Hey! Might be a bit of a random one but as a non-binary (but basically male presenting) person married to a Japanese woman we've decided to both wear womens' iro-Uchikake and Shiromuku for our wedding photos. Already did the try-on and initial counseling. I'm not super interested in "passing" as I just wanna look like me — but wondered if you'd seen any womens' wasou-appropriate gender neutral wedding hairstyles in your travels? It's such a specific thing and I'm not having much luck.
Hi and congrats for your soon-to-come wedding pics :)
Tbh, you are not going to have much luck finding any formal wear kimono "neutral" hairstyle. The thing being that traditionally, Japanese hairstyles were SUPER gendered: they could tell age, sex, marital status, sometimes even where you'd come from etc.
The only exception I can think of are children hairstyles, which for long were basically unisex until coming of age ceremonies - but those would not be suitable for a wedding imo ^^;
Agender hairstyle is so definitely not a thing if you're searching for "classical kimono look" appropriate hairdo. Yet, that does not mean you cannot choose any style you like and run away with it!
Most wedding-looks now have brides in modern (=Westernized) fancy hairdo. If you see a "traditional" style (=taka shimada), it will 9 times out of 10 be a wig provided by the kimono rental. Very few undergo the tedious process of having their natural hair styled this way (and less and less hairstylists actually know how to do that):
So, what fancy style would YOU love?
Without knowing you or your hair lenght it's difficult for me to help, but my first thought was a variation of moga's 耳隠しmimikakushi (hairdo covering the ears, often with finger waves). As moga's chose not to follow traditions + as mimikakushi can work on long and shorter hair alike, this "historical" style could work for you?
Also, you might wanna look into any modern kimono stylist/photographer. For example, see Stasia Matsumoto's social accounts, as she's both a kimono and hair stylist.
Congrats again, and TLDR => don't fret too much over "traditional hairstyle": in nowadays bridal kimono world, that doesn't mean much anyway ;)
