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Japanese firemen’s coats from the 19th century
- yeahdef 7y agoI'd love to wear that spider + go board coat.
- slynn12 7y agoI'd prefer to look at it on the _web_ :)
- Ididntdothis 7y agoIf you are into tattoos this looks like it has some great ideas.
- njudah 7y agoThe Edo Tokyo museum has an exhibit on these coats, and the influence of firefighting in Japanese culture in general - definitely worth a visit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo-Tokyo_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo-Tokyo_Museum
- cool-RR 7y agoDamn, I'd wear a replica of this. Just make it machine-washable.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThey pop up from time to time on vintage clothing sellers in Japan: https://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/151397/ https://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/151397/
- rezeroed 7y agoI was thinking cycling jerseys.
- Shank 7y agoWhile not the same, a company called Hikeshi Spirit actually sells products with similar designs: https://hikeshispirit.com/en https://hikeshispirit.com/en
- cool-RR 7y agoThese are nice, thank you!
- tasogare 7y ago> they would destroy the buildings surrounding the fire in an effort to contain it Anecdota told by a Japanese friend: father used to be a volunteer fireman in his town. He really liked it, but not from the reasons you might expect. First, it was because there were frequent drinking gatherings. But also, during a fire in a house, the firemen would go inside and throw everything out (often destroying them in the process) to avoid the fire being fed. This includes the family ancestors shrine, which the father took a great pleasure to destroy (I think because of how sacred it is). He enjoyed that for years before his wife made him stop because she was fed up of him going home drunk. Also, a some point in the year in Winter, volunteers firemen go in the street and shot aloud things I didn’t understand for as a tradition to warn the neighbors.
- hkmurakami 7y agoThe shouting is probably 火の用心 and is accompanied by hitting some wooden blocks together as a percussion instrument. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59qOsX-i2q8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59qOsX-i2q8 Your an anecdote is pretty hilarious -- I remember seeing a shrine (Shinto) in my grandfather's house. But then there was also a Bhuddist thing ever you keep your ancestors' ashes. I wonder which one he enjoyed breaking. Perhaps both. Edit: Here’s a video of some children in Hokkaido taking part in the tradition https://youtu.be/qv3BNlqf66A https://youtu.be/qv3BNlqf66A
- tasogare 7y agoAh yes, that’s 火の用心 I think. Thanks for the remainder! A friend explained it to me after I asked about (frankly I was a bit scared at first, I was thinking it was a cult before reading something about fire protection on their vests) but I didn’t take note.
- bingerman 7y agoI don't get it. Why did he enjoy destroying those family ancestors shrines? And surely that kind of behavior would be noticed by others and result in serious social damage, no?
- ryanmercer 7y ago>The scene is from the story of the warrior-hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948–1021) who, once when sick, was visited by an evil priest in the guise of a giant spider. Yorimitsu saw through the disguise and attacked the spider priest, and his four attendants (who were playing a game of Go while guarding him) leapt up to track the intruder back to his den That's... an interesting thing to put on your fire coat. I bet a lot of modern departments would love these. They are all about identifying as their individual groups and taking pride in being a team. Aramid is naturally the yellowish color that bunker gear already is but can be dyed, although you might have issues with fumes from the dye being heated in fires. You could skip bunker gear entirely though and just do a startup making custom jackets like this. The aramaid used for bunker gear is woven so just develop a machine to weave using x number of colored threads and do fairly simple patterns like this. This would beat the heck out of embroidered jackets for teams/agencies/social clubs too and you could even resurrect some historical art like this spider. There's already computerized embroidery, computerized custom woven jackets would be awesome. Forget "ugly Christmas sweaters". In the past beautiful patterns and designs in textiles showed pride and wealth, now a name sewn on the label does. Resurrecting stuff like this with tech, so that it is affordable to the masses, would be an awesome thing.
- huebomont 7y agonot everything is a startup
- Ma8ee 7y agoOf course it is. The only thing that it really is too much of right now is money looking for something to do. I think they are better used making some founders rich, even when the business case is a long shot, than inflating the stock market even more.
- huebomont 7y agoeverything could be a small business, not everything is a startup.
- elhudy 7y ago>Made of several layers of quilted cotton fabric, using a process called the sashiko technique, and resist-dyed using the tsutsugaki method, these coats would be worn plain-side out and thoroughly soaked in water before the firefighters entered the scene of the blaze. Very surprised that wool was not used (it is fire-resistant and wicks sweat). Was wool not available to Japan during this era?
- nabla9 7y agoIt seems that Japanese did not have much experience with wool and sheep. Wool would be imported product. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep#Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_domestic_sheep#...
- elhudy 7y agoThat's fascinating - you would think they would have some sort of access to sheep, alpaca, goats, or something that could provide wool. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and found Japan was still one of the largest importers of wool if not the largest) in the world until this paper was written in the late 1970's. Their wool has historically come from Australia. http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch12.pdf http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2207/pdf/ch12...
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThey never practiced any form of mass animal husbandry. Arable land for fodder would be at a premium for human consumption. Stripping the mountainsides are a danger in earthquake country.
- elhudy 7y agoFound another really interesting paper on this idea that animal husbandry was never really practiced in Japan. ". 'As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and an inanimate look.'1 She missed the sounds: '...a mean looking dog and a few fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. I long for the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep.'2 There were also very few horses: 'there is little traffic, and very few horses are kept, one, two, or three constituting the live stock of a large village.'3 Horses were not used for ploughing, nor, even, were they used for carrying. 'Very few horses are kept here. Cows and coolies carry much of the merchandise, and women as well as men carry heavy loads.'4 So rare were domestic animals even in the later nineteenth century, that they were exhibited like exotic species: '...monkey theatres and dog theatres, two mangy sheep and a lean pig attracting wondering crowds, for neither of these animals is known in this region of Japan." http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ANIMAL.PDF http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/A-ANIMAL.PDF
- WalterBright 7y agoThese are beauties. Heck, I'd likely buy a nice jacket like that!