The sokutai (; traditional form: ) is the full formal attire worn by men at the Japanese imperial court from the Heian period (794–1185) onward. It was worn by the emperor, male members of the imperial family, and the court nobility at court ceremonies and while performing official duties. Among the warrior class, the shogun and other men holding the Fifth Court Rank or higher also wore it on major ceremonial occasions.
The sokutai developed from the male court dress known as chōfuku under the ritsuryō system, which was gradually adapted to Japanese court practice during the Heian period. It was classified as formal ceremonial attire (hare no shōzoku) and was also called hi no shōzoku, literally “daytime attire”. The latter name distinguished it from simplified forms of court dress, such as hōko (), and from garments worn by courtiers remaining overnight on duty at the palace, particularly the ikan.
The term sokutai refers to the complete ensemble rather than to a single garment. Its principal components included the hō (outer robe), hanpi (short-sleeved under-robe), shitagasane (under-robe, often with a long train), akome (intermediate robe), hitoe (unlined inner robe), hakama (trousers), kanmuri (formal court cap), sekitai (decorated leather belt), and shaku (ritual baton). In its complete form, the ensemble included headgear, inner and outer garments, accessories, objects carried in the hand or worn at the waist, and footwear.
The colour and woven design of the hō, the materials used for the inner garments, the form of the court cap, and the inclusion of a sword, bow, or arrows varied according to the wearer's court rank, office, age, the season, whether he served in a civil or military capacity, and the nature of the ceremony.
History Adoption of the Tang dress system and chōfuku
The regular court dress known under the Tang dynasty (618–907) as changfu () inherited elements of hufu (), clothing associated with the non-Han peoples of northern and Inner Asia, that had been adopted under the Northern Dynasties. Shen Kuo of the Song dynasty wrote in the Dream Pool Essays that “from the Northern Qi onward, Chinese court dress came entirely to use hufu”, and identified narrow-sleeved short garments, high boots, and belts fitted with hanging attachments as characteristic features.
This did not mean, however, that the entire Tang dress system had become hufu. The mianfu () worn as sacrificial dress preserved the ancient Chinese ritual ensemble of a dark upper garment and reddish lower garment, while the formal chaofu () and gongfu () also retained elements of traditional Chinese ritual dress. The changfu, by contrast, was based on robe-style clothing of hufu origin.
In headgear, the four-lappet futou (), which had developed under the Northern Zhou, became widely used by officials during the Sui and Tang dynasties. It was adopted in Japan as the headcloth prescribed for chōfuku and subsequently developed into the rigidly formed kanmuri, the formal cap of the Japanese court.
Under the ritsuryō system of the Nara period (710–794), the clothing provisions of the Yōrō Code prescribed three categories of official dress for government officials: raifuku, formal ceremonial dress; chōfuku, ordinary court dress; and seifuku, prescribed service dress. Of these, chōfuku was the ordinary official attire worn by members of the imperial family and government officials when conducting business at court.
Japan did not simply transplant the Tang dress system in its entirety. The raifuku prescribed for imperial princes and officials below them had a strongly indigenous Japanese character when compared with Tang ceremonial dress. Men's chōfuku under the Yōrō Code, by contrast, followed the form of Tang changfu rather than that of Tang chaofu. Its system of assigning the colour of the outer garment according to court rank was also based on Tang legal provisions governing dress worn when attending court.
Under the clothing provisions of the Yōrō Code, the upper garment worn with the chōfuku of civil officials was termed simply “garment” (), while that worn by military officials was termed iao (). The Ryō no shūge explains the iao as a garment made without a ran, a horizontal panel at the lower edge, and with the sides left open. By contrast, the Ryō no shūge contains no commentary directly describing the construction of the civil officials' “garment” at the sides or lower edge. It is nevertheless thought to have belonged to the tradition of garments fitted with a ran at the lower edge and to have been a closed-sided robe, or hōeki no hō. Thus, civil and military officials in the Nara period wore structurally different forms of upper garment with their chōfuku. The institutions and forms associated with this court dress gradually changed during the Heian period.
Formation of the sokutai During the early Heian period, military officials also came to be permitted to wear the hōeki no hō, whose sides were sewn closed, and the simple correspondence between civil or military status and the form of the robe gradually broke down. In 814, military officials of the Fifth Rank and above were permitted to wear both the hōeki no hō and the ketteki no hō, whose sides were left open. The Engishiki later prescribed that military officials of kugyō status wore the hōeki no hō; military officials of the Fourth and Fifth Ranks wore the ketteki no hō on ceremonial occasions involving arms and the hōeki no hō on other occasions; and those of the Sixth Rank and below wore the ketteki no hō. Thus, the form of the hō came to be determined not only by whether the wearer was a civil or military official, but also by court rank and whether ceremonial arms were worn. This system was inherited by the later sokutai.
The rank colours of the hō were likewise repeatedly revised during the early Heian period rather than simply preserving the provisions of the Nara-period clothing code. Changes recorded in the Shoku Nihongi, Nihon Kōki, Shoku Nihon Kōki, Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku, and Nihon Kiryaku indicate that a system eventually developed in which officials of the Fourth Rank and above wore black robes, those of the Fifth Rank wore scarlet, and those of the Sixth Rank and below wore green.
Few paintings directly depicting men's dress of the early Heian period survive, and almost no actual garments from the period remain. Several works of sculpture and painting, however, provide evidence from which its appearance may be reconstructed.
Two wooden statues of male deities preserved at Matsunoo-taisha, one depicting an elderly man and the other a younger adult, are believed to date from the ninth century. Their clothing is thought to reflect a transitional stage between the chōfuku of the ritsuryō system and the later sokutai, making them important evidence for reconstructing the appearance of early court dress.
Although they postdate the emergence of the early sokutai, relatively early and extensive pictorial sources include the painted doors of the Phoenix Hall at Byōdō-in, completed in 1053, and the Illustrated Biography of Prince Shōtoku, originally painted on screens for the Picture Hall at Hōryū-ji in 1072.
The Shōgunzuka Emaki, preserved at Kōzan-ji, dates from the thirteenth century but is regarded as a copy of a scroll originally produced during the Heian period. Although the date of the lost original is uncertain, the clothing and weapons depicted in the surviving copy preserve archaic features. Its figures in sokutai therefore provide further evidence for reconstructing the earlier form of the ensemble.
By comparing these statues and paintings with the legal and documentary sources discussed above, as well as with Tang-period paintings and archaeological finds, scholars have attempted to reconstruct men's court dress of the early Heian period. The hō appears to have been narrower in the body and sleeves than the later stiffened style known as kowa shōzoku, and therefore followed the outline of the body more closely. It was also apparently made longer than the wearer's height required, with the excess fabric at the hem gathered up at the waist when worn. Other elements, including the hanpi, court cap, hirao sash, and footwear, also differed in form or use from their later counterparts.
Through these institutional and structural changes, men's chōfuku became increasingly Japanized, and the sokutai is thought to have emerged by around the end of the ninth century. The new ensemble was a looser and more voluminous adaptation of ritsuryō court dress suited to the Japanese climate and the lifestyle of the aristocracy. At the same time, it retained the earlier function of court dress as a visible marker of status, particularly through the use of different colours of hō according to court rank.
Establishment of the sokutai and the rise of kowa shōzoku From the tenth century onward, the sokutai became the standard official attire of the Heian aristocracy. Courtiers attending ceremonies, observances, or administrative business at the imperial court were, in principle, required to wear a sokutai with an ihō, an outer robe whose colour indicated the wearer's court rank. Depending on the setting and the nature of their duties, however, aristocrats distinguished among several forms of dress, including the sokutai, hōko, ikan, nōshi, and hoi. The sokutai was the full formal attire; hōko and ikan served as official dress when the full ensemble was not required; nōshi was private attire; and hoi was ordinary everyday clothing.
The older ceremonial dress known as raifuku had originally been worn for major state ceremonies, including chōga, the formal New Year's audience at which officials paid homage to the emperor. During the Heian period, however, its use became increasingly restricted, and it eventually survived mainly as specialized attire for ceremonies such as an imperial enthronement. The sokutai, by contrast, became established as the formal dress of male court nobles for imperial ceremonies and official business.
During the period of cloistered rule in the late Heian period, stiff fabrics came into use through the employment of heavy weaves and processes such as ita-biki, in which starch paste was used to give silk greater body and rigidity. These materials produced a more angular and rigid silhouette, leading to the development and popularity of the style known as kowa shōzoku (, “stiff court dress”). By contrast, the earlier style, in which layers of lighter fabrics created a softer and more flowing outline, was known as nae shōzoku (), also written (“soft court dress”).
The sokutai was the form of court dress most strongly affected by the development of kowa shōzoku. Although the overall composition of the ensemble remained largely unchanged, many of its individual components underwent alterations in form and construction. The stiffened style did not begin to appear clearly in illustrated handscrolls and other pictorial sources until the Kamakura period (1185–1333).
Development of yūsoku kojitsu and the revival of court dress From the late Heian period onward, yūsoku kojitsu—the body of knowledge concerning precedents, conventions, and ceremonial procedures at the imperial court—developed alongside the accumulation of ritual manuals, treatises on court precedent, and court diaries. During the period of cloistered rule, matters relating specifically to court dress emerged as a distinct field, and specialized dress manuals known as shōzoku-shō () were compiled. Hereditary schools of emon-dō (), the art of dressing courtiers in formal robes, also took shape. The Ōinomikado school was known during the Kamakura period, while the Yamashina and Takakura schools became established from the Nanboku-chō period (1336–1392) onward.