Geiko Yachiyo with an Insect Cage 1910https://embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Kyuzo Okamoto :: Geiko Yachiyo with an Insect Cage, vintage postcard, 1910

Insects as pets. Yachiyo was a famous Osaka geiko (geisha), known for her elegance and her lovely personality. People were said to weep with joy at the sight of her dancing. She joined the flower and willow world at the age of thirteen, left to marry at the age of twenty-nine. / source: Blue Ruin

Kichiya-musubi 1905https://embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Kichiya-musubi, 1905
A Geisha dressed in the Genroku style, fashionable among Tokyo Geisha around 1905-1908. She is showing her obi, tied in the Kichiya-musubi style, a knot named after Kamimura Kichiya (or Uemura Kichiya I) who was a popular Kabuki Actor during the Genroku period (1680′s).

The Kichiya-musubi was in fact a particularly famous and popular knot, mentioned specifically in a number of poems. The knot is a relatively simple one, but with small lead weights hidden in the obi, weighing down the ends of the bow, so they drooped “like the ears of a … Chinese lion-dog.” / src: Blue Ruin

Maiko Momotaro - Sakkou Hairstyle 1920shttps://embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Maiko Momotaro – Sakkou Hairstyle, 1920′s 
“Originally believed to be worn by married women of the merchant class during the late Edo period (1603-1868), starting in the Meiji era (1868-1912) the sakkou was the hairstyle worn by apprentice geisha in the weeks leading up to their debut as full-fledged geisha.“

(Voyages en Photographie) /   src: Blue Ruin