Red Geta

Garb

Question: "Can a woman of the samurai rank wear the same thing as a man?"

Short answer: If the lady is portraying a warrior of the samurai class, she should dress like a soldier of that rank. If she is portraying a woman of the samurai class, time period, occasion, and subset within the class make all the difference.

Throughout much of medieval Japanese history, men and women wore kosode and hakama as a primary or secondary layer, but differed in how they were tailored/worn and in the type of garments used as outer layers. Generally, women and men of the upper samurai classes, buke, tried to copy the semi-formal and formal wear of the aristocracy, kuge.

The Japanese seemed to be more concerned with the function for which the clothing was intended and not necessarily the gender of the wearer. This being said, there were definitely activities that were limited to one sex or another. For example, women would not generally ever wear a hunting outfit.

Shizuka, a shirabyoshi entertainer at the end of the Heian period (12th C.) and paramour of Minamoto Yoshitsune, followed the custom of her occupation by dressing in male attire.

As the country moved away from the conspicuous consumption of Heian decadence and into the Kamakura era, the white kosode and red hakama became everyday wear for women with opulent outer layers added for semi-formal and formal occasions.

In the Muromachi era, women stopped wearing hakama as everyday wear and kosode grew to become ankle length. This is the style with which most Westerners associated with female Japanese clothing. Servants of upper-class samurai women, who themselves were often of a samurai family, wore a “wrapping skirt” over the top kosode layer when performing duties.

Now, all the gender differences in clothing go out the window if the lady is a warrior. While this was almost unheard of historically, female samurai would wear clothing appropriate to a soldier.

Remember, this isn't the prom (unless you'd like it to be). A lady should wear what she likes to wear and feels most comfortable in. The Japanese were (and still are) slightly more about the function for which the garment was to be worn than the gender of the wearer (at least during most of the feudal period).

References:

The Costume Museum: Rebirth of the Tale of Genji - http://www.iz2.or.jp/english/