Category: Mannequin Coordinations

Kabuki Glamour

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For today’s outfit I was inspired by the lush decadence and pure kabuki glamour of the costuming in Kokuho, which I reviewed earlier this week. This astonishingly big and heavy stage hikizuri was the perfect base, and for once I’m actually in season with it. I waffled between my black and white hakata tsuke-obi and this green short han-darari style, but in the end the bling and the drama of the darari won out. I also really like how it picks up the green in the ume branches of the kimono. They feel very theatrical together, don’t they?

Colour-wise, there was already more than enough going on so I figured white accessories with a lot of rich texture would be the best accent, and I’m glad I didn’t add in anything else. I went with my tried-and-true textured kiku haneri, the white and silver maruguke obijime from one  of my bridal sets, and my white obiage with red shibori clouds. I think they make an excellent combo!

This kimono is so big, and the obi so easy to put on, that I am seriously debating wearing this entire outfit myself and going to take photos in the snow before it melts. We’ll see if I end up finding the time and energy. (ed note: Don’t get your hopes up, the writer is tired)

Also one fun note about this kimono, there are still trace of oshiroi smudged onto the red inner layer. I should have taken a close up, now that I think about it.

 

Modern Valentine

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Pink, orange, and black may not be the most expected Valentine’s Day combination, but this is what happens when I’m thousands of miles away from my husband on a day to celebrate love, I guess. No, I kid! I was actually inspired by the incredible modern styling of aedam_furisode on Instagram to pull out a ruffled juban and a big loud furisode. Since the only ruffled juban I own is black, the rest of the outfit had to be built around that. I brought out this bright salmon-pink gosho-guruma (royal cart) furisode, since I knew it had some stark black outlines on it, and then grabbed my trusty orange hakata chuuya obi because it matches the peonies on this kimono so well. If I’m being honest, any excuse to use this obi is a good one.

To break up the tonal similarities of the salmon kimono and orange obi, as well as reinforce the non-traditional vibe and aedam style, I used black cotton lace as a sort of obiage and shigoki-obi, as well as running it through the obi-musubi. It also makes the black ruffles feel more cohesive I think, and brings more attention to the stark black outline of the gosho-guruma motif on the kimono. Without the lace I think this would have just felt confusing and the exposed juban more like an afterthought or an accident, but with the punches of black accessories it pulls everything together. A black obijime tied in a modified kokoro-musubi was the final touch. It’s too short to do a normal one, but if you’re looking for instructions I made a tutorial years ago which you can find here.

Are you doing anything special for valentine’s day? Since I’m so far from Keith, I’m going out for bbq chicken with my folks later tonight. Ahhh, middle age. So romantic. But hey, at least I don’t have to buy him honmei-choco this year!

 

Soft blushing pink

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By now you’ve likely heard the viral, catchy, colour-mixing song from Dokodemo Jamboree and either you love it or you hate it. But either way, it’s probably stuck in your head! It was certainly stuck in mine while I was trying to come up with a cute coordination, so I decided to go in a monochrome direction and have a bit of fun making a video to go with this post. I am trying to be a bit more active on short-form reel platforms, but I am old and tired and prefer being behind the camera nowadays. Interacting with my TikTok or Youtube accounts will help me find the motivation to keep up with them.

I have plenty of items in multiple colours I could have “combined” to do this, but soft pink is always a really safe and comforting fallback, and I suspected these two pieces, with their warm blush backgrounds and bright pops of colour, would work really well together. While it’s not really “proper” to have a kimono and obi be the exact same like this, you know I love bending the rules. I just made sure the rest of my kitsuke was as perfect as I was capable of assembling considering how out of practice I am.

Toss in a few more accessories in a deeper shade of the same salmon pink and voila! It might not be vibrant or “PINKU!”, but it makes me happy and nowadays isn’t that the important part? I have to find joy wherever I can. You should too! Whether that be unconventional combinations, making meme videos, putting a kimono on the fake Labubu you found in a parking lot, or anything else people might deem frivolous or silly. If it brings a smile to your face in these dark times and doesn’t hurt others, do it unapologetically.

Also, I’m trying out a new setup for photos that allows me to work in my bedroom instead of taking over my parents’ living room. I might even be able to bring it with me to California because it all collapses down, but I definitely can’t bring the mannequin. Let me know what you think!

 

Poppies and Promises

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Those of you who’ve been around for a while know I make a point of keeping an eye out for items with a poppy motif, since my mother’s name is Poppy. They’re doubly special to me now since orange poppies are also the state flower of California, my new home. I got this kimono from Sasa and I’ve had it for quite a while and I knew I wanted to coordinate it before I headed back to California in a few weeks. My kitsuke skills are a little rusty, since it’s been over a year but once I got into it muscle memory took over and I think I did alright, all things considered.

In person this houmongi a gorgeous pale minty colour that’s basically impossible to capture digitally. My mobile phone actually did a better job so that’s where these photos are from, but it’s still not quite accurate. It really makes the red, orange, and yellow poppies… well… pop. I used my beloved orange hakata chuya obi since it’s such a perfect match to the flowers, and the green obijime is almost the exact same bright mint as the kimono so that was a no-brainer.

I had to take these photos in a different spot in our living room due to things still being upside-down from the fire I mentioned a while back, but I think it works for now. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do another mannequin coordination since I head back to California in a few weeks, but I’ve got lots of fun DIY projects, reviews, and little field trips in the works so hopefully those will tide us all over for a bit 🙂

Items used in this coordination

Life, the Universe and Everything

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This is one of those coordinations I’ve wanted to do from the very moment I got this kimono, and have just been putting off for one reason or another for years. It was high time I fixed that! This past Thursday was my 42nd birthday, and this coordinate has auspicious motifs of hayama and kagami (arrows and mirrors) and my favourite colour (teal) so I decided it was finally time to do it.

This kimono is definitely interesting – it’s brighter and more bold than most kurotomesode of the era, and it’s definitely very long for its age. The hem has a slight roll to it, so it’s a bit heavier than the rest of the fabric. This, along with the length, lead me to suspect it was a hikizuri, meant to be worn trailing. I’d like to think it may have been a geisha’s piece, worn at the new year, but this is just a suspicion of mine and I have no way to verify it. Whatever it is, I absolutely love it and should coordinate it more often.

The cool afternoon lighting in my living room makes the teal look bluer in these photos, but it definitely sits right between green and blue in person. I decided to use reds and blues in the accessories to emphasize how bold and punchy this piece is, and to sort of reinforce the geisha-adjacent feel of it. I also decided to let it drape, hikizuri style, to show off the beautiful flow of it, and tied the obi wider than normal to match. The collars are a bit wonky, but sometimes I just cannot get them to cooperate due to the shape of the mannequin. Alas.

This birthday has been a good one and I have very upbeat feelings about this coming loop around the sun. I hope I can share lots of new content and great news with you all soon!

Items used in this coordination