History of Japanese Hairstyles: Heian to Meiji Period

Hey, what's up everyone? It's Bobby from KITTYJAPAN. Coming at you with a brief video about the history of Japanese hairstyles. This is the first video that I've ever used Adobe After Effects in, so I hope you like the animations and let me know in the comments what you think. And check out the Patreon link in the description if you want to help me reach my goal of doing this YouTube thing full-time. Without further ado, let's dive right in. Hi, my name is Fumi Nitta. I'd like to talk about the brief history of Japanese hairstyle from Heian to Meiji periods. Generally speaking, we look at Japanese history periods by periods, and that corresponds to the reign of emperor, usually. Now, we focus on Heian, Edo, and Meiji because there are major changes, not only social changes, but also hairstyle changes. Okay, now let's go to the Heian period. This is when Japanese culture emerged and developed. Until then, there had been much continental influences from Korea and China. Heian hairstyle is characterized by long, straight, and black hair, especially among the noble and court ladies. Longer the hair, more beautiful the woman is. Average length of the long hair is about one meter, but the longer one is said to be up to seven to eight meters. Those long, black, straight hair are often mentioned in many, many poems. Kaguya-hime is the ancient story of a beautiful girl found from bamboo, and the girl turned to be the most beautiful woman. And of course, she has long, black hair. Along with this story, some women cut their hair and save it and bury it in the bamboo bush so that they have long, beautiful, black hair like Kaguya-hime. Anyway, like the blonde, which has many shades, black hair also has many shades. Like black kite and black rouge, purple black, iron black, black thunderbolt, and a few others. And this shows how important having black hair is. And along with the long, black, straight hair is the special ceremonial robe called juni-hitoe. And juni-hitoe is a 12-layered special women's kimono, and those were used by court ladies and nobles. Aristocratic and upper-class women tie long hair in the middle on the back, while the lower-class working women tie near the neck. Now, let's mention the men's hairstyle. Men's topknot is standing, so they have what they call eboshi, the long, tall cap. And men, especially the upper-class men, must wear eboshi so you don't see much hair in this era. And then we're going to the Edo period, and this is the peaceful and stable time of Japanese history. This is the time when the major traditional Japanese hairdos were born, established, and flourished. This is called the period of hairdressing. So a person's maturity, development, social status, marital status, all those factors influence a decision of what hairstyle the person should take. And they said there are about 270 to 280 different hairstyles. One interesting thing about style and occupation is that many of the Edo period hairstyles were started by prostitutes. I'll talk about it later. Now, let's talk about the four main parts of traditional Japanese hairstyle. Maegami, the front hair, and then mage is a topknot. Women's mage is much bigger and thick on top. And then tabo is on the base of the mage, and bin is the side locks. And bin and tabo support the topknot. Incidentally, when women wear kimono, the most exposed part is below the tabo, underneath. And that's supposed to be the most erotic, sexy part of the Japanese women in ancient times. And also, there are four main hairstyles. They are named Hyogo, Shimada, Katsuyama, and Kogai. And each of these four has many, many variations. These four main hairstyles were started or created or born by prostitutes and also young men. Okay, let's talk about Hyogo. Hyogo is said to be preferred at a brothel called Hyogoya. And the second one, Shimada, is the most popular hairdo in the Edo period. And also, this is a basis for the present-day Japanese traditional hairstyle for a bride. Even today, Japanese brides use the traditional hairdo and kimono. Then they change to a western dress later during the wedding ceremony. Now, this Shimada hairstyle was started by a young man and also a prostitute who adapted from a man's hairdo. So that's a very interesting story about the origin of Shimada. And the third one is Katsuyama. This also was adapted by kabuki actors. Okay, now the fourth one is Kogai. And Kogai is different from those previous three. This is a hairstyle variation used by court ladies when they are retiring from serving the shogun and the laws, when they relax using different decorations. So this is the sort of off-duty hairstyle for the court ladies. Now let's talk about men's hairstyle. Characteristically shown with the top knot, but front part is usually a shade. As you can see from a samurai movie, it's called oicho. In the battlefield and fighting, they get excited. So in order to cool down, they shave the front part. So underneath helmet, it's a cooling off part. It's called sakayaki, the moon shape, shave the area. In later years of Edo period, they have sakayaki, even though they are not samurais. It became popular even among the commoners, not just samurais. And another variation is sohatsu, no shaved front part. For those who are not battlefield samurais, like doctors, scholars, and so forth. Yojimbo is definitely not a usual samurai, but a ronin. So they have sohatsu, no sakayaki. And also I should mention, along with the top knot, there is called shomyo-mage, which has the thicker top knot. Another variation is called kobusho-fu, which has the narrower sakayaki, the shaved area. This was started by young men who are training martial arts. Now, commoners' hairstyle, their tabo is longer. And also mage tend to be bent. And that's the variation called hasukage-honda. And another variation is chonmage. Chonmage is often used as the word to call the Japanese men's hairstyle. But this particular style is for older men, because this chonmage, chon means a little. And since old men tend to have less hair, the top knot is small. So that's why it's called chonmage. And of course, we know very well, even these days, sumo. Sumo oicho is for sumo wrestlers. Of course, no sakayaki, no shaved part. When they retired, the upper division and famous or popular sumo wrestlers have a very elaborate retirement ceremony, danpatsu-shiki, cutting off the top knot ceremony. Sometimes it's a very big deal for sumo wrestlers. OK, finally, Meiji period. And this is a major social change for Japan. It's westernization and modernization. One of the first things the government did was to issue a special hair-cutting law. Normal chonmage, cut it short, and started with men first. And then a couple of years later, women were also ordered to cut their hair short. I'm not sure how much this law was enforced. Meiji period has a few interesting words or phrases. Zangiri atama, cropped head, cutting the top knot, and then wear short hair. And there's an interesting story. Iwakura Tomomi is a government official. And he led a huge group of over 100 men to observe other countries, including United States and European countries, in 1871. Iwakura, he became very popular. He was very pleased, but it turned out he was popular because of his funny-looking samurai-style hairdo and kimono. And realizing that, he actually cut his top knot while he was still in America. To encourage Japanese women to cut their traditional Japanese hairstyle, there were some, what they call, sokuhatsu pamphlets. And sokuhatsu is tied hair for women. It's sort of a combination of Japanese old hairstyle and modern short haircut. They promote it by pointing out how negative the traditional Japanese hairdos are, like they're inconvenient, unhygienic, uneconomical, and many other bad things they mention in this pamphlet to promote the shorter hair for Japanese women in Meiji era. Anyway, hair is not just fashion. It also shows a person's beliefs, attitudes, way of thinking. And also, it may reflect social condition. And that wraps things up for this edition of Fumi's Hair History. I hope that it was informative and entertaining. We talked about a lot of topics that day, ranging from Japanese school rules about hair length and color, shifting modern trends, and a general lack of facial hair in modern Japan. So, if you're interested in any other videos about hair in Japan, let me know in the comments. In the meantime, thanks for watching and supporting this channel. Stay safe out there, and catch you next time.