Kyoto was Japan's imperial capital from 794 to 1868, and many of the country's face traditions began there. Heian court women shaved their brows and painted new ones high on the forehead. Kabuki began on the riverbed of the Kamo in 1603. Today the maiko and geiko of Gion and the other hanamachi wear white oshiroi and red lips in public.

Court faces

At the Heian court, women whitened their faces, practised hikimayu, removing the natural brows and painting soft smudges higher up, and blackened their teeth with ohaguro. These customs spread to court men, samurai and then to married women of the Edo period, before the Meiji government discouraged them from 1870. They live on in the costumes of festivals such as the Jidai Matsuri.

Kabuki and the hanamachi

Kabuki is traced to Izumo no Okuni, who performed dances on the Kamo riverbed in 1603. The Minami-za theatre on Shijō Street, a site with theatres since the early seventeenth century, holds the annual kaomise performance in winter. In Gion, maiko wear full oshiroi with a bare pattern at the nape, red and black around the eyes and, as juniors, only the lower lip painted red.