The Accidentally Couture Life of a Samurai

July 24, 2019 9:56 PM

How do you dress for a dance with death? If you were a 14th century Samurai, the pressure was on to go into battle with a kabuto (helmet) that subscribed to a fiercely maximalist vision. These incredible creations varied in form and detail depending on the owner and era, but they were always big, bedazzled, and meant business on the battlefield.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (23 comments total)

RuPaul would approve...
posted by PhineasGage at 10:21 PM on July 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

Super stylish and intimidating rack of antlers
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:40 PM on July 24, 2019 [1 favorite]

Very similar to tilting helms and armour of the 16th century. Both featured fancy massive sculptural crests and precious metal inlay -- not nearly as beautiful as these, but similar in spirit.
posted by jrochest at 1:23 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Fancy Samurai armour is a key plot point of the horror movie Onibaba - though nothing as spectacular as these!
posted by Gin and Broadband at 1:46 AM on July 25, 2019

The word “accidental” sits wrongly to me. It seems to come from an assumption that only a modern consumerist society such as ours can deliberately come up with fashion/style as we know it, and for everyone else, their look is an accidental byproduct of their rituals and superstitions.

There was nothing accidental about any aspect of the samurai's uniforms. The amount of attention that went into every detail and the amount of significance encoded in each choice is staggering. The social structure that dictated the details and their meanings was different than that of, say, the fin-de-siecle Parisian salon, the Hamptons set or the Bay Area tech-bro hierarchy, but the rules were, if anything, vastly more complex.
posted by acb at 2:25 AM on July 25, 2019 [20 favorites]

I think the woman wearing armour in that article is actually someone cosplaying - it's from a collection of photos of actors and geishas from the 1870s.
posted by BinaryApe at 3:26 AM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

Each one more fabulous than the one before! Not sure how intimidating it would be for a foe to be attacked by a guy with a giant lobster on his head, though.
posted by pangolin party at 4:40 AM on July 25, 2019

If he's got a giant lobster on his head he's probably killed a lot of people so I think that would be pretty dang intimidating.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:54 AM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

I'm kind of impressed by the crest that's a forearm ending in a fist wielding double whisks(?). It looks almost art deco, crossed with Soviet Realism. Something something seizing the means of cake making?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:29 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

"At their most basic, which is already quite intricate in itself, the samurai’s helmet evoked the silhouette of Darth Vader:"

Dammit. Just when it was getting good.

Well, the pics _are_ friggin' amazing.
posted by djrock3k at 6:13 AM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

These are so cool! But did they actually fight with these things on, or were they for more ceremonial purposes?
posted by Grither at 6:24 AM on July 25, 2019

But did they actually fight with these things on, or were they for more ceremonial purposes?

Katori Shinto Ryu teaches a certain posture and way of striking to avoid hitting the decoration of the kabuto.
posted by Mister Cheese at 6:48 AM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

"At their most basic, which is already quite intricate in itself, the samurai’s helmet evoked the silhouette of Darth Vader:"

Dammit. Just when it was getting good.

There's actually a line of Star Wars figures with the designs reinterpreted to more traditional Sengoku designs - you have Vader as a samurai, stormtroopers as ashigaru (peasant soldiers), Boba Fett as a ronin, etc. What's telling is how easily the designs work in both contexts - the Vader figurine is very clearly Vader, but also would not look all that out of place in a jidai geki production, showing how the original design was influenced by samurai armor and its depictions.

That's not to say that it's just the West that cribs off of this, either. The iconic gold V-fin and face of the titular mecha in the long running Moble Suit Gundam series are pretty explicitly based on a samurai's kabuto and facemask - the only one to break convention was the one designed by a Western designer (the Turn A, designed by Syd Mead of Blade Runner fame.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:15 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm kind of impressed by the crest that's a forearm ending in a fist wielding double whisks(?). It looks almost art deco, crossed with Soviet Realism. Something something seizing the means of cake making?

That's a vajra; it's Buddhist iconography.

Also this article is kind of light on scholarship and rigor - but the helmets sure do look cool.
posted by nixon's meatloaf at 9:11 AM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

Re: Vader kabuto and o-yoroi, traditional dollmaker firm Yoshitoku has been selling versions of it for over 10 years as a decoration for Children's Day.
posted by sukeban at 9:43 AM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

(Their usual fare for Children's Day is more traditional)
posted by sukeban at 9:47 AM on July 25, 2019

I find it fun to imagine being some poor peasant conscripted into a big battle, with a run-off wooden spear and maybe an uncomfortable helmet on or something. Then out of the battlefield rides one of THESE dudes, with layers of ornamented armor and crests and waving banners. A sword with a name and an armored demon face.

I'd be dumbstruck.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:35 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Look, if NO one has a giant lobster on their head, how do you know who's in charge?

But did they actually fight with these things on, or were they for more ceremonial purposes?

i'm not an expert, but a) it's a spectrum and b) think less ceremonial and more social, like, actually, if no one has a giant lobster on their head, how do you know who's in charge.

Samurai definitely wore wild wacky armor pieces into battle; imagine a tiger head on your horse, and green and purple zebra stripes; it was not an accident; initially, probably to intimidate their enemies, i guess. Then, battles often involved challenging the enemy to single combat, and if you had stupid boring armor no one wanted to fight you (everyone wanted to fight the big demonic bug guy). Then, samurai were hired and paid and valued based on their valorous heroic deeds, so being highly visible literally paid off.

as military tactics evolved, the wacky armor also served to separate samurai from the men they commanded; it expressed rank and social position; it even made the leader like a combo mascot/banner, so their dudes could say, like, "yeah we're with the demonic bug guy, and he's out here catching more arrows than any of us and that makes us feel better about following him."

if this sounds weird, read some medieval European history and look at some European military uniforms. humans are just like this.

The specific pictures presented seem to be from later eras when samurai had fully become a military aristocracy, so yes, they're on the fashionpiece end of the spectrum. They may still have been worn into battle.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 1:19 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

> Look, if NO one has a giant lobster on their head, how do you know who's in charge?

How about we all pitch in to get Cortex a giant lobster helmet?
posted by PhineasGage at 1:31 PM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

did they actually fight with these things on, or were they for more ceremonial purposes?

I went to a traveling museum exhibit of samurai arms and armor, and one helmet had a really tremendous crescent moon on it, must have been 4 feet tall and brilliant gold. The text on the case said that the owner had to stop wearing it to battles because his opponents kept using it as a range finder for cannons.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 2:05 PM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

Basically, kabuto served as heraldry, as everyone of noble rank knew the more famous and infamous kabuto, like that of Tadakatsu Honda, mentioned in the article.

Personally, my favorite is the one that was literally the word "love" (ai) in kanji. It is just so amazingly bizzare.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:46 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

So I used to work at a museum that had an implausibly large collection of late Edo Japanese Armour.
What is not conveyed in photos is that most of the helmet ornamentation is made of essentially paper mache and lacquer, its crazily light weight. It snaps onto the helmet with quick connect tabs and clasps. My understanding is that if it was used in combat the ornamentation thus couldn't be used to lever the helmet, and sword strikes would pass through.

Also, the workmanship on the armor by the Edo period was absolutely unreal, there was a heavily formed and chased facemask in the collection that had a russet iron finish (cool non rusting patina with no lacquer) and it had absolutely no tool marks, inside or out. Looked like it came off a hydraulic press.

Oh, and all the armor folds up, gets put in small cloth bags, and gets stored in the gusoku bitsu its usually displayed sitting on. The giant shoulder pads just accordions into a neat package the width of a single armor segment and about as high as the shoulder ridge, the silk strands you see act as the hinge. Amazing packaging.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 7:58 PM on July 25, 2019 [8 favorites]

I've been told by grad students in Japanese history that the proliferation of these during the Sengoku period led to what I call the Three Stooges school of castle defense. Entrances and key choke points would have incredibly low doorways, so that these decorations would get caught and hung up on the doorframes, leading to people falling, charges getting tangled up, general mayhem so you could shoot the invaders/throw rocks/pour hot liquids, depending on the spot. If you wonder at why the doors at Himeji are so low in spots, these are apparently why.
posted by Hactar at 10:29 PM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]