Kimono Style 01

“KIMONO” literally means “Wearing Thing” (Ki - 着 Mono- 物) . It is a a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. I would say kimono is not typically worn as everyday dress anymore as it requires extra care to preserve the clothing and accessories, and it requires time (15-30min) and technique to put it on. I believe during the time when my grandmother was in her 10-20s (1930s-40s), most people wore Kimono on a daily basis. But today Western clothes are the most common and people only wear them on a special occasion such as to weddings, concerts and graduations.

I have been taking Kimono lessons on and off for about a year now. I’ve always been wanting to learn but I never had the chance to do so as I was overseas most of my life. As I have been back in Japan during the pandemic for an extended period of time, I decided to take up on some lessons. At my first lesson, there were so many steps to learn and felt so complicated that I was super overwhelmed! Fast forward, a year later I am having somewhat a good grasp about wearing it but I still have lots to learn. When I don’t wear them for a long time, I forget some steps and I have to rely on kimono teachers posting YouTube videos explaining the steps that I had forgotten. They are quite useful!

Today, I wore a Oshima-Tsumugi which is a traditional slub silk cloth woven in the Southwest of Japan with a beige Obi (belt/sash) and a pink obijime (cord that wraps the belt). Choosing to use this neon-pink obijime really made my kimono-wearing a fun one. To a very conservative navy colored kimono, this cord really made the color pop out. This cord was picked out by Sheila Cliffe when I visited Tokyo in December 2021. She is a Kimono Ambassador from Great Britain based in Japan and how she wears her kimono is just fabulous!

Every time when I have a chance to wear a Kimono (and when I think that I wore it in a presentable manner) I will share them on this blog. See you next time!