---
node: fashion_yayoi
type: fashion
slug: yayoi_period_fashion
title: "Fashion in the Yayoi period"
lead: "In the Yayoi period woven cloth arrived with wet-rice farming, and the Chinese Wei chronicle describes Wa dress directly: women wore a poncho-like kantoi slipped over the head, while men wound a wide unsewn cloth around the body."
published: 2026-07-27
updated: 2026-07-28
previous_hash: "c6324a3147cdf64e5b9221cd71d5af708775ad585d2264551c86f3f92976efb0"
renamed_from: "yayoi_period"
change: "Merged under the history section; title reframed as “Fashion in …”"
requester: internal
reason: "Per the owner's decision, fashion is no longer a standalone section but lives under each history era"
---

## Overview

The Gishi Wajinden, the account of the Wa in the Chinese Records of Wei, is the earliest written description of Japanese clothing. It reports that women passed the head through a hole in a single cloth (the kantoi), and that men draped and knotted a broad length of cloth without tailoring.

## Key garments and style

Backstrap-loom weaving of hemp and ramie spread, and sericulture and early silk appear. Garments were still mostly wrapped and tied rather than cut and sewn, and dyeing with plant colors began.

## Transition

Continental contact deepened in the Kofun period, when tailored two-piece dress — a jacket with trousers or skirt — took hold.