Outfit of the Week: Valentine’s Day!

I may be single, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get caught up in the ridiculous fluffy commercialism of Valentine’s Day, right? There are plenty of folks in my life whom I love. So I decided that for this week, I’d try to come up with a sort of thematic outfit. I started with this black wool komon I got from Ame a while back. The red and white designs, from a distance, remind me of hearts and snowflakes, which seemed perfect for a love-related holiday this time of year. The kimono came with a matching haori, but I decided to bring a bit of brightness to it with my well-worn red haori and a red hakata obi. I think this outfit is definitely cute and lovely, without being overly frilly or twee.

Items used in this coordination

Outfit of the Week: Lily Furi Coordination

After deciding to make this a regular feature, I started planning out all sorts of outfits. Seasonally appropriate outfits, special combinations for holidays, etc. And then this lily furisode arrived and all my plans flew right out the window! I couldn’t wait to do something with it. I had this really lovely warm gold fukuro obi with subtle green and pink accents from the obi bundle eons ago, and it seemed like the perfect complement to the rich green of the kimono. I also happened to have just about the perfect obidome for this kimono, a gold oval with pink lilies on it!

Unfortunately, this also reminded me how long it’s been since I tied anything other than a simple hanhaba or nagoya obi, and I ended up having to improvise a sort of large-scale cho-cho/bunko hybrid musubi. It’s not ideal, but I think it worked out alright.

Items used in this coordination

New Feature: Outfit of the week!

Everyone, please say hello to the newest contributor to this blog. Her name is Tsukiko, she has no head, and she will be modelling outfits and coords that are either too small or too fragile for me to wear myself. As you probably know, my health is still not fantastic, and dressing myself simply for photoshoots is tiring and not ideal. Hopefully having Tsukiko around will encourage me to post more frequently! I am aiming to do one coordination a week, but we’ll see how long that lasts 😉

Today’s coordination was mostly an excuse to use this gorgeous antique irotomesode/komon hybrid. I have been in love with this thing since I received it, but it’s incredibly delicate and fragile silk and it’s very tiny. Realistically, even if I lost a hundred pounds, it still would not fit me. I paired it with a vintage remake obi I love to bits that’s also awkwardly small, and I love how soft and dusty they feel together. The obiage, obijime, and haneri are all modern, but they have a similarly desaturated pastel feel and I think they look perfect with the kimono. Please click on the images to see larger versions.

Items used in this coordination