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Bleach Cosplay: Waraji and tabi
Waraji refers to woven sandals generally worn with socks. Because we were short on time, we purchased sandals from Walmart instead of making accurate footwear. They are quite thin with a black fabric rim and a straw top surface, and cost about 2 dollars a pair. In reality, waraji are made from woven straw rope, with straps.
The footwear worn by shinigami is not exactly the same as traditional waraji because they have the cup around the heel. After some digging around on cosplay.com, I found what look to be some thorough instructions in a post. I haven't used it myself, but it's a great starting point:
- http://forums.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=69336 - A cosplay.com post with written instructions and illustrations for every step - great!
- Original pattern - True waraji. Mirrored from http://www.rhinohide.cx/tousando/img/waraji.jpg
- Modified pattern - To reflect the heel cup of shinigami-style waraji.
- http://fukuoka.cool.ne.jp/chiketon/howto-waraji.html - Very thorough step by step illustrations, but sadly not in English.
- http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=404605 - A photo example of BLEACH footwear.
The socks, known as tabi, are white and come above the ankle. The have a split between the largest toe and the rest of the toes, through which the thong of the sandal runs. You can purchase tabi, or you can do what we did: find some white socks of the right length without any cuff, put them on so they rest loosely on the toes, and ram them into the thong of the sandal. Ta-da! Instant tabi socks. What they lack in authenticity they make up for in simplicity. Note that Madarame Ikkaku and Kyouraku Shunsui do not wear tabi.
