What Supplies Would Someone Need To Open An Okiya?...

I’m pretty sure that @missmyloko has written about this before, but I can’t seem to find it right now, so I’ll try my best ^^’.

As for okiya, the first thing that comes to mind is a big collection of kimono and obi. It depends on how big the okiya is, but you’d need enough kimono and obi to outfit a few Maiko (maybe like three is the minimum, I’d say?) at the same time, both senior and Maiko, and some kimono and obi for dependent Geiko as well (again, I’d say at least two? But they probably wouldn’t be as important as Maiko-kimono in the beginning).

In kagai that give their Geiko more time to become independent, the okiya have bigger collections of Geiko-kimono, in kagai where that’s not the case, the collection is smaller.

Of course, the collection would start out smaller and get even bigger over time, and once in a while, okiya also discard of old, overused items and sell them, if their condition is still good enough (Umeno did that last year, for example).

A regular Geiko-kimono costs at least 10,000 USD, with fancier ones being up to 15,000 USD and formal ones costing around 20,000 USD, and a regular Maiko-kimono costs around 15,000 USD and their kuromontsuki can cost up to 25,000 USD, and that’s not even counting any obi, so you can imagine to how much money just the clothing would amount to.

You’d also need hada - and nagajuban, eri, komon for the Maiko and houmongi and some tomesode for the Geiko for casual events, so the kimono-collection of an okiya can easily surpass 1 Million USD.

And then you’d also need hair ornaments and obidome! Regular daikin, maezashi and bira ougi wouldn’t be that expensive, but the tama, tachibana (only for junior Maiko) and hirauchi kanzashi (only for senior Maiko) and also the kushi very senior Maiko wear are already more expensive.

The kushi for Geiko are also quite expensive, and the bekko kogai they wear are made of real tortoiseshell and not only are these very expensive in the first place, since tortoiseshell-trade is heavily restricted nowadays, most of these pieces are antiques, quadrupling the prices. You’d also need toirtoishell-kanzashi for Maiko (kushi, hirauchi and chirikan) they wear them during their Misedashi and the first few days as Maiko and during very formal events like Shigyoshiki.

The obidome are the most expensive part of a Maiko’s outfit, and since they are worn almost every day, you need a good deal of them. They are made of precious stones and things like silver and platinum, so they can easily surpass the price of a kuromontsuki.

And then you’d of course need a building, you’d need the okiya itself. As far as I know, they don’t really build new ones anymore, so one would need to purchase a suitable building from the original owner, and this could, again, be over millions of dollars. Some of these buildings are smaller or bigger than others, so some okiya have enough space to house a lot of Maiko and Geiko at the same time (Komaya - 7 Maiko and 2 Geiko (I think?), Tama - 6 Maiko) and others only have adequate room for around 4 or 5 people, excluding the okaasan and the maids, who sometimes live on the premises.

Then, you’d also need furniture for the okiya, which needs to be of the finest quality, should guests be invited (which will be quite often). An okiya needs to be able to own expenive, high-quality furniture, both traditional and new, and art-works to not only show off their wealth, but also show that they are able to adequately support their Maiko and Geiko.

This is all excluding the running costs like utilities and food everyone has to pay for, and the lessons for Maiko and Geiko, the cleaning of the kimono, the maids and cooks etc. An okiya is incredibly expensive, 1 or 2 million seed capital won’t (even) cut it.

And you’d also need something that might be even more important than the money for both an okiya and an ochaya: You need conncetions. You could just go into any kagai and try and open an okiya or ochaya without any connections if you have enough money, but firstly, I highly doubt that you’d be very successful, and secondly, I doubt that they’d even let you (as in, purchase a building) in many districts.

You don’t necessarily need to be or have been a Geiko yourself to open an okiya or ochaya, but it does help, because it means that you already have many connections to the people working in the karyukai and the clients, have artistic experience and know what it’s like to be a Maiko/Geiko. However, you can also build relationships to the people in the karyukai in a different way (Katsufumi, okaasan of the newly-established Katsufumi Okiya of Kamishichiken, was a Geiko for only 2 years, but owned a bar and henshin studio for over a decade, Yuko, okaasan of the Umeno Okiya of Kamishichiken, was never a Maiko or Geiko, but grew up beside them and also has artistic experience).

And of course, as the okaasan of an okiya, you’d need girls and women wanting to be Maiko and Geiko to join you and as the okaasan of an ochaya, you’d need customers wanting to pay for your services and Geiko and Maiko wanting to work for/with you.

As for an ochaya, you of course wouldn’t need any kimono, obi or hair ornaments, you’d need the building and very nice furniture and artworks and also quite a lot of them, and everything would need to be absolutely spotless, so you’d also need to pay for maids and servers as well. Again, to open and run an ochaya, you’d need a lot of connections and people would need to like and respect you and think highly of you.

You’d need to be able to pay the restaurants preparing and delivering the food for you, you’d of course have to pay the Maiko and Geiko and you’d need to always be stacked up on expensive drinks, mostly alcoholic drinks like sake, wine, beer, shochu, whiskey etc., but also some non-alcoholic options, and depending on the guests, they might have to be personalized.

You’d need to buy less things to open an ochaya, but that doesn’t mean that the job of running an ochaya would be any less demanding than that of running an okiya. Not to mention that many okiya also have an adjoined ochaya, so they have to deal with a dual burden.

It feels like I’ve forgotten something, but that’s all that I can remember right now ^^’. If I’ve made any mistakes or you have something to add, please tell me so!