Tayuu had this almost legendary vibrancy to them. Once their rank reached this status by the beginning of the 20th century, their look became iconic and the Tayuu of the Shimabara started to wear the uniform we can admire to this day. One has to remember that by that time the Oiran had become almost a caricature of their historic counterparts with their padded obi, the gaudy colors and the comically high geta. But we all know what draws a crowd. Now, after we discussed a lot of background, we shall look at the differences and similarities of Oiran versus Tayuu from top to toe. Note that the Oiran is always on the left side while the Tayuu is pictures on the right. I’ve used mainly Meiji era photographs as these are the last pictures of women described as Oiran and the style of the Tayuu has barely changed since then. Also important is the fact that Osaka’s and Shimabara’s Tayuu are oftentimes lumped together or not properly labeled in postcards and photos so there might be some variants there too and sometimes the Osaka Tayuu look like a missing link between the Oiran and Tayuu, i tried to point out details but oftentimes the Osaka Tayuu had a very unique look that deserve a more indephts analysis. Shimabara’s Tayuu are the more recognizable though because we can compare with their modern counterparts. Let’s get started!
Some nihongami have become synonymous with a certain Courtesan and quite a few have been named after them. So unique and imaginative these hairstyles have become over the decades, they too were subjected to trends and we tend to forget that not every nihongami survived to see modern days. The iconic hairstyles we associate with Oiran today is of course the Hyogo with its many variations. Below we see the Tate Hyogo with the prominent bunny ears but there was also the Date Hyogo, the Yoko Hyogo and many more styles that looked similar but not same. Tayuu wore all kinds of nihongami and they have come out the other side with no particular one heavily connected to their style in contrast to the Oiran who is most often recognized through her hair. Safe to say that a Tayuu would opt for a more elegant style while the Oiran’s hallmark was always “more is more” and the more artificially and unnaturally looking the better. Some great shots of Oiran survive with the most fascinating nihongami, unpractical, expensive and otherworldly, these nihongami had only one purpose: To impress everyone!
The most dramatic differences between the looks of Tayuu and Oiran are seen in the kanzashi and hair decorations. Even though the Oiran decorated their insanely coiffed hair with magnificent kanzashi and as many pins and combs as they could carry, the Tayuu have created a very distinct and uniform style for themselves, specially in Kyoto where the tradition is still cherished to this day by Tayuu and in Maiko.
Evidently the Tayuu’s headdress is more familiar to us. She wears the Katsuyama, the bira kanzashi, bekko hairpins and a daikan or maezashi according to season. But one of the indicators for Shimabara Tayuu, and it is absolutely one of the only details that rule out Oiran and Tayuu outside of Shimabara with certainty are the four hirauchi pins with dangling red beads as birabira. Two in the front and two in the back. Oiran never wore these, they were the queens of the bekko hairpins, a myriad of which incorporated into their nihongami, the higher the rank, the higher the number of pins. They opted for some combs and tama kanzashi but seldom flowers or any other delicate ornaments, mostly their kanzashi were coarse and sturdy. Osaka’s Tayuu also omitted the dangling red beads for more bekko kanzashi but they also used long bira kanzashi that glistened in the moonlight when they paraded to the ageya.
Kanzashi for Oiran: Bekko kanzashi, no hanakanzashi
Kanzashi for Shimabara Tayuu: Katsuyama, bekko, hanakanzashi, hirauchi and the red beaded birabira
Kanzashi for Osaka Tayuu: Bekko kanzashi and birakanzashi
An uchikake is an outer kimono made of sumptuous silk brocade, intricately stitched with silver or gold thread and vividly patterned with the most expensive dyes. For a merchant wife, this might have been a luxury she might not have been able to afford in her lifetime but for a Tayuu it was the bread and butter of her appearance.
As wedding attire and historically reserved for samurai wives and nobility, later on for whomever could afford it, this garment has almost naturally found itself into the Courtesan’s wardrobe. What was she if not a wife for the time being and to wear a robe as richly decorated and patterned showed off not only her worth but also the worth of her patron. Many Oiran and Tayuu received these uchikake as gifts from wealthy clients and loyal patrons who commissioned the fabric’s decoration. We see that many gorgeous uchikake feature bold motifs that allude to history, stories and many are a reference either to the Tayuu/Oiran herself, her name, her patrons name or any insider joke they might have shared. For example:
The Tayuu sports an amazing uchikake with Noh masks embroidered on it. This girl might have been interested in theater and one can only imagine how she and her patron sit in on a play together and later on share this intense conversation about it. He falls for her, she is beautiful, intelligent and well versed in the the arts and she is the only woman he ever met that loves Noh as much he does. So naturally he runs out and commissions this gorgeous piece for her. Weeks later, he calls to meet her again in the ageya where he is required to pay for an expensive ozashiki with her whole entourage just to hand over this impressive gift to his beloved Tayuu. Every time he visits the Shimabara to see his Tayuu, she wears this uchikake during the parade and naturally everyone knows whom she is off to meet and the talk of the town spreads like fire. So the uchikake is not only a piece of wardrobe, it’s a statement. It shows who the wearer is, what she loves, whom she is connected to and who is so stinking rich to afford to be her patron.
Oiran came to their uchikake pretty much the same way but their style was, for a lack of a more sympathetic term, colorful. We know from kabuki plays and ukiyo e that Oiran loved to use the uchikake to one up the Tayuu and any other Oiran that might be on the way up. Oiran used the uchikake as billboards as well but compared to the luxurious and refined outer garment of the Tayuu, the Oiran’s uchikake looked more like a costume for a stage play. And this has its reasons too. Towards the end of the Oiran’s reign, she was indeed just a shell, just the image of a high ranking Courtesan. To impress her patrons she needed to sport more obvious luxury as the subdued richness made popular by Tayuu just simply wasn’t a jour anymore. We recognize the padding of Oiran’s uchikake as her unique trait and this goes back to the junihitoe trend of wearing twelve layers of kimono in court during the Heian period. The padding is stitched to only one layer though but many Oiran exaggerated the padding so much, adding to the impediment of their walking. Needless to say these uchikake were reserved for parades and ozashiki only, no clever Tayuu or Oiran would ever dirty up their priceless uchikake by wearing them regularly. Some pieces have survived many decades and modern Tayuu still wear these rarities so it’s a real treat to see them these days.
Uchikake for Oiran: Big patterns, vivid colors, thickly padded hems
Uchikake for Tayuu: Intricate patterns, simple padded hems
For the Oiran to have her obi hanging down like a waterfall was a nod to her existence as a prostitute. Her lower classed counterparts wore their obi, essentially simple sashes meant to hold the garments up, tied in the front and leaving the ends of the obi hanging down. But for Oiran, a simple hanging sash would not do. Starting off relatively simple with beautiful embroidery and dyes the obi evolved into enormous, padded and fringed works of artisanal masterpieces that represented the Oiran’s taste in fashion. Some obi told stories and were a delight to look at during parades and ozashiki and they were a splendid display of the Oiran’s monetary worth too. Some of the Oiran’s artistic preferences might have been commemorated on the obi with embroidered musical instruments or animals attributing to her character. Even though the custom for Courtesans of all ranks to tie their obi in front has become a trademark of their profession, its roots stem from nobel households.
As the women of the nobility didn’t have to do any manual work, their expression of this leisure was to tie their obi in front essentially making work impossible as not to dirty the intricate cloth, not to mention the bulk made moving very restrictive. Both Tayuu and then Oiran emulated this style and when it became their trademark, the wives of the nobles changed to tying the obi in the back to separate themselves of the Courtesan their husbands adored so much. The obi has become the most sure sign to differentiate an Oiran from a Tayuu, or has it?
Source: Osaka Tayuu / Tayuu
There are quite a few examples of historic Oiran and Tayuu wearing different knots but almost always it would be a Maru obi. Today we use the various knots to examine the status of a Tayuu and thankfully there are only two to take into account: The bow knot of Furisode Tayuu and the Kokoro knot of fully fledged Tayuu. Of course there have been exceptions to the rule as both Oiran and early Tayuu liked to reinvent themselves or push the boundaries of chic but for the most part, they have stuck to their trademark obi look and as a rule of thumb one can say Oiran wore padded obi, Tayuu did not. Also we have a regional preference and we can deduct that Shimabara’s Tayuu wore the Kokoro and Osaka’s Tayuu wore the flat bow knot, which is still a specialty of Osaka Maiko to this day while in the Yoshiwara only Shinzo wore their obi in bow musubi.
Compiling the knots for Oiran and Tayuu we would come up with this list:
Obi musubi for Oiran: Manaita, Takinoi, Noshi, sometimes with fringe
Obi musubi for Shimabara Tayuu: Kokoro, Bunko for Furisode, no fringe
Obi musubi for Osaka Tayuu: Bunko in many variations, no fringe
Made of lacquered paulownia wood with a straw base, these iconic plateau sandals became one of the great indicators of high class Courtesans. The paulownia wood kept the footwear light as opposed to any other element of the Oiran and Tayuu’s wardrobe but when the Tayuu came to prominence, they would never have thought to actually ever wear anything on their delicate feet. Not only did Tayuu entertain barefoot but according to some accounts, some of them never walked outside and preferred to be carried on the back or on the shoulder of their attendants. This custom was quickly abandoned as soon as the Koma geta became fashionable and a new way to parade around was devised as whenever a girl needed to be carried to her appointment, she would have opted for a more sensible outfit because it was not easy to carry her plus her whole regalia around.
Source: Reenactment of Edo period Tayuu
Geta for Oiran: Nimaiba, Mitsuhashi, more trapezoid and higher
Geta for Tayuu: Mitsuhashi, compact with sculpted prongs
As high as 20cm over the ground, the Oiran towered literally over everyone. It was almost ridiculous and sparked the imagination in its impracticality and defiance of daily struggles. But this is what made Oiran so popular, it was the notion that they did not work, never did anything without purpose and that they were essentially treasure ships that needed to be hoisted around, moved from pillar to post, unable to run away from their destiny. They symbolized the restraint of the samurai and their endurance was also signified with their bare feet in the spring snow. In a world without health insurance, a power move.
For Tayuu, a Koma geta was a slightly more subdued wear, but barely so. Their geta do look lower in vintage photographs but walking in them in a normal manner was just as impossible. The Tayuu Katsuyama set the trend for the figure eight walking style in 1653 to move from okiya to ageya and the Oiran later not only copied this fashion but interpreted it into a flashier display of extravagance and even a little leg, it must have been very racy at the time. And while the Oiran’s figure eight walk was intended to show a lot of skin for any respectable woman at the time, the Tayuu never lifted their geta when walking. The sole of their geta was always firmly on the ground, giving off a more subdued, less showy air. But if you remember that the whole attire these women carried weighed around 30 kilos from top to toe, one can only imagine the stress on their bodies and the burden on their souls.
A wonder to no one that we still discuss and debate over the looks of Tayuu and Oiran to this day. Comparable to the outlandish styles of the court ladies of France or England back in the day, the extremes of these garments and accessories leave us fascinated. Many aspects of the Tayuu’s and Oiran’s wardrobe had very deep meanings and spoke a language privy to their patrons or the people in the know. It speaks to us like deciphering a code, like reading hieroglyphs of a long forgotten civilization and only through study can be appreciate the intricacies of their look. With so many hints to Noh, kabuki, bunraku, music and painting, they are a celebration of beauty and pleasure.
