旦暮庁 TANBO-CHŌ

Where to Buy Japanese Medieval Clothing

Or, Pennsic is how many days?

In contrast to medieval European clothing, which has seen an explosion of ready-to-wear options with the growth of LARP and other re-enactment groups and living history groups, ready-made Japanese medieval clothing is much harder to find.

This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, the market is much smaller. There are historical festivals and re-enactment events in Japan, but they’re more niche and the demand for costumes is handled by professionals rather than something like linengarb.com. Once the costumes are made, they last a long time if well maintained, so it’s not something that people are buying constantly and casually. Secondly, I think for Japanese people, it’s fairly easy to cut down and retailor a kimono and some hakama secondhand if you’re just making a simple Sengoku period outfit. It won’t be perfect, but it will be good enough. Thirdly, once Japanese people get truly serious, they either order an outfit from one of the professionals, custom made, or they buy one of the historical pattern books and do it themselves. Yes, there are Japanese re-enactment bloggers making hitatare from extant patterns and posting about it online! Finally, some of the Japanese historical clothing that people want to buy, especially the sophisticated court patterns like juni-hitoe, such as juni-hitoe, are complicated garments that require careful execution and a bit of practice. Peasant garments are more accessible, however, and I will cover them below.

However, none of this answers the frequent question of ‘Where do I buy Japanese Garb online?’

I’m here to answer that question, but I also need to set some expectations. There is no equivalent to a website where you see a $70 linen T-tunic in S/M/L/XL and can click ‘buy with shopify’. As explained above, that market and therefore that store, doesn’t exist. There are basically three options for core wardrobe garments:

  1. buy modern kimono and yukata and modify them to get something close
  2. order custom made costumes from professional Japanese tailors
  3. find a local tailor and provide them with a pattern

The first option is the cheapest option and will get you a basic wardrobe that you can take camping while you work on something nicer. The second one gives excellent results but is very expensive, and it’s hard to get silk and hemp sometimes. The third one I have never seen go well, mostly because western tailors don’t have a good grasp of Japanese sewing methods, but I will discuss some strategies to make it go better.

The good news is that once you have clothing, most accessories like shoes, umbrellas, hats, fans and socks are more easily available, and many are made in a traditional way.

But First, Sizing

Most Americans are not Japanese sizes, but recently Japanese companies have started to make plus size yukata. Do not be ashamed to purchase a plus size yukata! Even as someone with a 28″ waist and a small bust, I am a “TL” (Tall Large) by standard sizing. When I want to buy a yukata to look like a katabira, I can get as big as 4L (XXXL) in Japan. That is because in the medieval Japanese period, clothes were drapey and oversize, even for commoners.

You will need a few measurements to get started purchasing anything.

  • Neck to bent wrist: Measure the center of the back your neck to your wrist with your elbow bent. This is often better to do with a friend helping.
  • Shoulder to ankle height: Measure from the top of your shoulder to your ankle.
  • Widest part of body: Measure the widest part of your torso. This can be be any part of you, really, it may be your hips, your chest, or your stomach. You want the biggest part! Don’t suck in your stomach or mash your breasts. Measure generously.

When you go to purchase Japanese clothing, these measurements should be checked against the given measurements, which will look like this:

身長(179cm～186cm) 身丈:150cm / 袖丈:49cm / 裄丈:71cm

Let’s break it down!

  • 身長: Person’s height. Sometimes, as above, the garment’s dimensions will not be given, but instead, the recommended heights will be given. In the case of above, the garment is for people about six feet tall. In general, if a range is given instead of a single number, it is for the range of measurements of the wearer.
  • 身丈: Length of the garment from shoulder to hemline. Check this against your shoulder to ankle height, and add a few inches so you can blouse the waist if you want. It is very easy to rehem a garment, so longer isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if the garment is too short, it will look lower class, so make sure that is a look you are comfortable with.
  • 袖丈: This is the height (vertical length) of the sleeve. Most modern sleeve heights are workable.
  • 裄丈: This is the length (horizontal width) of the garment from neck to wrist. Compare this to your neck to bent wrist measurement. Often times, the individual sleeve width/body panel width will not be given, which makes it hard to know if the garment will fit the widest part of your body. In general, the sleeves are cut a little wider than the body by an inch or two. Sometimes, the vendor will say something like “ヒップ94cmぐらいまで” “For hips up to about 94cm”, and that can help you. Or, there might be a size chart on website or in the product description.
  • 後ろ幅: This is the width of one body panel. We don’t always get this measurement, but it’s so nice when we do! There are four body panels plus two small front panels. Compare the 後ろ幅 times four to your largest torso circumference, and add any ease you would like (for a period look, add about 5″ if you can, but it’s tough!).

As a final note, sizes vary by vendor tremendously. Always check the measurements, and always account for shrinkage in the wash; for most cottons, this is about 10% at the most if you only wash in cool water and don’t machine dry the yukata. Most yukatas fare much better hang dried on a pole, especially any with a textured/airy weave. If you are buying silk kimono, most Japanese silks are not designed to be washed – dry clean or steam them after testing a small area. You do not need to account for shrinkage for vintage kimono.

Save Money – Order Directly From Japan

The cheapest way to get anything from Japan is to order directly from the country. It’s often the only way was well. Domestic vendors mark up prices significantly, well beyond shipping and import tax, and their selection is often much more limited.

The easiest option is to shop Amazon Japan, which has an English interface and many items with international shipping. You can sign up with your foreign address and credit card and purchase any items that are marked for overseas delivery. However, the selection is limited and you will likely soon want to branch out into other stores.

To be able to shop other Japanese stores online without being fluent in Japanese, use a browser like Chrome or Edge with auto-translate functionality. The auto-translate option should appear in the address bar automatically for edge, and chrome uses a plugin. In my experience, chrome seems to translate Japanese into English a tiny bit better, but Edge works much better for pdf catalogs because you can easily select and highlight text to be translated, and the translation will appear in the right hand detail window.

Once you can ‘read’ Japanese in your browser, you have two options for buying goods: you can use a purchasing service or a forwarding service. A purchasing service will, given a product URL, purchase the goods for you and ship them to the US after they have inspected them. A forwarding service supplies you with a Japanese address (like a PO box) that you can use directly on Japanese websites, and then allows you to send what arrives in the box to an address of your choosing.

Both services allow you to bundle packages together and compare shipping options. However, purchasing services tend to be more expensive with inspection and picture fees. Purchasing services charge a commission for the parcel, and some like Rakuten Global Express seem to operate at a bit of a loss to drive traffic to Rakuten itself. However, purchasing services work on websites where foreign credit cards are not allowed, like Yahoo Auctions and Mercari.jp, who have partnered with the purchasing service Buyee (If you end up on a website that has an ‘overseas customers buy here!’ banner, use that service). Sophisticated purchasing services, which cost a bit more, can work with places that require telephone orders, cash on delivery or wire transfer, or customs paperwork for Japanese swords.

Forwarding services are more frugal, but they require you to be comfortable navigating Japanese checkouts, and to supply your ID for verification. This is a requirement by the Japanese government, similar to supplying your ID when you get a PO Box. There’s no way around it, it’s not identity theft as I have heard some suspect, and every single forwarding service operating legally requires it. If it makes you feel any better, I have supplied mine twice to both Tenso and RGX, and I still have a retirement fund and a checking account.

Popular Purchasing Services: Buyee, World Shopping, ZenMarket, Japan Rabbit, Jauce

Japan Rabbit will help with sophisticated orders that require catalogs, telephone calls, and COD. Jauce will fill out NBTHK paperwork that allows for the export of authentic Japanese swords.

Popular Forwarding Services: Rakuten, Tenso, BlackShip

Purchasing Specific Clothing

Depending on what era and what social class and gender you are interested in portraying, there are some options on what to do next. I have broken I have broken this apart by topic.

Clothing

Accessories

  • [Coming Soon] Bags, Baskets, and carrying options
  • [Coming Soon] Hats & Headwear
  • [Coming Soon] Footwear

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