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What’s That Thing? Part 23

Originally I didn’t plan on this answer being so long, but I initially forgot a bunch of the history, so I thought that it would make for a good lesson if I did it in this format ^^ Anonymous asked: “Why do vintage Maiko hairstyles looks so much rounder than their modern day counterparts? Is it due to the substances applied to shape them?” It seems simple enough, but there’s far more than meets the eye when it comes to hair. So, this is going to be answered in two parts as there’s two major factors at play here! Part 1: The Hairstylists When the karyukai in Kyoto closed down in 1944 the majority of its residents either left for the countryside where it was safe or were conscripted into factory work. Much of that work was in nearby Osaka, which was bombed during the war. When the karyukai reopened in 1946 many of its former residents did not return, either because they didn’t want to come back to the cities as they wanted to stay where they relocated, or they sadly perished. This wasn’t just about the maiko and geiko themselves, but about everyone who supported them too, including hairstylists. Prior to World War II there were said to have been dozens of hairstylists within Gion Kobu alone, but after the war that number dwindled to only a handful. These women (in most cases) suddenly had a high load of geimaiko who needed their hair styled, but obviously there wasn’t enough time to style all of them like they did prior to the war. This is why geiko began to wear katsura as they only need to be styled once a month by a wig specialist and it left the majority of the appointments for hairstylists open for maiko and regular customers.

Image courtesy of Blue Ruin 1. Part 2: The Construction With only a few hairstylists this also meant that maiko couldn’t spend over an hour each time they got their hair styled as that would severely limit how many girls could have their hair styled at any given time. So, new methods were found to make the same styles, but in more efficient ways. Where styles used to only use the maiko’s real hair and the shape of a style could vary for each girl depending on their hair length, extensions and supports gave them all uniform looks that only took a fraction of the time to set. Their real hair was and still is the main focus, but the extensions, which blend in perfectly with their own hair, make their iconic nihongami styles easy to identify and mimic the same structure as the old ways. A perfect example of how hair changed before and after the war is illustrated in the image above. The maiko in the middle and on the right are both wearing ofuku, but the one in the middle was styled with the “old” ways and the one on the right in the “new” ways. In the old version only a maiko’s real hair is used, so how full the mage is or how rounded the bin are depend entirely on her own hair. The tegara in the back is an actual folded cloth that is directly tied and tucked into the back of the hair. On the right we see the new construction, which looks like this up close:

Image courtesy of Higashi Ichi. The mage is now made with the maiko’s own hair and a hair extension, which provides structure and stability; you can see the base of the extension underneath the tegara. This extension also makes it easier to undo the style when it needs to be reset. Unlike the old tegara, the new ones are pre-folded fabric pieces that tuck in slightly at the bottom and are held in by a pin at the top. Because they’re pre-made they can also feature more intricate decoration and embroidery as their positioning is now controlled. As for answering the final part of the question about the materials, they haven’t changed at all. A special type of binsuke wax is still used to keep the hair stiff and maiko will still comb in camellia oil to keep it shiny and smelling nice ^^