STRAW SANDALS.
Next to the covering for the feet, the most important article of outdoor wear is the headgear. In the old times a majority of the people went bareheaded; and even now hats are often worn for appearance rather than from necessity. Except in very cold weather, there is little difference in the temperature within doors and without, and one does not feel it necessary to wear a hat in the open air. There are still people who go about bareheaded except in midsummer and midwinter. With European clothes we naturally wear hats, but with Japanese clothes there is no such invariable custom. However, the habit grown with foreign clothes has passed on to the national dress, and now bowlers, wideawakes, chimney pots, Panamas, straw hats, and caps are in their season to be seen everywhere. The hats used in the old days served as sunshades no less than as mere head-coverings. Of these the black-varnished, wooden hat, shaped like a flattened cone, which was worn by the military class, has entirely disappeared. Street-vendors and pedlars still wear in the summer heat large, flattish, round hats of bamboo-sheaths, which are light but very fragile, while mushroom-like hats of spliced bamboo covered with white or black cloth are extensively worn by coolies. A rush-hat deep enough to cover the whole face but with a peep-hole for the eyes, which was formerly worn by samurai out of employment to avoid recognition, is now worn for the same reason by fortune-tellers at the roadside and by prisoners under trial on their way to the law-court. Convicted prisoners, however, wear the mushroom-hat.
OLD HEADGEAR.
Women wear nothing on their heads except in midwinter for fear of deranging their elaborate coiffure. The large chignon is as great a protection against heat, cold, and wind as any European bonnet. In winter, however, women wear a hood of mousseline de laine or crêpe lined with common silk. It is oblong in shape, being five feet long by about two wide; it is folded in two and at one side, about a foot from the fold, the edges are sewn together for an inch. The loop thus formed is the face-opening. The hood is put carefully over the head so that the face is visible at the opening, and a loop of string on either side of the fold is passed over the ear to keep the hood in place; and the ends of the hood are brought forward, folded loosely over the nose, mouth, and throat, and tied together behind on the neck. The hood which lies lightly on the head can be taken off without deranging the hair to any extent. Women are expected to take off the hood when they meet an acquaintance in the street, though they omit to do so if he is an intimate friend. The hood keeps the head, neck, and shoulders very warm.
A HOOD.
At one time shawls were much in vogue and worn together with the hood; but they have of late fallen out of favour. Their place is taken by “azuma-coats,” which are overdresses worn over the kimono. They resemble the latter in form, except that they are looser and have much wider bands which come down to the skirt and dispense with gores altogether. In the latest forms the sleeves are very large; the front is double-breasted with the throat open; and the overlapping parts button at the breast by means of a loop and knot and are tied at the hip with a string. They are made of silk. They are vulgarly known as “rag-concealers,” as many women put them on when they go out to hide the shabby dresses underneath. Men’s favourite overcoat for the kimono is a kind of Inverness cape, with a long skirt to cover the kimono and large arm-holes for the sleeves. These are also made of wool. Among the lower classes there are still men in Tokyo who wear, as do peasants in the country, a straw rain-coat which covers the body and the sleeves, but leaves the legs bare; they are unpleasant neighbours in an electric car on a rainy day. The majority, however, especially coolies, messengers, and postmen, put on a coat shaped like the haori and made of waterproof oil-paper or rubber-cloth.
There is a great variety in umbrellas. The Japanese umbrella, as may be seen from the innumerable samples to be found the world over, has bamboo ribs and stem and is covered with oil-paper and surmounted with a thick paper cap into which the ribs run. It is a heavy clumsy article; and it cannot be used like the European umbrella, in place of a walking-stick in fine weather, as we should be afraid of knocking the cap off if either end touched the ground. It has to be carried with the handle downward after a rain to let the water drip off. Its only advantages are its cheapness and its size as it is large enough to shelter the whole body from rain. The common kind, such as is used by servants going out on an errand and by the poorer classes, is of plain oiled paper marked with the name, usually the first syllable, of its owner, and his trade sign if he is an artisan or tradesman, and sometimes his address as well. It can be readily identified; and one cannot therefore put up, as if it were one’s own, in broad daylight an umbrella with one’s neighbour’s name and address plainly written on it. Besides, as these umbrellas are very cheap, it would be hardly worth while making off with them.