Talk:List of items traditionally worn in Japan

Hate to nitpick the title, but...

This article is great - it fills a hole, it helps to divide content between articles with much better balance. But I can't help but wonder, would 'List of traditional Japanese garments and accessories', or something of the like, not be a little smoother? --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk)

Ineffablebookkeeper, as I recall I left this a complete formatting mess, and now it is really neat and orderly. I suspect most of that is your work; thank you very much, it's vastly improved. Considering that the list currently includes umbrellas and clothing racks, the name is indeed unfitting. Either those belong in another list, or in an annexe, or the list needs renaming. "Accessories" is more general and could include them, and I'm not strongly opposed, but it's a bit of a marketing term and I'm not sure if it'd include shoes. We've also got a lot of articles on Japanese armour and weapons, and one wears a sword, but not an umbrella. I guess we need to decide on a scope as well as a title; I can't think of a really good one.

Separately, would it make the article more useful if it were organised by reasonably objective subcategories, say headgear, upper-, lower-, and full-body garments, sashes and belts, and footwear? A section for things that are carried, like containers, fans and umbrellas, might work too. If the reader knows the name of the thing already they can CTRL-F, and if they don't they will at least know if it's a hat or a shoe and have somewhere to start. List of medieval armour components (Japanese list at the bottom) takes this approach, as does the template at the end of this article, but the template is a bit useless if you don't know the names already. HLHJ (talk) 01:24, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@HLHJ: - thank you for your kind words. You're right in that categorising and renaming it is definitely needed.

For section categories - they look good. However, I'd maybe add a section for religious garments and bridalwear. It does muddy the waters a bit, as these sections would span headgear, garments and footwear, but I'd imagine if someone's looking for religious garments, or what people wear to a wedding, these categories would be quite useful and possibly a go-to. A section for carried accessories would, as you say, also be useful - not only things like containers, fans and umbrellas, but also kabuki props, like pipes, accessories used in dance, and so on. Many kabuki props are preserved wholesale from their genuine Edo-period usage, such as the commitment to retaining costuming is within the artform; the same is true for hairstyles, many of which aren't seen outside of kabuki today. It is, as the kids say, rad as all hell, and great for the preservation of information.

For renaming - I don't know myself what I'd rename it. Nothing seems obvious. There's wafuku, a term meaning "Japanese clothes", but that's not obvious if you don't already know it.

We already have the article Japanese clothing, but as you say, not everything traditional is clothing, and that article covers both traditional and modern fashion - meaning the modern fashion section would have to be booted to somewhere else if we co-opted the article's title. It also wouldn't be a list article, and "List of Japanese clothing" is vague and wonky, as it's not all clothing. We could rework it to be an Outline-class article, but I find them singularly bizarre and not commonly created in the modern day.

Whatever the article title could be, it would have to be evidently:

1. Not solely kimono-focused
2. Not roll other types of non-kimono underneath kimono in any kind of 'hierarchy'
3. Be clear that it covered more than clothing, such as accessories, worn or carried
4. Be clearer than 'List of items traditionally worn in Japan'
5. Probably not have the word 'clothing' in it

Potentially, as well as the subcategories for religious clothing and accessories and bridalwear, subcategories for folk clothing and accessories, the clothing of the Ainu and traditional clothing of the Ryukyu Islands could be present; all latter three don't have enough written about them in English. I recently (shamefully late(!)) purchased a copy of Liza Dalby's Kimono: Fashioning Culture, which has a frustratingly-short chapter on 'The Other Kimono', covering folk clothing, though I don't think Ainu or Ryukyu clothing is covered. There's a number of books on Ainu culture I'd like to get my mits on; I'll have a look at the Internet Archive and the Wikipedia Library to see what I can find. A lot of the Ainu article at present is sourced to a reference published in 1911, and we can do better. Ryukyuan clothing (I think it's called ryusō?) I know less about, though I can find out.

Folk clothing historically had definition for being two-piece, handwoven, kasuri-dyed and used until death - first as clothing, then patched clothing with sashiko, then maybe as mompe trousers, before cycling down to kid's clothing, a coverlet for sleeping, and then sakiori (lit. 'rag woven') fabric for things like obi. There was a tradition of creating books of handwoven fabric samples named shima-cho (lit. 'stripe book', as so many samples were striped materials); these would be passed down through families, and as Dalby details, a girl coming from a working-class background such as this would weave her own dowry. (I wish I knew Japanese - there's a few anthropology books Dalby mentions that cover first-hand accounts of investigating these communities, and the women who would have created these books and woven their own clothing, but I don't think translations exist.)

It'd be criminal not to cover these, and other aspects of traditional clothing, without painting it as Yamato-centric, rolling these traditions under the place of kimono as 'inofficial' or somehow lesser.

The work on reworking this article could probably be rolled into reorganising the kimono article, something I've been planning on. The sections #types of kimono and #textiles, the latter more overgrown than the former, I've wanted to split off independently for a while now.

I'm currently working on a Textiles of Japan article which could clean up the #textiles section; it could easily be a small paragraph on the history of production, fibre types, how they're sold and used, etc., with a {{main}} tag at the top for the Textiles of Japan article and a {{see also}} for the tanmono article.

The types of kimono section could possibly be a bit longer, explaining the evolution of kimono types, which Dalby covers, so long as it wouldn't be repeating what I could work into the #history section, and we could slap a {{main}} at the top for 'hey, here's all the types'. Modern-day types of kimono could be covered within this revamped List of [pending wording] article. I don't think kimono types would need a subcategory in the same way of religious garments, bridalwear, Ainu clothing and Ryukyuan clothing.

I have a sneaky feeling that the next time I'll have the space to redo any of these things will be when I'm recovering from surgery, either at the end of this year or early the next. However, for the time being, I'm happy to do bits and pieces where I can.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 13:09, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

That textile draft looks good, Ineffablebookkeeper; you might want to merge tanmono into it. I've been thinking of splitting off a list of textile-dying and textile-patterning techniques from the "decoration section" (and an article on meisen); these are an important part of Japan's industrial development and would go well in their own article. The regional varieties of tanmono are often a bit commercial, if legally-defined, and I think they'd also be better in their own list. Much of what is left would fit in your draft.

Splitting off clothing from fairly separate cultural traditions, like Ainu clothing, seems reasonable. Another list might work better. This would not make the renaming problem easier, but "List of wafuku (Japanese clothes)" seems like it would cover that, and using an in-culture scope seems sensible an likely to avoid trouble.

I'm a bit wary of catagorizing things by social roles, just because it's hard to do in an objection, non-recentist, and non-geographically-parochial manner (for instance, most bridal wear was formerly upper-class or everyday wear, ditto some religious wear). Also because the sources on it are so often COI commercial and woefully unacademeic (if you haven't read Valk's thesis yet, it's excellent). Maybe Category tags, with the cats linked from the intro, would work better? It's indisputable that some articles are wedding or religious wear, utterly unproblematic as long as it's not an exclusive category.

I have also long been wanting to split off that types-of-kimonos section. I suggest a Kimono regulations, rules, and codifications article, covering the sartorial laws, the Meiji-onwards unregulated period when wafuku was still everyday dress, the TKO rules (most of that section, and the bits codifying sleeve lengths), and the post-TKO fashion kimono.

I think an illustrated list article on motifs (with maybe a section on Edo komon likek this, maybe not this extensive, one on tiling geometric patterns, one on botanical motifs, etc) would also be really good. Columns on history, associations, and so on.

I've just made Hifu (garment), and would appreciate any comments or improvements. I can't see the difference between an azuma-coat and a hifu in most historic images, so it's a bit rolled-in-one. HLHJ (talk) 14:00, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

A technical suggestion for allowing different organizations of lists of things, which happen to belong to multiple different and orthogonal categories (like "headwear" + "bridal", or "footwear" + "religious", etc.) -- use sortable tables. That way, users can choose which data item to sort upon -- alphabetical by romanized item name, or by translated item name (if different), or by social category (the aforementioned "bridal" or "religious", for example), or by item category (like "footwear" or "upper-body" etc.), or by any other additional column / categorization that makes sense. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 02:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@HLHJ: - tanmono could definitely be rolled in. We do already have some textile dyeing articles - katazome, rōketsuzome, shibori, yūzen, tsutsugaki and bingata, off the top of my head. Some could be merged in, but I'd suggest both shibori and bingata stay separate, as I think they have enough beef to stand alone.

Patterning techniques outside of that would be embroidery - of which there aren't that many styles, to be honest - and woven patterns. There's a number of weaving traditions in Japan, but I don't know that 'textile patterning' is the best descriptor - it's technically correct, but something I'd consider to mean embroidery and dyework, not weaving.

Another list could work, if there's an in-culture term for things that are traditional, but not kimono. Dalby might have mentioned a term at one point; I'll have another look.

I'm not sure what you mean by Category links from the intro. Are we allowed to link to categories in-text in articles? It would clear things up and make navigation easier, I've just never seen it.

Valk's thesis - a godsend I've not had the time to read through in full, but I have skimmed over certain bits for details at points. I'm sure it'll be central to a lot of the work on this article. I'd also recommend the Textile Symposium of America's research piece on beni itajime, contributed to by the wonderful Yoshiko Wada. It may only be 8 pages long, but it's a great look at one specific dye tradition.

I'm not sure about a kimono rules, regulations and codifications article. Historically, the rules were sumptuary laws, regulations didn't codify what to wear to what event, and the rulebook we have at present is a late-Meiji to mid-Showa invention. Instead of trying to string together sumptuary laws into Meiji-period developments, I think we could bite the bullet and make a History of kimono article. This would mean we could cover everything we'd want to in a unified fashion, that would illustrate how the Meiji Restoration and changing social opportunities led to the development of intermedial types of kimono, and how post-war developments driven by the gofukuya and a generation unfamiliar with kimono led to the adoption of upper-class styles of dress as everyday wear.

A list article of motifs would also be great, and in keeping with the existing articles on Japanese colours. I keep a glossary of terms with motifs in, and I know I've got sources on the development of some motifs - checker patterns, known as ichimatsu, are (in one source - I think another I have differs on this) named after a famous kabuki actor who first popularised them. I also have this blogspot series translating a Japanese tea ceremony website and its posts on seasonality, motifs, colours and fabrics for kimono. It's a bit informal, as it is a blogspot series, but it's one of the better seasonality explanations I've found. Some motifs are seasonal, and the series goes month by month.

@Eirikr: - great idea! I've never implemented a sortable table before, but it's a good solution.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 12:36, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Eirikr:, a sortable table is a really good idea. Thank you for the suggestion. Is is possible to sort a table by non-exclusive categories? That is, filter it so that it only shows things in cat X? Say, you had a list of heads of state, with a column called "citizenships" listing the citizenships each holds, and you wanted to see all the people with citizenship X; a head of state might hold more than one citizenship. This would be useful for a lot of cases.

I'd be happy for all the textile-dyeing articles to stay as separate articles, with just summaries in your article as currently in tanmono; they could be expanded (and we really need an article of meisen, mechanized kasuri; there's a bit of related content in tsumugi). But if they are tiny stubs and there's no point, feel free to merge them.

Linking to categories in the article text would be useful and improve the article, and I'm sure that if there is some reason why not someone will show up and tell us. I think I've seen it done before, and there are instructions on a help page without a caution, so I think it's accepted practice. I've restructured Category:Textile arts of Japan and subcats, which were getting a bit large. It has a bit of function cats in that it has cats for Shinto and samuri clothing, and it has a cultural cat for Ryusou (Okinawan traditional dress). Meibutsu is the endonym for those regional specialties, so I made Category:Textile-related meibutsu (Japanese regional specialties). There are seven articles in there! I made Category:Japanese dyeing techniques‎ (and I made a redirect for beni itajime, that's a fascinating article), Category:Japanese stitching techniques, and Category:Japanese weaving techniques‎. I suppose they are all patterning techniques, but I've just put them in the textile arts cat, which should be unambiguous. I should probably go through too, as some of that may belong in the new cats, but I probably won't... You know, it ought to be possible to auto-generate this sort of list article from short descriptions and categories.

That category has been renamed to Category:Textile-related meibutsu. – Fayenatic London 11:46, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Would "wafuku" (和服, わふく) be the in-culture term for garments that are traditional, but not necessarily kimono?

The article on colours would certainly benefit from infomation on seasonality or any cultural contexts. A lot of those names are for colours made with specific traditional dyestuffs, which ought to be linked. If you have a glossary of motif terms, Ineffablebookkeeper, do please post it, as a draft if you feel uncertain of it! Commons:Category:Edo komon has some images, and more could be cropped from photos and illustrations.

The TPO formalization seems to have drawn heavily on the old sartorial ontologies (I think I'm basing that on Valk), so it would make sense to have the topics together somewhere or other. Japanese clothing currently needs more historical content, and that could easily expand enought to merit splitting the detail as a History of the kimono article. User:Jevella's Japanese clothing during the Meiji period might be a good guide, too. HLHJ (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2022 (UTC)