Noh Costume (Mizugoromo)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The mizugoromo (literally, "water garment") is a type of three-quarter-length overgarment made specifically for the Noh stage, where it is worn for many types of roles: male and female, old and young, priest and layman. This mizugoromo, strikingly modern in appearance, is made of an intentionally distressed plain-weave cloth, termed yore in Japanese. Yore, a very open textile with displaced wefts that are not perpendicular to the warps, gives a ragged or threadbare impression to the garment. For this reason, the yore mizugoromo is frequently worn for roles of suffering ghosts or the destitute.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art