From the clothes he wore to the hair on his head the samurai had to impress on his contemporaries an immaculate appearance.

When not in armour the samurai had a large wardrobe of clothes open to him. On a mild day the kimono was a favoured item of dress that a samurai might choose to wear. It was a dressing gown-like garment with long wide sleeves and reached down to below the knee. A similar garment to this would be worn underneath and was usually white in colour. For underwear all the samurai was likely to wear was a simple loincloth. A sash was then wrapped two or three times around the waist and tied up at the front. The famous daisho (two swords: katana and wakizashi) was thrust through the sash which was testament to the samurai's lofty status in Japanese society.

Another item of clothing was the hakama. These were wide, baggy trousers - so wide in fact that they looked like a divided skirt - had large openings at the sides and a low crotch. They were held up by ties at the rear and at the front to fasten at the waist. The hakama would be worn with the kimono, which would be tucked into them. However, necessity sometimes dictated that the samurai had to be ready to fight so he would pull up his hakama into his sash and the sleeves of the kimono would be tied up with the tasuki, which was a narrow strip of material that passed in front of the arms and crossed on the back. The transformation of a passive samurai in baggy dress to one ready for action with the relative garments tied up could happen in a matter of moments. 

A shorter and tighter pair of trousers was called a kobakama which were quite similar to those worn by judo or karate martial artists today, except of course they would be patterned and embroidered with various things. A samurai would probably wear kobakama on more informal occasions.

To keep his feet warm and comfortable the samurai would wear divided socks called tabi, which were often white (red was often seen as effeminate.) This would suffice when indoors but outside straw sandals or a pair of wooden clogs called geta would be worn. However, in the case of the latter item of footwear they would not be worn if there was a chance that danger would threaten because they were too clumsy to enable the samurai to perform a swift movement.

If the occasion demanded formality then the samurai would wear the kamishimo which was a combination of wearing the hakama and a kataginu. The kataginu was a sleeveless, often quilted, jacket that had wide, stiffened shoulders, which stuck out almost like wings and usually worn over the kimono. Generally the kataginu was the same colour and bore the same pattern as the hakama. A samurai would often wear a kataginu with the mon or badge of his lord's clan on the front straps of the garment which would be repeated on the sleeves of the kimono and then on the back of the kataginu. Instead of the kataginu the samurai could choose to wear the haori, which was a three-quarter length kimono-shaped coat.

In the Edo Period (1603-1868) it was customary for very-high ranking samurai to wear the nagabakama on formal occasions, especially when visiting the shogun for example. The nagabakama were very long trousers, so long that they enclosed the wearer's feet and trailed behind him as he walked. It was a sign of good breeding for a samurai to walk and move in them because of their length and one needed practice otherwise the garment could get caught underneath the feet and the wearer could slip and collapse, which wouldn't go down well at the shogun's court. This unpractical dress had its uses because the wearer would be incapable of causing trouble.

Headwear consisted of large straw hat called a kasa and was a useful shield against the sun and rain. Another variation of the kasa, curious-looking to Western eyes, was something akin to a whicker basket and covered the entire head. Such a hat was no doubt useful for a someone who did not want to be recognised. Alternatively a cloth cap or hood could be worn.

Like the clothes he wore a samurai had to ensure his hair was in good shape. By the 16th century it was customary to shave a portion of hair from the top half of the crown. This practice originally came about so that the kabuto could be worn in comfort, but by the Momoyama Period (1573-1603) this became a fashionable hairstyle. The shaved part of the samurai's head or tonsure was called the sakayaki and any remaining hair was tied back into a queue at the back of the head. There were several ways a samurai could arrange his hair. One style was called chasen-gami, because of its resemblance to the bamboo tea-whisk used in the Japanese tea ceremony, and involved tying a length of string around the lower part of the tuft in order to make it stick out like a brush. A more common style was called the mitsu-ori where the hair was gathered into a long, narrow queue at the back and then bent forward and back and subsequently tied in place. A variant of this style was called the futatu-ori ('two-fold') where the queue of hair was bent forward over the sakayaki. Some samurai chose not to shave their hair and instead tied it back to form the queue to the same effect. Young samurai only shaved the forepart of the crown leaving the forelock intact. The unshaven forelock was trimmed and made into a triangle shape which was them combed backwards. Before battle, or any circumstance when it was necessary to don armour, the samurai would untie the queue and comb the hair back. Samurai who were also Buddhist monks often shaved their heads completely.

Further Reading

Samurai Armies (Osprey Publishing) - Anthony J Bryant.

Warriors of Medieval Japan - Stephen Turnbull