Who chooses the costumes in kabuki?

Kabuki costume is not settled by asking, each time, what shall we do. For the major classical roles the ensemble is already fixed. Kamakura Gongorō in Shibaraku: a persimmon suō bearing the three-square crest. Sukeroku: black silk with the Edo-purple headband. These were refined across generations into kata, and without them the role does not look like itself.

In practice the specialist costume company prepares it from precedent. It holds both the record of what has been used for that role in that play and the garments themselves. From these it draws what this staging needs, fits them to the actor performing, and refines the result in consultation with him and his line. It is less choosing than fitting an inheritance to a particular body.

Not everything, though, is fixed. Where the kata is looser — supporting roles, roles in rarely staged plays — the range widens. In a new kabuki work, designers plan the wardrobe from nothing. And even in the classics there is room for the actor's taste in the exact shade, or in under-robes and linings the audience barely sees. In that narrow band between fixed and chosen, each house's sense of beauty is alive.