MAIKO MAKEOVER

I've never been much of one for playing dress up, and my Halloween costumes have been traditionally lackluster. The only exceptions were ones where my mother made my costume and did my makeup or face paint.  My deficiency in creativity boils down to this: laziness.  The more involved the outfit, the less I want to wear it.  Yet I jumped at the chance to be dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono, which is a far more complicated process than shrugging on a bathrobe.  

First you have to find a kimono.  Many kimono are family heirlooms passed from generation to generation, valued at thousands of dollars.  However, you can also find cheaper kimono at second hand shops for as little as a few hundred dollars, though these are often of lesser quality and don’t include accoutrements like obi, the wide silk sash that is tied around the kimono, or geta, wooden sandals.  The cheapest kind of kimono is the yukata, a casual lightweight cotton robe worn in the summertime.  These run for as little as $30 (not including accessories), but they lack the gravitas and luxuriousness of the more formal silk kimono. 

Summer yukata.  From satoshi7.livejournal.com

For those of us not blessed with inherited kimono and who don’t have hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy one, there are other ways to get a kimono fix.  A panoply businesses in Japan cater to women who wish to dress up like a geisha.  Some Japanese tourist organizations offer opportunities to try on kimono, as do places like Toei Uzumasa Eigamura, a film set and theme park in Kyoto.  However, you can also have professional portraits taken at a studio, as I did.  This experience is popular among the Japanese as well as tourists; many young Japanese women have formal matchmaking portraits done, or to celebrate weddings, coming of age, or graduation.  Modern women come in and in just a few short hours are transformed into timeless geisha or maiko, apprentice geisha.*  

A small army of women is required to outfit someone in a kimono, but their efficiency is admirable.  In about an hour I was morphed from nondescript gaijin to resplendent maiko.  Still, it was quite an involved process.  I was asked to undress and then shrouded in a light cotton shift so that I could be sent to makeup, where a woman slathered cold white paint on my face neck, and shoulders, leaving only the nape of my neck exposed.  Even my eyebrows were drowned in white and drawn in again later on, followed by rouge, eyeliner, and vivid red paint on my lips.  At some point I was asked to make a tough decision: which kimono did I want to wear for the pictures?  The fifty or so options were a wide array of colors and patterns; once I had made my choice, the ladies started layering me like an onion. More light cotton robes, a corset-like contraption, a red and white collar, and finally, the kimono itself, which was far heavier than I had anticipated.  Tabi (white socks designed to give you a kind of ninja turtle cleft in your toes) were put on my feet, and a lacquered-looking wig placed on my head.  I was cinched in by the obi, which was so thick it could have acted as a plate of armor.  A device that looked like the headrest yanked from a car seat was shoved down the back of the obi, and the tail was arranged over it, almost like a bustle.  Now properly equipped for my close up, I tottered on the platformed geta, shuffling forward a little at a time, as my legs were constricted by the folds of the kimono.  The photographer posed me with different props, and fifteen minutes later, we were finished.  Back in the dressing room, the ladies whisked off all the layers, and I went to the sink to scrub off all the paint, resuming my normal appearance, from butterfly back to caterpillar.  

I admit that I was thrilled when a friend of mine showed these pictures to her Japanese coworker,  who inspected them and said that I could pass for Japanese.

You can see the exposed part of my neck in this shot; apparently Japanese men found this spot highly alluring. 

*The differences between geisha and maiko are subtle, and despite the renown of geisha outside of Japan, maiko are almost unknown.  Maiko are geisha in training, and study for years before they ascend to the level of geisha.  Maiko typically wear brighter colors and more ornaments in their hair.  The collars of their kimono are usually red with white or silver patterns, and their makeup is more vivid and noticeable.  Geisha are women trained in traditional Japanese arts like music, dance, and tea ceremony.  They are also skilled hostesses, adept at making conversation and entertaining guests (though not sexually- geisha are not prostitutes).  Geisha wear subdued colors and relatively little makeup.  Their kimono have shorter sleeves, and they tie their obi differently, making the obi shorter than the way the maiko wear them.    This website has a fairly excellent summation of the differences between geisha and maiko.

AYA maiko experience, Kyoto
605-0825 499,Shimogawara ,Gion, Higashiyama-Ku , Kyoto-Shi JAPAN
TEL:+81-75-532-6666 / FAX: +81-75-532-6667
E-mail:info@kyoto-maiko.com