KASANE NO IROME - INTRODUCTION

Is the name used to define the colour combinations used for HEIAN (794 to 1185) period formal female court attire. During this period in the Japanese Court the ladies-in-waiting, princesses and empresses wore a specific style of dress that was based originally on a Chinese style of dress.

As always the japanese adapted this to their own desires and from that emerged the style of dress generally known as JūNI-HITOE, or roughly translated "12 layer robes". The name came from the many layers of robes, of the same shape but diferent colours, that were worn over each other. During the early HEIAN period the number of layers could go up to 20, resulting in governamental rules to be placed on the amount of layers that could be worn. Imagening the amount of weight that must have been to carry around, it is not surprising that these women didn´t actually walk much, but generally crawled small distances and needed help of assistants to move larger distances. The new laws decreased the amount of layers to around 5, not including any official over-robes that could be worn.

The name for these 5 layers is ITSUTSUGINU (being 5 KINU or UCHIGI robes. Below the ITSUTSUGINU a robe called HITOE was worn and a style of underwear known as KOSODE (small sleeves) which is the origin of the dress we know as kimono. Over the ITSUTSUGINU a few styles of robe could be worn, like ICHIGINU or UWAGI and a jacket known as KARAGINU with a type of apron worn at the back known as MO.

Nature, not only the heat and cold but also period of the year, had a large influence on the styles and colour combinations that could be worn during the year. This resulted in rules and regulations in colour and materials in diferent styles with names that would identify them. In the Japanese Court it was very important to be aware of the and dress accordingly. Making the right choice in dress could make or brake one´s career and name.

These pages try to explain and visualise in brief what it looked like to be dressed in this style of attire and how the colours and styles of material would have looked like.