Geisha!

geisha costume

Of course every nation has its own standard of feminine loveliness and finds it difficult to understand and appreciate any ideal of personal beauty that does not conform to that particular standard.

The most peerless of our American beauties would probably fail to excite the admiration of an African savage, while the Hottentot belle would scarcely reign as such in a New York drawing-room.

The Japanese ideal is strikingly different from ours. To the native eye, women of the Western world are very far from handsome. That golden-haired blonde loveliness that to us is the highest type of female beauty is not pleasing to the Japanese.

They call those sunny locks red! Indeed, all hair save ebony black they so designate, and when we recall the fact that their artists always depict the devil with fair or red hair, we realize in what estimation they hold it!
The rosy complexion of our blonde to them is florid and unhealthy looking, and the small waist, large bust and hips are positive deformities.

The Japanese ideal of beauty was thus publicly described by a native gentleman at the Paris Exposition:

 "The head should be neither too large nor too small. The large black eyes should be surmounted by perfectly arched eyebrows and fringed with black lashes. The face should be oval, white, and but slightly rosetinted in each cheek, the nose straight and high. The mouth small, regular, and fresh, the thin lips parting to show the white teeth behind them. The forehead should be narrow and bordered with long black hair growing round the face in a perfect arch. This head should be joined by a round neck to a large but not fat body. The loins should be slender, and the hands and feet small but not thin, the swell of the breast modest and unexaggerated." Mere physical beauty has never been regarded by the Japanese as the sole criterion; fascinating manners, a ready but modest wit, and a gift for writing poetry and understanding poetical allusions weigh heavily in the balance, and some of their famous so-called "beauties" owe their reputations as such more to fascination of manner and a witty tongue than physical charms.

the GEISHA DANCE!

A "number one" geisha must be cultivated and well read besides being able to dance and sing.
 Gentlemen who are giving dinner-parties or entertaining guests engage two or three or more geisha to come and amuse the company. They sing, dance, and talk, play various little games with their hands and fingers, and tell stories—anything, in fact, which seems to interest and amuse their patrons.

From time to time, some geisha becomes famous all over Japan for her beauty and brilliancy, and she is as much talked about as a celebrated actress is with us. Young men rave about her and commit  all sorts of extravagances  for her sake.
                                                                                                                                                                              

Drunken Courtesan~ Utamaro

The morals of the geisha are of all shades, good, bad and indifferent, varying with the individual, but the geisha are quite distinct from the yugo. Though the geisha are not, correctly speaking, actresses, they hold a somewhat similar position in the Japanese social scale to that which actresses do with us; and there is as wide a bridge between the first-class geisha and the lowest as there is between the famous actress whose name is above reproach, and the " song and dance" artiste of the dives.

In the same way as some very conscientious but rather narrow-minded people regard every woman connected with a theatre as morally depraved, so some people in Japan consider every geisha a woman of bad character.

Of course this is very far from the truth in either case. There are women as good and as pure on the stage as off. It can scarcely be denied, however, that both the actresses of the European theatres and the geisha of Japan live in a more relaxed moral atmosphere than most other women, though how much they are affected by it depends upon themselves...


...Manner and bearing are more highly regarded by the Japanese than beauty, and the same Japanese gentleman who described the native ideal of female loveliness added as necessary accompaniments to physical beauty "a gentle manner, a voice like a nightingale which makes one divine its artlessness, a look at once lively, sweet, gracious, and always charming; witty words pronounced distinctly, accompanied by charming smiles; a look sometimes calm, sometimes gay or thoughtful, and always dignified. Manners noble, simple, and a little proud, but without incurring the suspicion of undue assumption."...

...In European dress the Japanese woman is, as a rule, far from pretty, though whether she looks as badly to us as our women in Japanese costume look to the Japanese is a mooted question.
The reason for this lies not only in the dissimilarity of figure, but also the distinctly opposite carriage of the body adopted by Eastern and Western women. The bearing considered the most correct and aristocratic for a Japanese lady is the head bent slightly fonvard, the shoulders rounded, and a slight stoop of the upper part of the body; a submissive deportment being regarded as an eminently proper one for the inferior sex. In the loose, draped kimono of the native dress, such a carriage does not seem awkward or ungraceful, but in Western attire the effect is singularly bad.

The national dress demands a very curious gait, a sort of short, shuffling trot. The narrow skirt open down the front would flap round the legs and make more exposure than would be either comfortable or decorous if our easy, free walk were adopted. In order to prevent the least tendency to striding, girls frequently have a cord tied from one knee to the other. The shuffling is due to the heavy geta or wooden sandal, which is fastened to the foot only by a strap passing over and between the great toe.

The geisha have a peculiar swaying walk and carry the hands before the body in a manner considered particularly elegant. The dress of the "beauty," the empress and the maidservant differs only in the daintiness, the richness, or cheapness of the material employed; the cut and style are the same, with the exception of the court robe, which is longer and drags on the ground.


On state occasions, the ladies attached to the court wear long trailing costumes of exquisite painted crepe, set out round the lower edge by a roll of silk batting.

Lady Iwai Shijaku,  by Utagawa Toyokuni, 1831

Some of these court robes are indescribably beautiful. I remember seeing one worn by a Japanese marchioness at a ball in Tokyo, which surpassed anything I had ever imagined. It was of pale blue-gray crepe, with a flower pattern in dark blue, light blue, white and palest rose-pink, embroidered in silver and white silk floss.

The Japanese are essentially a nation of bathers, and the native belle frequently takes two or even three scalding hot baths a day.

Strange as it may appear, this excessively hot bathing has a beneficial effect and is refreshing instead of weakening, as we might naturally suppose. The water used is so warm that the bather comes out the color of a boiled lobster; no soap is used, and the little towel, with its artistic blue or red border, is about as large as a fair-sized pocket-handkerchief.

the bath

After her bath the beauty rubs herself with a little coarse muslin bag filled with rice chaff, which is supposed to have a wonderfully good effect upon the skin and complexion. Probably its real benefit lies in the fact that the skin is thus more thoroughly dried than by the simple use of the towel.

This part of her toilet completed, a light cotton kimono is slipped on, and the geisha comes out of the bathroom fresh and smiling, to place herself in the hands of the shampooer, who is usually a blind man, shampooing or massage being almost as popular a resource as organ-playing is in America.

The Japanese amah rubs down only, never up, and he uses the flat part of the forearm as well as his hand. Sometimes he rubs with a " massage box." This is a wooden ball fitted into a round wooden box sufficiently tightly to prevent its falling out, but loosely enough to allow it to move freely.

After paying the amah the customary fee of three cents an hour, the beauty places herself under the hands of the professional hair-dresser, who comes twice or four times a week, according to the length of his customer's purse. One of the greatest beauties of the Japanese women is long, lustrous black hair, the slight coarseness of which is more than atoned for by its length and abundance.

Unfastening the heavy coil of hair from the top of her head, where the geisha had rolled it up while she took her bath, the hair-dresser carefully washes it in tepid water, anoints it liberally with fragrant camellia oil, and fans it until it is dry. He proceeds then to build it into that elaborate superstructure affected by Japanese women. In order to make it into that apparently solid ebony mass, he stiffens it with a sort of black wax, similar to the cosmetique used by our dandies and men of fashion upon their mustachios.

coiffure

The hair of the native beauty is never disordered, and no husband or lover would dream of stroking or caressing the wonderful coiffure of his lady-love. No rebellious little curls run riot in sweet confusion over her pretty head. The slightest tendency to curl or wave the Japanese girl regards with horror, and every hair is marshalled into place like a soldier.

Except costly and elaborate hair ornaments she wears little or no jewelry—no earrings, bracelets, rings, etc., but the inlaid tortoise-shell pins in her hair may cost a small fortune. After the hair-dresser has finished dressing his customer's abundant locks, he draws out of his case a pair of tiny tweezers and removes all the superfluous hair about the eyebrows, forehead, and neck.

Before the days of much foreign intercourse the ladies of the imperial family and court had the eyebrows entirely plucked out, and two black dots or lines high up on the forehead replaced them; but this custom is now obsolete.

If the geisha has no very clever maid, the hair-dresser will probably finish his work by painting Beauty's face for her. First with white ricepowder he marks out two V-shaped points, one running just below the nape of the neck at the back, and the other to a similar depth in front. He then powders her whole face and neck as far as the points indicated, rouges her cheeks slightly, reddens the lower lip in the centre, and carefully dots it with three gold spots. It is not at all uncommon to see the red paint on the lips put on so heavily that it shows the metallic green lustre.

Though all geisha and many aristocratic women of the old school still paint their faces upon special occasions, the custom is dying out among the latter. The use of cosmetics on the face is never looked at askance, or as a secret of the toilet as it is with us. A few years ago Japanese women not only painted the neck and face upon festive occasions, but the company were supposed to be quite well aware of the fact. Indeed a native lady would have felt mortified if she thought the other guests imagined she did not know enough to wear cosmetics upon ceremonial occasions. It was as much a feature  of full dress as de'collete' costume is in Europe and Great Britain.

      

Native ladies who have received a -Western education, either at home or abroad, do not openly assume paint or wear the three gold dots on the lower lip. But numbers of Japanese women beside the geisha retain the custom. The paint on the lower lip requires that it should be slightly protruded lest the moisture of the upper lip affect it, which tends to give a half-pouting but not ill-tempered expression to the face, though it can scarcely be said to improve the appearance.

The blackening of the teeth by married women has become almost obsolete. About twenty years ago the present empress endeavored to totally abolish this ugly practice, and discouraged it not only by precept but by example. The stain was made by soaking iron filings in sake' and was of so temporary a nature that it had to be renewed at least once a week, and if it was not constantly applied the teeth soon regained their natural hue. Here and there an old woman may be found who refuses to yield to the strange new-fangled ideas that are contaminating the young women of the day, and still blackens her teeth to-day just as she did when first married. Certainly no custom could be more disfiguring or produce a more ghastly effect, but it has so nearly died out that a foreigner might live for months in Japan without meeting a woman with blackened teeth. Yet Mr. Clement Scott is credited with denouncing the Japanese women for following this unsightly fashion, which is much as if a Japanese writer were to condemn American women for wearing nightcaps, because he chanced to know, here and there, some old lady too conservative to change from the fashions of her youth when every one wore nightcaps as a matter of course.

Until very recently the age and condition of a Japanese woman was signified by the manner in which she wore her hair. If it was rolled back from the face in one pompadour puff, the wearer was a married woman; if the puff was divided into three, forming one in the middle and one on each side, she was unmarried. Widows wore two different styles of coiffure, according to whether they wished to marry again or not. But these fashions are not so closely followed as they used to be, though they may still be seen occasionally.

In one particular the distinctive way of dressing the hair is very strictly preserved. No woman of good character ever wears the elaborate coiffure or the array of gaudy hair-pins that ayugo does. A halo of tortoise-shell ornaments, some of which may be a foot long, and a sash tied in front proclaim to the world at large the yugo's calling. Never under any circumstances does the geisha wear her sash thus; a fashion which is imposed by law upon the yugo.

After the geisha has been thoroughly rubbed by the amah and had her tresses arranged and her face painted by the professional hair-dresser, she retires to her own room to dress.

Slipping off her cotton kimono, she ties two little aprons round her waist, puts a sort of shirt over them, then an inner kimono is assumed. This is fastened round the waist by a narrow band called a shita-jim/, which is drawn as tightly as possible. The shita-Jime"'is placed not at the waist line, but round the hips and lower part of the waist. The beauty of a woman's figure, according to the Japanese standard, lies in a straight line drawn from under the arm to the feet. The long, severe lines of the kimono do not accord with curves, but demand that the lines of the figure beneath it be as little undulating as possible.
If the tare geisha's figure shows an unfortunate tendency to curve at the waist and enlarge at the hips, she procures the assistance of her maid to draw her shita-jimd as tightly as she can endure it.

Western dress reformers who advocate the Japanese costume as not only artistic but healthy, would do well to consider these two points: in the first place, though there is little or no compression at the waist, there is frequently very severe pressure round the hips; and secondly, the skirt of the kimono is so exceedingly narrow that free movement                                                                                                             of  the legs is almost impossible.

Geisha- Utamaro

Though from the standpoint of beauty I admire the Japanese dress, I very much doubt if from the side of ease and comfort it can be highly recommended.

Over the inner kimono and shita-jimd comes the outside kimono, which bears in five places the coat of arms of the establishment to which the geisha is attached. If the wearer is a lady, the wife of a gentleman or noble, she wears the crest of her husband's family stamped or worked in these five places, viz., between the shoulders in the back, each side of the breast in front, and on each sleeve near the wrist. If the weather is cold two or three kimonos are worn, one over another, while in warm weather only one is put on.

Last of all comes the obi, the pride and glory of the Japanese belle. This obi or broad sash may cost a small fortune or only a few dollars. It may be stiff with gold bullion, silver embroidery, or of silk woven with an exquisite pattern, designed by some great artist.

A silk cord fastens it at the back, and a cushion or pad is placed under the broad ends. This pad, I honestly acknowledge, spoils the effect of the whole costume, to my eye. The sash ends are frequently too short to be graceful, and the padding so large as to be out of all proportion to the figure.

The geisha's toilet is completed when she assumes her tabi or thick white socks with a compartment for the big toe, and padded soles. If, however, she is going out the maid brings her sandals of lacquered wood and fine plaited rice-straw, and slipping her big toe under the brilliant velvet strap, the beauty is attired for the street. She is ready then either to pay visits or to go shopping. No hat, bonnet, gloves, mantle, or cloak troubles her. If the weather is very cold a square of silk lined with crepe is tied over the head. Inside of it are two little ear-straps, which make it fit over the head smoothly, but to arrange it quickly and gracefully requires considerable knack. It is always worn square, never three-cornered.

Should the weather chance to be stormy, the geisha shelters her pretty head with a paper or silk umbrella, and replaces her sandals with a pair of high clogs....

from "The Nightless City",  By Joseph Ernest De Becker

from "The Nightless City",  By Joseph Ernest De Becker

from "The Nightless City",  By Joseph Ernest De Becker

article source: "The Professional Beauties of Japan", The Californian Illustrated Magazine~ 1893