Mizu's hakama part twoooo
If it's the first post of mine you see, welcome fellow traveller, I'm doing here some info dumping about my Mizu cosplay, and today we'll continue diving into the topic of hakama (pants)
As I mentioned in previous post, I searched through history of hakama but nothing really satisfied me.
I think some twist happened when I stumped upon a post of great cosplayer @linkelizzy on Instagram, where she showed her hakama:
And srsly, why I didn't thought it could be working like that. Moreover I found out it was a real thing back then, perfect! 👌
I wanted to make full length hakama for myself anyway (to wear it for some Japan culture festival that sometimes happens in my town, and also to go to some art exhibitions with my friend) so an option where I can have both is iiiiiideal :3
I know Mizu clearly has some knee length pants, but none of historical pants these length have that much puffiness volume, and traditional hakama have a LOT of volume, so if it'll be secured with kyahan (leg wraps) it would make perfect solution for my problem.
And I'll also be able to experiment with Mizu look and maybe make some elegant dojo-like version of her, sounds fun to me.
So finally, the decision has been made
Now how the hell sew hakama
They're tons of tutorials and patterns, but just look at one of them
See that curved line? It can't be historical version so it won't satisfy me >:[
One of characteristic things for wasai (the traditional Japanese art of hand-sewing garments) is straight rectangle shapes of patterns that are determined by how narrow fabric were back then (35-40cm) and even if something were curved, for example:
Bamboo leaf type of sasa-hida (fold on the sides of hakama, there's also a straight version of it)
Or curved end of sleeve in kimono
Excess fabric isn't cut off, it's secured between layers or in other way. The reason for that is to have an option to undo whole sewing process and make something other from that fabric. (recycling at its finest)
I finally started to find some pattern with more possibility to be accurate. But I feel option 1 (photo below 👇) would drape weirdly while standing straight so I went for option 2 I discovered in this tutorial: https://www.andsewingishalfthebattle.com/how-to-make-historically-accurate-authentic-hakama/
Another thing about hakama is that their width is determined by number of panels, and each panel have this around 35-40cm width. Fabrics were so narrow because loom was narrow, simply as that. Loom used in early edo period is called jibata and you can see an illustration of it under my pattern sketches
It might seem like it only make sewing harder - before actual sewing you must do kind of patchwork ugh, poor Edo people. That what I was thinking UNTIL I learned it actually allows skipping finishing seams, because natural selvage edges DON'T FRY OMG.
I can't with how brilliant this is.
Just imagine you can sew like 8 big long panels for hakama and just leave it like that because it's already secured and finish. If you're not onto sewing just know it reduces the work by half, yes HALF.
But what we should do with our modern fabric size? I managed to cut come panels along selvage egde (photo 1 in collage below) but where it wasn't possible I turned the edges inside and sew them together (photo 3), that way it resemble a bit how oryginal egdes of fabric looked like (fragment of oryginal kimono, where we see these selvage egdes just left freely on photo 2
I hope you're satisfied with that portion of historical knowledge (btw I still can't get over how amazing it is)
Now let's go back to our hakama
I did it from 4 panels for each leg, so 8 in total. It makes our hakama 150 cm wide before pleating it. And it looks exactly as hilarious as it sounds like (you'll see on the last photo of this post)
I sew panels in pairs and folded sasa-hida (that fold on the side that makes your hip pop out of triangular shape) and I secured it with kuke stitch.
And talking about stitches. One of rules of wasai is the stitch should be as invisible as possible. It's not only for aesthetic but also for durability. Stitch which isn't exposed wont get rubbed and eventually get broken. So most of stitches should be hidden in some depth, which we call kise. The depth should be 2 mm
It's hard to explain in words so please look at this illustration (from: https://mkimono.tv/blog/kise/)
Kuke is great stitch to secure excess fabric inside the cloth that doesn't have lining.
1. When it's laying freely we don't see any thread.
2. When I'm stretching kise we see thread holding fabric together at regular intervals
3. On the other side we only see some small dots, the better the tailor the less visible it should be.
When sasa -hida are ready I sew panels again, now I have whole front and back.
It is as it is but looking at first photo from this post you know, the process is worth to go through.
Now the worst part, pleats
But let's take a break for know because I reached limit of 10 photos per post (whyyyyy ;-; )
See you in the 3rd and (I think) the last part of our adventure with Hakama.
Oh and how could I forget
Take these to supply your inventory: 🥦🥕🥒 (carbohydrates for our tired brain will be needed to deal with those pleats, trust me)
