Hello! I am very sorry I haven’t been around lately. I started working full-time for the first time in over a decade and it really knocked me for a loop. I also spent a month in California back in November, and this gorgeous vintage kurotomesode happened to follow me home. Part of me wanted to share it right away but then I realised the arrow motif was very reminiscent of hamaya and was therefore absolutely perfect for a New Year’s coordinate. I felt that New Year’s Day was a perfect day to re-devote myself to this blog. It’s not a resolution, per se, because I am utterly terrible at keeping those, but it did seem like a good day to set a new goal.
I did debate going “proper” and pairing this piece with a typical gold fukuro obi and white accessories, but as usual my love for dusty vintage colours won out and I ran with this maru obi instead. One of the motifs on it is sho-chiku-bai or the three friends of winter, a lucky winter motif, so it felt appropriate nonetheless. Red accessories and a textured white haneri added a bit of punch without stealing the focus, and I’m quite pleased with the end result.
Here’s to a year of health, happiness, and hope. A year of finding the time and the passion to focus on what makes you feel happy and fulfilled. I am going to make a concerted effort to devote more time to my hobbies, both kimono and my miniatures. I already have several outfits and entries planned out for the next little while, so I just need to keep this motivation and momentum going. How about you? What are your hopes and goals for 2022? I’d love to know, so please leave a comment!
Items used in this coordination
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- Arrow Kurotomesode
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- Beige Maru side 2
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- Red Shibori
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- Red Furisode
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- Textured Kiku
Bebe Taian
CHOKO Blog
Gion Kobu
As the clock strikes midnight of January 1st, so too will our new year begin in 2021. The first month of this new decade is about living with joy and sharing meaningful moments and experiences alike. As mentioned previously 2020 was a crazy year, but despite being forced into stay-at-home mode in March, I’ve managed to squeeze the hell out of every vacation and activity you’d find me doing, including the occasional trip to Ikea for those pesky little tables for my work and home office setup. It was also an amazing opportunity to connect personally with friends, family, and complete strangers all over the world who reached out and told us how much they value their friends. That’s why it’s only normal to feel tired. Everyone has had a rough 2019! It really was just one damn thing after another while we were trying our darnedest to make sense of a highly unpredictable global situation. And the fact is that I can only handle a certain amount of stress, which goes down significantly if the level of negativity can’t be maintained at least once per week. So it’s been a full on year and I hope to give every…