Overview
Newly powerful warlords displayed their wealth in sumptuous kosode. The signature technique was tsujigahana, combining stitch-resist dyeing with ink painting, often heightened with gold leaf (surihaku) and embroidery.
Key garments and style
Contact with Portuguese and Spanish traders and missionaries produced a vogue for Nanban goods — mantles, brimmed hats, rosaries, buttons and tobacco — worn by daimyo and their circles. Men’s formal kamishimo, the kataginu with long hakama, also took clear shape.
Transition
The long Edo peace that followed would turn this exuberance toward both refinement and, under sumptuary law, studied restraint.