Category: Events

GeekFest Montreal, in kimono

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Yesterday, I attended the first GeekFest MTL with my friends Dave and Sophie. It was a lot of fun. There were definitely some growing pains that will hopefully be dealt with before next year, but overall it was a worthwhile experience. There were people in all sorts of cosplay, Japanese fashion, LARP outfits, and whatnot, so I figured it would be a great time to bust out a kimono.

I’d actually planned to wear this outfit to a convention last year but I ended up injuring myself and being unable to wear it, so when this opportunity presented itself I decided to get it out of the cabinet. I wore my synthetic mauve komon with one of the amazing vintage obi I got in a bundle last year, and blue and red accessories. I also got to wear the adorable moon and flower obidome Kansai_gal gave me and the amazing kimono cape my grandmother knit. I will be taking better photos of these things during the week, but for now you can see them on me!

The photographer at the convention was kind enough to let me use his drape and lighting setup while he wasn’t using this, so I got my friend Sophie to take this nice studio-style portrait of me! The little guy hanging off my obi is a stuffed octopus with a bandaid on his head. I saw him in the dealer room and had to buy one! My grandmother knit me this amazing cape, to wear with kimono. It’s comfortable, and warm, and I love how it looks. I can’t wait for her to see me wearing it.

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This obi was virtually impossible to tie – the tesaki was so short I could barely wrap it around myself twice, let alone save enough to actually tie to the taresaki. I ended up having to remove the hardware from a tsuke-obi, use a bulldog clip and two extra himo, and pray to the gods of kitsuke that it would hold. Thankfully, it not only survived four car trips and five hours at the convention, it also survived dinner and dessert, and a rather inelegant exit out of a two-door Hyundai while I was being sick to my stomach. I was quite proud of myself.

There are many other pictures available in this album on my Facebook account. However, in some of them I am holding a large foam sword that looks alarmingly and realistically like male genitalia, so please be aware of this before clicking.

Sushi dinner with Amelie

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Last night, I met up with Amelie and we dressed up and went for delicious sushi near her place. I decided to wear my new black komon with a cream hanhaba obi and haori, and Amelie wore her beautiful new pastel bingata-ish komon with a pretty blue nagoya obi.

Sushi avec Amelie

I got a bit matchy-moo and even busted out a coordinating purse. I do love how the whole outfit came together.
Sushi avec Amelie

I also tried karuta musubi for the first time and I am totally in love. It’s super easy to tie, and incredibly comfortable if you’re going for a car ride or going to be sitting western-style in a chair for long periods of time. I also think it looks like a cute little bow.
Sushi avec Amelie

I really love how the blue of Amelie’s obi picked up on the pale blue in her kimono.
Sushi avec Amelie

And if anyone wonders how one keeps warm in kimono in sub-zero temperatures, the answer is lots of layers and lots of accessories. I wore footless tights under my kimono and tabi and was quite toasty.
Sushi avec Amelie

Sushi avec Amelie

Of course, the star of the night was the sushi. We ordered waaaay too much food, but that’s okay. It was delicious!
Sushi avec Amelie

Sushi avec Amelie

And a bonus, here we are laughing like idiots!
Sushi avec Amelie

What were we laughing at? The discovery of what happens when you eat way too much sushi in kimono
Sushi avec Amelie
(Don’t worry, I am going to fix it for her)

Omake – we came across this really awesome light fixture in a store near the restaurant. It was a branch covered in acrylic Sakura flowers with LEDs that slowly changed colour. It was so pretty!
Sushi avec Amelie
Sushi avec Amelie Sushi avec Amelie

Shabu-shabu with Ame and Mischie!

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Tonight I met up with a few of the awesome girls from the Immortal Geisha forums for a warming dinner of shabu-shabu. It’s cold and damp and snowy and icy here, so I decided to wear my black, white, and red wool kimono and hike it up a bit with some boots. I figured it would be a great time to wear my new red-orange Tokaido obi, and had a bit of fun accessorizing with a sandy beige and red keffiyeh (shemagh).

Shabu Shabu

Ame went along the same lines and wore an adorable black wool ensemble, but mischie was very brave and wore a gorgeous black silk houmongi with ume. It was entirely accidental, but we were all wearing black, white, and red outfits!

Shabu Shabu Shabu Shabu
Shabu Shabu

The food was delicious. We went to Kagayaki Shabu-Shabu in Montreal’s Chinatown. It was warming and flavourful and perfect for the weather.

Shabu Shabu
Shabu Shabu

After we finished dinner, we went to a fancy hotel nearby to take photos over their gorgeous koi pond and to relax and have a drink. As usual, I could not resist being a giant ham. Look! Fishies!
Shabu Shabu

Ame with her Pink Lady
Shabu Shabu

Mischie with a cappucino (in a super pretty cup!)
Shabu Shabu

And me being a jackass with a Bloody Cesar. Hey baby, come here often?
Shabu Shabu

I had a great time, and can’t wait to have another kimono meetup. Maybe not until it warms up a little though!

Birthday dinner at Sakura

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My birthday is on this coming Tuesday, but I hate having long, relaxing dinners (especially ones with alcohol involved) during the work-week, so I invited a few friends and my folks to come dinner at a restaurant I’d been wanting to try, Sakura on de la Montagne. I read that the waitresses and staff wore kimono, so I figured I would not stand out too much if I wore one too. What I was not anticipating is that the entire restaurant staff would be Japanese and dressed in simple komon and relatively informal obi. Enter one gigantic white person in a rather dressy kimono and even dressier obi, and hilarity ensues.

I chose to wear an outfit comprised of nothing but gifts, and I still cannot believe how perfectly everything worked out. I paired the pink Takara houmongi from Arian with the Stations of the Tokaido obi from Suara, and finished it off with a beautiful haneri from Naomi and obiage and obijime from my dear friend Jeff. Even the shawl was a gift – my grandmother crocheted it.

The restaurant was absolutely lovely. The decor was decidedly Japanese and we sat in a tatami room, but it was subtle and tasteful – not a cheesy theme restaurant, which unfortunately are the norm around here. The owner, Ishii Noriko-san, was incredibly kind and fussed over my outfit repeatedly. She’s offered to contact a Japanese tutor for me, and insisted I come back again in kimono. The food was delicious and the wait staff were all very kind. They allowed me to order off the “other” menu – the one intended for the Japanese clientele, and I had unadon. They also found out the dinner was for my birthday, and brought the table some delicious green tea ice cream (mine had a sparkler in it!) as well as a special box of yokan for me. I was incredibly touched.

My mother took a photo of Noriko-san and I. Doesn’t she look stylish? I loved her obi so much! This photo also does a great job of illustrating why clothing made for the average Japanese woman is so difficult for me to wear.

Uchikake in the front receiving room

Delicious courses of dinner – shrimp gyoza, salad, sushi, dessert.

Delicious unadon. This wasn’t on the regular menu, I had to special-order it from the “Japanese people” menu XD. I love me some grilled eel. Next time though, I think I will try the katsudon!

I was incredibly surprised and touched when Noriko-san came in with my special birthday yokan.

I also received some incredibly sweet gifts, Andy got me a DVD of a spy series I know he is very fond of, The Sandbaggers, and Leslie gave me two beautiful antique woodblock prints by Kunisada that she purchased in Japan quite a while ago. I was so touched. The whole evening was wonderful.

This is Hallowe’en, everybody make a scene!

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I was invited to a party on October 30th this year, and I figured it was high time I broke out my Gothic Landscape houmongi. I’d originally wanted to wear it with my crow obi but I still haven’t had the opportunity to repair it. Oops! I figured in the spirit of all things Creepy and Spooky, I’d see about pairing it up with my spider obi instead. I’ve been hesitant about this combo since the kimono and the obi are so close in colour, but my salvation arrived in the mail on the Thursday before the party, in a boxful of shigoki obi. A splash of red was the perfect way to visually separate the two pieces as well as tie in the leaves on the obi. It also helped that one of the shigoki had tassels in the exact same shade as the glorious spiderweb haneri from Naomi.

I decided to further emphasize the spooky theme of the ensemble with accessories – I made myself a cute little hairband with black feathers, a raggedy purple “veil” and a sparkly little spider. I used some of the same tulle from the veil to make a big puffy bow to stick in my obi. Unfortunately, I spent nearly two hours in the car before I was able to get these photos, so my obi musubi has gotten sort of squished and lopsided 🙁

Having fun (after a few drinks) with some of the awesome decorations.

A close up of the amazing spider haneri

I even did my nails to suit the theme. Orange with black spiders and rhinestones! Again, I had fun wit the decorations for this pic

The party was a huge blast. Unfortunately, I had to get out of the kimono around 2 in the morning. I’d been drinking and going to the bathroom was starting to become a challenge! It also started snowing pretty profusely that night and I was worried about ruining my kimono on the way home.