Karaori Noh robe with floral roundels on flowing water

This Noh costume was worn by male actors on the Noh stage—a traditional theater originally performed for and sometimes by members of the samurai class. Part of an actor's job is to choose the ensemble of textiles and sometimes masks that he wishes to wear for each role, giving it added richness and nuance.

A karaori (literally, "Chinese weave") is a type of Noh robe made from a specific weave of silk. Such textiles usually have multiple layers of pattern, some executed in embroidery-like brocaded silk floss. Karaori robes are typically worn by men for female roles; when they employ shades of red in the design, as does this example, they are used for characters of young, unmarried women.

This robe has two layers of design. The outer layer is of myriad floral roundels—iris, cherry, maple, wisteria, chrysanthemum, and plum. These seem to float on an under layer of stylized flowing water woven in narrow strips of gold foil-coated paper.

The blossoms are depicted in fifteen different shades on a vermillion background. If you look carefully, you can see that the pattern is in fact a rectangular block that is repeated twice across the width and over and over down each panel of the textile. (To find the pattern block, try to find the same floral roundel repeated vertically and horizontally on, for example, one of the sleeves.) The weaver has skillfully avoided a sense of repetition by using a different arrangement of colors in each of the pattern repeats.