A good geisha can earn £30,000 or more a year, although they must pay a percentage of their earnings to a local union and fork out for their own kimono, wigs, obi-belts and make-up, an ensemble ...

The kimono can be as many as 12 to 15 layers thick for a maiko. They can be hugely expensive and the apprentice will choose a highly colourful kimono with an extravagant obi (or waistband).

A geisha poses with her shamisen, a three-stringed instrument, in the 1880s. Geisha and maiko traditionally play kouta style music on the shamisen.

Just looking like a geisha is not enough for some young women. Turning away from Hello Kitty and the modernity of Japanese life, they make the choice to earn a living as a geisha. Maiko as young ...

Travel Disappearing art of geisha in Japan By Patricia Sheridan May 4, 2014 1/3 ASSOCIATED PRESS ­Fukukimi, a maiko or geisha apprentice, from the Ishihatsu house of geishas in Kyoto, Japan.

Maiko as young as 15 must live in the geisha house, or okiya, learning the nuances of life under the robes and white makeup.

KYOTO, Japan — The night began with Champagne and French wine in the Old World, wooden-framed home of a friend of Akiko Fukai, Japan’s leading dress historian and curator, whose Kyoto Costume ...

Shelves of books on geisha are already overflowing, but "Now A Geisha" still deserves a space. Now a Geisha, by John Paul Foster, Translated by Chiaki Iwamura.192 pagesIBC PUBLISHING, Nonfiction.

KYOTO—A group of geisha and their “maiko” apprentices gathered at Yasakajinja shrine here on July 3 for a traditional ritual to pray for good health and improvement in their performing arts.