Are kabuki kimono tailored to each actor for each role?

For all their splendour, kabuki costumes have to meet severely practical demands: they must not come apart under the violence of a fight scene, and they must settle into exactly the intended shape when the actor freezes in a mie. The two are hard to reconcile, and neither works if the fit is wrong. Sleeves cut short ride up when the arms rise; a hem cut long catches the feet.

So the costumes of principal roles are tailored to the actor who will wear them. That holds when a garment is newly made, and also when one is taken from store: length and sleeve are altered before it goes on. That alteration will be redone when the next actor wears it. The same costume goes on living, refitted to body after body across generations.

In practice the specialist costume companies hold each actor's measurements. Firms such as Shochiku Costume keep two sets of information — the wardrobe of each play and the dimensions of each actor — and when a staging is fixed they match one against the other and prepare. It is this system that lets a stage come together in a short preparation window even when the bill and the company turn over every month.