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Category of high ranking courtesan in Japanese history

([[wikt:花魁) is a collective term for the highest ranking courtesans in Japanese history, who were considered to be above common prostitutes (known as ) for their more refined entertainment skills and training in the traditional arts. Divided into a number of ranks within this category, the highest rank of oiran were the tayū, who were considered to be set apart from other oiran due to their intensive training in the traditional arts and the fact that they lived and worked in Kyoto, the political capital of Japan, which remained the cultural heart of the country when the seat of political power moved to Tokyo. Though oiran by definition also engaged in prostitution, higher ranking oiran had a degree of choice in which customers they took; tayū, in contrast, did not engage in sex work at all. The term oiran originated in Yoshiwara, the red light district of Edo in the 1750s, and is applied to all ranks of high level courtesans in historical Japan. The services of oiran were well known for being exclusive and expensive, with oiran typically only entertaining the upper classes of society, gaining the nickname for their perceived ability to steal the hearts and match the wits of upper class men. Many oiran became celebrities both inside and outside of the pleasure quarters, and were commonly depicted in ukiyo e woodblock prints and in kabuki theatre plays. Oiran were expected to be well versed in the traditional arts of singing, classical dance and music, including the ability to play the kokyū and the koto, and were also expected to converse with clients in upper class and formalised language. Though regarded as trend setting and fashionable women at the historic height of their profession, this reputation was later usurped in the late 18th through 19th centuries by geisha, who became popular among the merchant classes for their simplified clothing, ability to play short, modern songs known as [[Kouta (music) on the shamisen, and their more fashionable expressions of contemporary womanhood and companionship for men, which mirrored the tastes of the extremely wealthy, but for lower class merchants, who constituted the majority of their patronage. The popularity and numbers of oiran continued to decline steadily throughout the 19th century, before prostitution was outlawed in Japan in 1957. However, the tayū remaining in Kyoto's Shimabara district were allowed to continue practising the cultural and performing arts traditions of their profession, and were declared a "special variety" of geisha. In the present day, a handful of tayū, who do not engage in prostitution as part of their role, continue to perform in Kyoto, alongside a number of oiran reenactors elsewhere in Japan who perform in reenactments of the courtesan parades known as oiran dōchū.

The word oiran comes from the Japanese phrase (おいらの所の姉さん) which translates loosely to "the lass at our (my) place." When written in kanji, the word consists of two characters: [[wikt:花, meaning "flower", and [[wikt:魁 meaning "leader" or "first." Though only the highest ranking prostitutes of Yoshiwara were technically known as oiran, the term is now widely applied to all.

Compared to yūjo, whose primary attraction was the sexual services they offered, oiran, and particularly tayū, were first and foremost entertainers. In order to become an oiran, a woman first had to be educated in a range of skills from a relatively young age, including sadō (Japanese tea ceremony), ikebana (flower arranging) and calligraphy. Oiran also learned to play the koto, shakuhachi, tsuzumi (hand drum), shamisen and kokyū. Clients expected oiran to be well read, able to converse and write with wit and elegance, and able to match them in intellect in conversation. Oiran not considered to be high ranking or skilled enough to hold an inherited name would instead use a professional name considered elegant enough to be the name of a courtesan; these were typically pseudonyms taken to either protect one's identity or to promote the brothel's image, and were likely to be slightly more elaborate than the average woman's name. These names, alongside the names of both kamuro and shinzō (child attendants and apprentice courtesans respectively) were written in hiragana.

The appearance of oiran was markedly different from that of both geisha and the average woman, reflecting the upper class tastes and expectations of their customers; by the height of their profession at the beginning of the Edo period, oiran wore upwards of eight large kanzashi (hair ornaments), typically made from tortoiseshell, silver, gold and gemstones, in their large, elaborate and heavily waxed hairstyles; these hairstyles, all with different names and meanings, were worn to represent different ranks, seasons and occasions. An oiran's outfit consisted of a number of layered kimono; the outermost kimono would usually be a heavily decorated silk brocade garment known as the uchikake, which would feature a heavily padded hem. Though uchikake were also worn by noblewomen and, towards the end of the Meiji period, began to be worn by some brides, the uchikake worn by oiran were far more excessive and loud. These uchikake featured elaborate, traditional and auspicious designs, such as dragons, butterflies, arabesque rondels, pine, plum and bamboo, woven and embroidered in heavy gold and silver thread. This would be worn unbelted over the top of the underkimono, which featured a patterned design only on the lower skirt, and resembled a juban (underkimono; part of kimono underwear) otherwise. The ensemble was belted with an [[obi (sash) tied at the front. During the Edo period, this obi became both wider and stiffer, adding weight and discomfort. Oiran became known for wearing a specific style of obi known as the , which presented a large, flat surface on which large designs would be decorated. When parading or otherwise walking, oiran wore [[Geta (footwear)#History – tall pauwlonia wood clogs with three "teeth". Though lightweight for their size, these would prevent an oiran from taking anything other than small, slow footsteps when walking; oiran would thus walk in koma geta with a sliding, figure of 8 (suri ashi) step, with two manservants (known as wakaimono) assisting her. Oiran generally did not wear tabi socks, with her bare foot considered to be a point of eroticism in her outfit. In total, a formal parade outfit worn by an oiran could weigh in excess of , often weighing as much as , and would require great assistance to put on.

Because of their isolation, the rigidity of their contracts as courtesans – which often ran for 10–15 years before ending their involvement with the profession – and their inability to leave the pleasure districts, oiran became steadily more traditional, outdated and ritualised, further and further removed from popular society and bound by their strict rules of etiquette, behaviour and speech. This, combined with their relative financial inaccessibility to most people, created a vacuum of entertainment for the rising merchant classes, whose relatively high wealth and relatively low social status left them unable to hire oiran, thus leading to the decision to patronise the greatly more accessible and less expensive geisha instead. Over time, oiran also lost their celebrity status in wider society, and came in part to be seen less as highly cultured courtesans reflecting formal, high class standards of speech and appearance, and more as caged women unable to leave the pleasure districts and chained to the debts they owed to their brothel. The preservation of the appearance of oiran had also not reflected changes in fashion – as the profession of geisha had evolved and become increasingly popular, the authorities had sought to clamp down on the profligate and wealthy tastes of the merchant classes, leading to a number of dress edicts that changed popular aesthetics and led to the rise of subdued and cultivated aesthetics such as [[iki (aesthetics), which oiran categorically did not reflect or resemble. Similarly, the entertainment that oiran offered had mostly remained unchanged since generations of courtesans previous. Though oiran played the shamisen, they did not play the popular and contemporary tunes composed for it, and instead stuck to longer ballads such as nagauta, which had refined, but restrained, lyrical content. This was in contrast to the favoured and sung by geisha, whose lyrical content was often heartfelt and honest.

In the years that oiran declined, the geisha profession was born and grew increasingly stronger, contributing in part, if not in majority, to this decline. Geisha were, officially speaking, considered to be a relatively low class form of entertainment, and as such, were not patronised by the upper classes, who were officially supposed to patronise tayū instead; however, during the Edo period, geisha came to represent the tastes of the merchant classes, whose low social status and high financial freedom left them free of social obligations to uphold the status of a samurai family that men of the upper classes were commonly beholden to. As the merchant classes throughout Edo period society grew in wealth and profligacy, they became the main source of income for geisha, who represented social and financial accessibility in a way that oiran did not. Geisha were cheap to patronise, informal to converse with, required few introductions before entertaining a customer and both played and sang the most popular songs of the time. Through various dress edicts aimed at controlling the merchant classes and thus preserving the appearances and social status of the upper classes, extravagant or obvious displays of wealth had been outlawed and driven underground, bringing aesthetics such as iki into popularity, which geisha came to both represent and champion. A geisha's loyalties were also held to be more true, as geisha could choose whom they wished to entertain, and geisha became the subject of many popular romantic stories. Though geisha also worked within the pleasure districts that oiran did – at times forbidden to work outside of them – as the profession developed, laws regarding the separation of the two professions were passed. This, over time, ironically led to exaggerate and exacerbate the differences between geisha and oiran, heightening the popularity of the former and leading to the eventual destruction of the latter. Geisha were forbidden to dress elaborately, in the manner of oiran, and were not allowed to sleep with their customers. Geisha were registered at a separate registry office, and if an oiran accused a geisha of stealing a customer, she would be fully investigated, with the potential to be forbidden from working if found guilty. Though geisha and oiran were likely to be at least in part indentured to their houses, geisha were not considered to be the same kind of physical property that oiran were considered to be by their employers. Though oiran were unable to leave their pleasure quarters and could be, if not in the highest ranks, forced to entertain whichever customers the head of her brothel demanded she entertain, geisha were allowed to both leave their houses and choose which patrons she wished to entertain, leading to the rise of adages comparing the loyalties of an oiran with square eggs, the punchline being that neither were things that existed. However, some still recognize Shimabara as a hanamachi, with the number and activities of tayū slowly growing. The few remaining women still currently practising the arts of the tayū, without the sexual aspect, do so as a preservation of cultural heritage rather than as a profession or lifestyle.