AKJ_An Experience of Japanese Traditional Dress

Hi,

Sorry to write such a confusing post title, but I could think of few ways to render the term 十二単 (juunihitoe), which refers to a type of dress that I had the opportunity to wear. As the name suggests, the outfit consists of 12 layers, but I think I only wore 8 or so. 

The overall effect was quite heavy (10kg~), and took a decent amount of time to achieve. It was also very hot, despite purportedly being a summer version of the costume. I also found it quite hard to move in the costume...but it seems that the wealthy women did wear it, despite these setbacks...

Anyway, here are some pictures, which will probably explain much better than I have!

The last photo is probably a bit hard to see, but, much to my surprise, I ended up in the Chunichi Shinbun...famous, huh? =)

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I didn't get to wear the head piece that you can see in the  photo that is second from the bottom. That was because my hair colour wouldn't work~you could see the natural hair as well as the wig. According to the lady wearing it, that was the heaviest thing...

In the earlier photos, you can see the layers going on. I quite like the colours of this particular outfit...

Well, I hope this will be interesting to read~it's a bit of culture that I knew nothing about before the experience!

Thanks