Tag Archives: purple

Black kofurisode and purple hakama

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Today I went to a mini-convention to raise money for the Red Cross for Japan relief efforts and I figured it would be a great time to wear my new purple hakama. I’ve had this kofurisode for a while, but no hakama to wear it with, so I decided to pull them together with the yellow side of a new obi and a gorgeous purple shibori haneri Naomi sent me years ago.

I knew I’d be walking around a fair bit so I decided to forego tabi and zori and wore a pair of comfy mary-jane style shoes instead, but I think it worked quite well.

The outfit got a very positive reaction, lots of people asking what I was wearing and taking my picture. I actually also got suckered into going on stage during the costume contest. Since my outfit was not actually a cosplay, and it was not handmade, I was not eligible for a prize but I got to explain what I was wearing and the audience gave me a good reception, so I am happy! I also got a few professional portraits taken, but I do not have them yet. If I get copies, I will post them.

Black ko-furi and purple hakama

Black ko-furi and purple hakama

Black ko-furi and purple hakama

Black ko-furi and purple hakama

Black ko-furi and purple hakama

I really love the hakama. It’s amazingly comfortable and hides a multitude of sins. It was a great choice for a convention, it gave me much more freedom of movement than just the kimono would have. I’d love to get more of them eventually.

Purple embroidered hakama

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Hakama, those pleated skirt-like garments worn over kimono, are one of those things I always sort of accepted as something I would never own. The standard modern lengths for hakama are between 91 and 97 cm, and I’d need at least 102cm to fit me properly. The few pairs that were long enough that I’d seen were incredibly, terribly out of my budget, and also usually a boring black or navy.

In rushes Kansai_gal to the rescue. She found these for me and sent them to me, and I am absolutely smitten! They’re a gorgeous rich purple colour, a wonderful washable synthetic, and have charming embroidered mums, pinks, and bellflowers on the hem. The best part of all, however, is that they are a whopping 103 centimetres long. Almost too long for me! Amazing!

Hakama are a wonderful solution to kimono that may be a bit too short, or don’t wrap across the hips properly. They’re also a lot more forgiving than a standard kimono and obi might be. They’re generally considered fairly youthful and casual, but as I’ve said time and time again I am hideously immature and tend to dress younger than I should.

A quick note about these photos – no, I have not repainted my wall pink. This shade of purple is notoriously hard to capture with digital photos, so I had to colour correct the photos to make the actual item accurate. The wall got distorted in the process XD

Purple embroidered hakama

Purple embroidered hakama Purple embroidered hakama Purple embroidered hakama

I am very excited to get to wear these, hopefully to a small local convention this weekend with my black kofurisode.

Art Gallery – Incredibly detailed vector art

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This piece was actually done for a contest on Gaia, and it was definitely one of the most amazing entries I received. As you may know, this particular furisode is incredibly special to me so of course I’m going to be biased when it comes to artwork of it. But look at the sheer amount of detail in this piece. The artist, Elsa Lee, put in a painstaking amount of work to faithfully reproduce the pattern on the kimono. What’s more, can you believe she did it with a mouse?! My hand hurts just thinking about it.

If you want to see the incredibly high-resolution version of this (and believe me, you do!), you can check it out on Elsa’s DeviantArt account

Vintage Irotomesode-komon hybrid

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When I saw the listing for this item, I fell hard and fast in love. The late Meiji/Early Taisho style designs around the hem looked so soft and gorgeous, the varied-width stripe rinzu silk was awesome, and I found the small scattered pattern combined with the hem design really unique. I was expecting people to fight for it, but somehow it slipped under the radar and I got it for a great price.

It’s quite small, but I expected that. I will be able to wear it for photos but I don’t think I’ll be comfortable wearing it out of the house, sadly. However, as a conversation piece it’s pretty priceless. Nowadays kimono fall staunchly into very specific categories ranging from informal komon with all-over patterns to very formal tomesode with designs only below the knees, usually with a crest. This one somehow manages to be both. Before World War II, kimono were worn much more frequently and it was more common to see ones that blurred or outright crossed these formality lines, but I’d never seen one that was a combination of such blatantly different designs.

Another interesting aspect of it is that the motifs (peony, narcissus, and nandina) are very Spring season-specific. It’s a formal crested kimono, generally these tend to have more celebratory or all-season motifs, to prevent the need from owning too many. Anyone who could afford to have a formal, crested kimono that could only be worn for a month (possibly two) out of the year clearly had an appreciation for the finer things in life, and the finances to back that up.

The auction listing showed this as a standard indigo blue, so I was more than a little confused when I opened the package and a purple kimono fell out. I saw the rinzu stripes and the little leaves and knew it was the right item, but it’s a completely different colour. I don’t mind at all though – I’ve wanted a dark purple kimono for a very long time but they usually go for much higher prices. The yuzen work on the hem is also even more soft and delicate than the auction pictures had led me to believe. It’s a gorgeous piece, and my only complaint is that I like it even more than I thought I would so I am sad that it doesn’t fit me very well.

Irotomeosode-Komon Hybrid

Irotomeosode-Komon Hybrid

Late Bloomer

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So today is Seijin no Hi (成人の日), or Coming of Age Day in Japan. Traditionally, it’s a day for young adults who have acheived the age of maturity, twenty, to celebrate. It’s traditional for young women to wear their brightest, most fun furisode (long-sleeved kimono), sort of as a way of saying goodbye to childish things. Once women get older and marry, they no longer wear this type of kimono, so for a lot of girls it’s the last “appropriate” time they’ll have to wear one.

This year, I will be turning thirty – not twenty. However, I also currently live with my folks (who are incredibly awesome people, and I will get to that again shortly), I work in a toy store, and aside from kimono I collect toys and comic books. It would not be a stretch to say that mentally, I have not really reached any reasonable level of maturity XD. So I figured I may as well bust out one of my furisode, since I rarely have the opportunity to wear them anyway. I chose to wear my mauve peony and bamboo furisode, since it’s beautiful and has special meaning to me – I bought it the first time I went to visit my best friend. I paired it up with my irridescent blue-green paving stone obi, and hot pink accessories. Oh, and an eyepatch. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I managed to use my mad coordination skills a week ago to scratch my cornea with a fork. Yes, you did read that right. And yes, it was as painful as you’d imagine. Thankfully it is getting better!

Botan Furisode

“Arrrrrr!”
Botan Furisode

Now, to one of the many reasons I have awesome parents. I really wanted to try doing a furisode-appropriate musubi with this outfit, but I don’t own any tools to tie them on myself. My amazing dad offered to help me out, and using his magical engineer brain figured out how to tie a fukura suzume (chubby sparrow) knot in a few mere minutes. Unfortunately, this obi has no core and is incredibly floppy. The bow looked great as long as I stood perfectly still. As soon as I moved, it would just sort of collapse in on itself and look like it had melted. He tried several times, but through no fault of his it just wasn’t going to work. This obi is just too soft. In the end I decided to work with the floppiness and make a sort of a poofy bunko/chou-chou bow-style knot. I think all things considered, it turned out quite well.
Botan Furisode

Botan Furisode

I also decided to go a bit nuts with my footwear and layered some pinky-ivory lace tabi over some dark purple tabi. I really like how this looks.
Botan Furisode