枡花 Masuhana is made of two kanji:枡-masu-, the wooden sake cup that was used for measuring rice, and 花 -flower-.This color originated in the Edo period and its creation attributed to a famous kabuki actor: Danjuro Ichikawa. His family crest or kamon was printed on his clothes, so was the fashion, and consisted in three "masu" one into the other. We can see it on his left sleve.
So Ichikawa like all the rest of the Japanese, living in Edo period in Japan, were subjected to "Sumptuary laws". These laws determined everything in relation to their clothing, colours, materials. So there were only a few colours allowed, such as gray, pale yellow, blue, brown... So people had to managed to bring some brightness into their lives!
It seems that this color was born from another colour: the famous Asagi, that we saw in this blog. Asagi was fashionable and therefore had not so much character. So Ichikawa mixed it with ash to make it more "astringent" more "shibui", elegant, and adopted it for his "family" the kabuki family. So the colour was named Masu-Hana.
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