Japan's Hats & Headwear

About this book

The only English guide that takes the hat itself as its whole subject. Two hundred entries read Japanese headwear the way its makers do — form first, then material, making and wear: the woven cone of the sedge kasa and why its slope sheds the rain; the black lacquered eboshi whose height declares a rank; the bride's white hood kept to heirloom standards for a single day; the school cap, the fire hood, the pilgrim's tengai. Eight parts move from anatomy and materials through the benches of the making — blocking, pressing, stitching, lacquering, fitting, repair — to the makers, towns, museums and trade behind the hats, the designs read from the worn surface, the buyer's craft of measuring and fitting, and the customs of care and keeping.

Every entry follows one uniform four-field structure, so the two-hundredth hat is as easy to interrogate as the first. The book asserts no shop's current prices, hours or dates, no antique's value or provenance, and no hat's benefit to health; every entry closes by pointing to the official source for current details. Customs are reported as customs, legends as legends.