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Sorry to bump this up, but style.com has a feature on geisha style
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
Straight From the Source
Almost everyone has read Arthur Golden's novel; fewer are familiar with the autobiography of his real-life source, Mineko Iwasaki. After helping him with his research, Iwasaki later sued Golden over various grievances. Her best response, though, might be
her memoir,
Geisha, A Life. It chronicles a nearly 25-year career, from age 5, when she began training as a "woman of the arts," to age 30, when she finally hung up her kimono ensemble—which weighed close to 40 pounds.
Geisha, A Life,
by Mineko Iwasaki, $15, available at Amazon.com, www.amazon.com.
Photo: Courtesy of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
The Cutup Artist
Remember Paco Rabanne's sixties-era metal-disc dresses? For his spring collection, Patrick Robinson, the label's current designer, reimagined them with an Asian twist. He cut up and resewed 500 antique silk kimonos from the Osaka flea market Ichiroya to create pieced tank dresses, camisoles, and mini shifts, all held together with plastic rivets. Intrigued? Thousands more kimonos are available on Ichiroya's Web site; they vary in age, fabric, and condition, with prices to match, but thankfully, none of them require assembly.
Information available at Ichiroya Kimono Flea Market, www.ichiroya.com.
Photo: Courtesy of Ichiroya.com
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
A Different World
Tatsumi Kaumashiro's lusty 1973 film
The World of a Geisha makes PG-13
Memoirs look like a Disney affair—and you won't find it in any major multiplex. The movie—which was originally banned in Japan and earned the director a cultlike following among women for its sexually liberating subject matter—finishes off the Japan Society's current film series, The Moving Image of Modern Art.
The World of Geisha
shows December 11, 4 p.m., at the Japan Society, NYC, (212) 832-1155.
Photo: Courtesy of the Japan Society
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
Tie One On
They're not traditional obis, but we love Richard Chai's origami belts. The Korean-American designer showed them side-tied in oversize bows with Asian preppy separates on his spring runway. If it's a conventional style you're after, try Old Japan in New York's Greenwich Village, which in addition to selling obis, offers tying lessons. They'll even help you with Chai's complicated tulle-covered taffeta numbers—he doesn't call them origami for nothing.
Richard Chai washed-taffeta with silk tulle origami belt, $595, available at G. Gilbert, Atlanta, (404) 355-3713; Old Japan, NYC, (212) 633-0922, www.oldjapaninc.com.
Photo: Marcio Madeira
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
String Theory
Music being a cornerstone of their training, apprentice geishas would spend countless hours hunched over a shamisen, a sixteenth-century Asian lute that resembles a banjo and sounds like a Kurosawa soundtrack. Originally popular in the remote Tsugaru region of northern Japan, the instrument gave birth to Japan's version of the blues. Today, twentysomething shamisen masters the Yoshida Brothers have become pop stars by combining geisha-style dedication to their craft with the rock-star 'tude—and penchant for lengthy solos—of Lynyrd Skynyrd. "Sweet Home Tsugaru," anyone?
More information available at Domo Records, www.domo.com.
Photo: Courtesy of Hands On PR
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
Burning Love
Can anyone really put a price on a good time? Traditional geishas did. They charged for their services (which generally meant playing music and pouring tea, despite what dirty minds think) based upon time. And they measured their shifts by lighting incense sticks, which burned about 30 minutes each. Impart an Asian ambiance to your next rendezvous with Shiseido's floral-woody Zen incense, packaged with a handsome holder. The typical geisha session required four sticks; how you define "services" is up to you.
Shiseido Zen perfumed incense, $31, available at Shiseido, www.sca.shiseido.com.
Photo: Elissa Wiehn
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
Tea of Life
Now available in supermarkets across the United States, Ito En's Teas' Tea, distinctively flavored and smartly packaged in flat-sided bottles, puts Snapple to shame. But if you really want to experience what the deluxe Japanese beverage company can brew up, pay a visit to its flagship Kai, on Manhattan's Upper East Side. After sipping a frothy cup of
matcha there, pick up a canister in the shop downstairs, which boasts America's biggest assortment of Japanese green teas.
More information available at Ito En, www.itoen.com.
Photo: Elissa Wiehn
STYLE NOTES: GEISHA
Pretty in Punk
Not too many rock stars can also boast of being florists, but Azuma Makoto can. The onetime front man of Tokyo grunge band Bliss worked in a flower shop while perfecting his former group's sound. Now, he's bringing punk attitude to ikebana, the Japanese art of aesthetic floral arrangement. Rather than irises, Makoto likes to arrange, say, artichokes. The New York debut of
Damned Ikebana at Issey Miyake will be followed by an installation at the Paris boutique Colette starting December 12.
More information available at Azuma Makoto, www.stemandcookie.com.
Photo: Courtesy of Issey Miyake