r/kimono

Early Showa had a lot of "shades" of formality, didn't they? I wonder if anyone put in and took out embroidered mon for different events.

The sleeves are not quite furisode length but are much longer than most antiques I own. I need to measure to be sure, but likely almost 30."

I had wanted to go with a black obi for the cool feeling, but only the tan one would work with this colour scheme...

This is from the woman who was selling piles of antique kimono from her father on FB. They are mostly summer items, but there were some children's clothes and propaganda kimono, too. If I'd had the money, I would have picked up a few more!

(edit: i forgot- first photo is my anti-Eris claws defense system.)

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to share a glimpse from my recent photoshoot in my small studio. This is a vintage Meisen kimono. Meisen silk became incredibly popular in Japan during the Taisho and early Showa eras (1910s–1930s). It revolutionized Japanese fashion by combining traditional ikat weaving techniques (hogushi-kasuri) with bold, vibrant, and Western-inspired Art Deco and Art Nouveau patterns. It was the everyday casual luxury for the modern Japanese woman of that time.I absolutely love the unique crisp texture of Meisen silk and how these historic geometric patterns look under studio lighting. Hope you like the shot! Let me know w

Any ideas on what these flowers could be? The four petals are throwing me off; someone on Facebook suggested shidareume, but I’ve only ever seen ume flowers with five petals. So far my googling in Japanese and English hasn’t turned up any plausible answers so I turn to the collective wisdom of Reddit… any suggestions are helpful!

I am in a smaller city in Oregon and found this at a thrift store.

I really like it and would like to wear it to work (front of house in a casual restaurant) once it starts getting a bit cooler.

my kimono style❤️

Not likely to have a chance to wear outside this year, but I like to put on yukata at least once in the summer so I don't forget how.

Went with a grassy theme, which I like for during Obon and end of August. Kind of "method dressing" here because the obi also has a grassy print on it. It's a heko obi I've tied in a "pata-pata" style with the help of an elastic. I really love this yukata because the all-over grass pattern reminds me of abstract art, like a Jackson Pollock or something, and it also works to camouflage little kitsuke errors.

I'm normally a fashion bug, obsessed in recent years with handsewn vintage yukata in "komaji" combed cotton fabric + chuzome dyeing and have collected quite a few, but don't get many chances to wear them.

The things I used for kitsuke:

-erishin, absolutely essential, usually undo a few stitches in the collar to make an opening to get it in there

-thick pad for lower back since I've got an S-shape back there

-extremely wide mesh datejime type thing. This changed my life lol. I have seen comments from diehards on Japanese social media critical of it because it basically allows people to bypass all kinds of other little kitsuke/padding skills and techniques, and rely on the belt instead of mastering those techniques themselves. But it makes a pretty nice smooth suggestion of a cylinder, can't go back now I've tried it.

-koshihimo x2, usually use a korin belt in lieu of final himo but mine recently broke.

Things I would change: Probably still could use another towel in the small of my back. Ohashori is a bit longer than I personally like and also crooked. But again can hardly tell with all the grass in the way lol. I didn't use an obi-ita because I think heko obi are fine to look less rigid, but if I took this outside/to an event with sitting down, I might add one. I think I've gotten to the point of being able to have the yukata kitsuke under control somewhat. Now need to focus on practicing obi tying. I want to be able to try more complicated or atypical styles.

Welp, I don't think I'll need to worry about kimono for a long, hot minute. 😅 I did my quarterly wandering onto FB marketplace, and for laughs searched up kimono. Little did I know there was someone selling off the part of their collection one town over from me. I practiced restraint and narrowed it down to a teal kimono with faux-shibori deets on pic 2 (teal never plays nice in photos ugh). I tried color correcting the best I could but argleblargleflargle.

...long story short, I went over to her place and walked away with 8 kimono (the gray one she threw in for free because it had extensive but light staining on it that I absolutely think is fixable). The price averaged out to $27/each which is absolutely worth it imo.

The purple one has this s t e l l a r design on it with a loom!! and a silver couching spot embroidery. The wedding cart one is unlined and just so fun and twee. The vertical stripe one is pleasingly subtle with orange and purple color changes, and has a wispy grass? fabric texture that shows when the light catches it.

But by far was the unassuming $10 sage hitoe iromuji. It's almost a dead match to my eye color, and has plenty of seam allowance to let out the sides some more! The mon is delicately painted on with the tiniest hint of a stencil outline. I'm assuming the mon is just a generic one.

Most, if not all, seem relatively brand new and there's lots of tailoring stay-stitching intact. It's always such a pleasant find to come across this stuff as I'm not in a major metropolitan area. 💕

With a white yukata 🫠

I got this second hand for super cheap - I originally bought it to dye it, but i realised it was subtle enough that if i were to ever wear anything not dark coloured… this would be it…so here i am.

I’m not used to myself in light colour so it’s a bit odd looking.

Hello! First time posting here :)

Last spring I took a college course on art forms around the world, I’d always wanted to try a tea ceremony, so I did some research the moment I was home for the summer.

I happened to find a local diaspora who offered kimono dressing and a tea ceremony out of her house for very cheap, she says she wants to make Japanese culture accessible to those interested. She even changes her tea room between summer in winter and educates on different kinds of kimono.

She didn’t just dress me, she taught me how to dress myself in kimono (which is why mine doesn’t look perfect), my shoulders and arms were definitely hurting when I was finished!

I’m going back in September with my boyfriend and I’m super looking forward to it!

Happy to answer any questions about the experience :D!

So basically, I got someone to model for me yesterday because I wanted to figure some things out with plus size furisode. Namely, I was not too crazy about some of the musubi I was seeing for queen size furisode and limited styling options for obi age and obi jime, so I decided to play around with some ideas. I’ll be revisiting this question when I have some free time in the fall.

Please excuse a very creased kimono, it recently came out of a wash and it seems like hanging it on the kimono hanger wasn't enough, and I have been procrastinating with ironing it, anyone else can relate?

Quick and dirty Obon coordination because I simply forgot until today that it's Obon time and I wanted to coordinate my new Suu obidome with my wakka yōkai parade obi for Obon this summer.

The summer sanbuhimo is also new, and a first one for me, I knew of natsumono sanbuhimo, but they are super rare even brand new. I'm sad to say that soon after I bought this one, it sold out. But it's not like you need a summer sanbuhimo for obidome, it's mostly a gimmick item, but it's so cool, I really wanted at least one in my collection.

The obiage is something I hand dyed probably close to a decade ago now. I'm happy how well it coordinates with the obijime, I didn't have an obijime that matched it before so it was never really used.

The little key charm as netsuke is a little fūrin bell, I either bought it online or when I visited Japan, it's been yesrs so I don't remember anymore.

Dressed a little formally. The theme was a monochromic Nier Automata since the concert series has come to the US. I dont get a chance to do this very much, but it was so fun to try something less casual! My first nijudaiko with fukuro obi. (Did I make any obvious mistakes?)

If you live in America, or another non-Japanese country, where do you find the opportunity to wear kimono?