Where life imitates art

A fun TV drama series about young girls training to be geisha in contemporary Japan has become a surprise global hit. But do Kyoto's maiko houses, where teens leave their mobile phones at the door to become apprentices in a classical art form, really still exist?

- JULIET RIEDEN

In the 21st century it’s hard to believe that an ancient interpretation of womanhood, bound by strict codes of conduct and anachronistic ideals of perfection, continues to survive in the same nation that recently topped the most technologically advanced in the world.

But painted geisha (or ‘geiko’ as they are called in Kyoto) swaddled in richly coloured silk kimonos, shuffling perilously on platform ‘okobo’ (wooden clogs) beneath elegant parasols, their rosebud ruby lips, white faces and intricate hairdos the result of hours of preparation, are still hanging in there as the enigmatic jewel of Japanese culture … just!

Certainly the number of geisha still working is waning fast, but as the global popularity of a peppy new Netflix TV drama, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, has proved, fascination with this secretive community is just as strong as ever.

The golden age of geisha was in the Edo period from 1603 to 1867 and even back in the 1920s there were around 80,000 geisha operating in Japan. But times have changed and today there are barely 600 across the nation.

Feminism undoubtedly played its part; the glamour and appeal of a culture that locks women into a codified conduct has worn thin, and unsurprisingly the geisha world is one teetering on extinction.

But it is precisely the potential disappearance of this idiosyncratic iteration of living art that makes any insight into its culture all the more enticing. Japan reveres its geisha and cares little that the western world doesn’t really get it. These beautiful creations are the embodiment of a culture that sets their nation apart, even on a higher plane – though this depends on your point of view ...