The is a traditional

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

outfit Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of ma ...

worn only by

courtier A courtier () is a person who attends the royal court of a monarch or other royalty. The earliest historical examples of courtiers were part of the retinues of rulers. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the officia ...

aristocrats Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian co ...

and the

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

at the Japanese imperial court. The originated in the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

, and consists of a number of parts, including the (outer robe), , a flat ritual baton or

sceptre A sceptre (or scepter in American English) is a Staff of office, staff or wand held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of regalia, royal or imperial insignia, signifying Sovereignty, sovereign authority. Antiquity Ancient Egypt and M ...

, and the , a cap-shaped black lacquered silk hat with a

pennon A pennon, also known as a pennant or pendant, is a long narrow flag which is larger at the Hoist (flag), hoist than at the Fly (flag), fly, i.e., the flag narrows as it moves away from the flagpole. It can have several shapes, such as triangular ...

. The exact composition of the differs from person to person, and depends on a person's rank and whether they are a civil or military official, with military officers wearing the garment's outermost layers with split front and back panels, and civil officials having fully sewn panels. Colour also varies by rank, with colour symbolism having held great importance in Heian period Japan. No longer worn as everyday clothing, the is preserved as formalwear worn by male members of the Imperial court, including the

Imperial family A royal family is the immediate family of monarch, monarchs and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or emperor, empress, and the term papal family describes the family of ...

and government officials, such as the

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

. The is typically reserved for the most formal occasions, such as

wedding A wedding is a ceremony in which two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnicity, ethnicities, Race (human categorization), races, religions, Religious denomination, denominations, Cou ...

s and

enthronement An enthronement is a ceremony of inauguration, involving a person—usually a monarch or religious leader—being formally seated for the first time upon their throne. Enthronements may also feature as part of a larger coronation rite. In ...

ceremonies. On such occasions, women such as an empress or princess wear a , the 's female counterpart. File:Emperor Komei Portrait by Koyama Shotaro 1902.png, Emperor Komei in Sokutai. File:Meiji tenno3.jpg,

Emperor Meiji , posthumously honored as , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the List of emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession, reigning from 1867 until his death in 1912. His reign is associated with the Meiji Restoration of 1868, which ...

in Sokutai. File:Emperor Taisho of Japan.jpg, Emperor Taisho as crown prince in Sokutai. File:Emperor Showa.jpg,

Emperor Hirohito , Posthumous name, posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until Death and state funeral of Hirohito, his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigni ...

in Sokutai. File:Emperor Akihito 199011 1.jpg, Emperor

Akihito Akihito (born 23 December 1933) is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 1989 until 2019 Japanese imperial transition, his abdication in 2019. The era of his rule was named the Heisei era, Hei ...

wore the imperial sokutai at the enthronement ceremony in November 1990. File:Emperor Naruhito (cropped).jpg, Emperor

Naruhito Naruhito (born 23 February 1960) is Emperor of Japan. He acceded to the Chrysanthemum Throne following 2019 Japanese imperial transition, the abdication of his father, Akihito, on 1 May 2019, beginning the Reiwa era. He is the 126th monarch, ...

wore Sokutai at enthronement ceremony. The Japanese emperor's court dress is made up of loose-fitting white trousers and a loose yellow outer robe that is styled after a Chinese robe but is tucked in at the waist, and decorated with the textile pattern consist of

Fenghuang ''Fenghuang'' () are mythological birds featuring in traditions throughout the Sinosphere. ''Fenghuang'' are understood to reign over all other birds: males and females were originally termed ''feng'' and ''huang'' respectively, but a gender ...

Paulownia ''Paulownia'' ( ) is a genus of seven to 17 species of hardwood trees (depending on taxonomic authority) in the family Paulowniaceae, the order Lamiales. The genus and family are native to east Asia and are widespread across China. The genus, o ...

, Bamboo and Kirin. When wearing the sokutai, the emperor carries an ivory tablet, inspired by the Chinese Hu, which was carried by Chinese emperors as a symbol of imperial power.

Structure

Colour symbolism

Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako in formal wedding robes

Similarly to the , the uses colour symbolism, though unlike the , colours are more restricted, specifically denoting court rank: # First rank: purple # Second rank: purple # Third rank: purple # Fourth rank: maroon # Fifth rank: crimson # Sixth rank: dark green # Seventh rank: light green # Eighth rank: dark blue # Basic rank (ranks below eighth): light blue Persons without rank typically wear mud brown or light yellow; the darker, fuller shade of yellow was reserved for the emperor. Though exact shades varied highly, with a number of colours detailed as having minuscule shade differences and thus different names, the highest-ranking shades were all achieved through dyeing fabric with the gromwell plant, an expensive and prolonged process that could take over a year to achieve. Due to the difficulty of obtaining a number of dyestuffs used to produce the purple and maroon colours worn by the highest-ranked officials, these colours were changed to black sometime during the Heian period.

Composition

The innermost layer of the was the , a white garment that covered the wearer to knee level. This was worn with a pair of , a pair of long red worn on top of the and tied off to the wearer's left. Similarly to the , which used a white and a pair of red as a base layer, both of these would have been worn as both undergarments and sleeping clothes. A () was worn over the top of the as an upper garment; a number of layers of were worn above the , the exact number and fabric of which varied based on the season. The , a shorter white hakama with an open fly, was worn above the , tied off to the right. The , a typically white garment with the characteristic "tail" of the , was worn on top of the , covering the upper body of the wearer. The —a sleeveless vest often featuring embroidery—was worn over all these layers. The final outer robe—the —was then worn over the ; this outer robe followed the design of the Chinese in its cut, but with a distinctively Japanese style, with the robe tucked at the waist, such that the hemline ends midway between the knees and floor.

References

External links

The Costume Museum , The Heian PeriodEncyclopædia Britannica:
{{Use dmy dates, date=March 2017 Japanese full-body garments Robes and cloaks Court uniforms and dress Japanese words and phrases