Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/205

 Female costume showed its most remarkable variations in the matter of the coiffure and the girdle. At the beginning of the Tokugawa epoch there was a total absence of hair ornaments, and even after the old fashion of flowing locks had begun to be exchanged for structures of curious or picturesque shape built up with pads and false hair, no embellishment was added except a strip of ribbon or paper. But very soon the services of combs and hairpins were requisitioned, one notable innovation being a kogai thrust horizontally through the back hair, which was partially wound about it. It appears that the use of combs and hairpins was inaugurated by danseuses and filles de joie at the end of the seventeenth century, and that "professional styles" were all in vogue at that time. As for the girdle, it had not existed at all in old times, and at the beginning of the Tokugawa era its most elaborate form was a thick silk cord looped behind and hanging almost to the heels. This was replaced by a simply knotted silk belt, which gradually grew wider and longer, until it attained a breadth of over a foot and a length of thirteen feet, and instead of being passed once round the body, was wound in several plies from the breast to the hips, and tied in a knot which itself became an object of inventive ingenuity. On the eyebrows great care was bestowed. From a long list of shapes a young lady might choose whichever suited her style of beauty, from the eyebrow of the night-