Tag: black

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

Classy and Creepy

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Happy Halloween! An appropriate day to raise myself from the dead, I think. I’ve just been incredibly busy, travelling and working and whatnot, but I do have some stuff in the works for the next little while.

I knew I had to get this one up today, though. The “obi” is too perfect for a classy and creepy outfit. Funny thing is, it’s not an obi at all. It’s two table runners from Target! One wrapped twice around the body, and one for the musubi. I wanted to keep the rest of the outfit subtle but still halloween-y so my bat menuki obidome and spiderweb haneri, and then remembered I had this lovely piece of soft spiderweb mesh I found in a remnant bin at the fabric store. It makes the perfect shawl, doesn’t it?

I love how this outfit feels seasonal and creepy but totally wearable, and I also love how the two star pieces are both found items that have nothing to do with kimono. The orange accessories were the finishing touch, and they add just the right amount of pop.

Items used in this coordination

Gothic Elegance

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Monochrome outfits that focus on texture and light have always caught my attention, but pieces like that don’t tend to show up on the secondary market very often. I decided I would just go ahead and work with what I’ve got, and I’m very glad I did! It was a bear to take photos of, and they don’t show the depth and richness of all these blacks and textures combined, but hopefully the close-ups help a bit.

I started with my juban with the black ruffle trim, which pretty much determined the colour of my outfit. I have to admit, it made my inner goth very happy. The mofuku kimono is smooth and solid, but it’s such a rich silk that it has an almost reflective quality which brings in another layer of tones and textures. I also added a black lace collar underneath everything, which adds to that gothic Victorian vibe and works so well. I really love the look of a lace collar under kimono and I’m glad I’ve invested in a black one now.

I bought a roll of eyelet lace and temporarily affixed it to a mofuku obi for another layer of lacy texture, and I could not love how it turned out more. I want to do it to a bunch of other obi now where it’s more visible. Black obiage and obijime finish off the outfit.

I’m not thrilled with how poofy the ohashori is here, because there’s so much excess fabric from the hiked-up hem of the kimono, but aside from that everything turned out exactly how I’d pictured it in my mind!

Items used in this coordination

The Seventies called; they want their outfit back

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I haven’t used this gorgeous showa-fabulous houmongi Sophie got me for my birthday a while back anywhere near frequently enough. I decided to have some fun with it today, and realised this obi (which I nearly sold! what was I thinking?) is the absolute perfect seventies-style match for it.

As timeless as the shape of a kimono may be, the patterns and colours are just as susceptible to trends as western clothing is. This particular shade of orange, especially paired with gold, and the big warm-toned and almost pop-art flowers, are very emblematic of the middle of the second half of the Showa era, from the late 60s to the early 80s. I could just as easily see this general colour and pattern scheme on a polyester pantsuit as I could on this particular coordination.

I decided to keep things relatively quiet with the accessories, since the kimono and obi are so flashy already. This soft leafy green picks up the green accents in the design so it seemed like the best choice, but the obijime did get a bit lost against the obi. Then I remembered this padded, decorative little cord I picked up at the Daiso last time I was in California. It’s a bit too thin and delicate to be a functional obijime by itself but it’s absolutely perfect wrapped around as an accent. The black and bold colours just call back to the kimono so well and I’m so happy I remembered I had it!

Items used in this coordination

2023, New Year’s Revelations

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Happy new year! This year I’m not going to make any resolutions, because I’ve learned that life always gets in the way. Instead, within the next few weeks I will be sharing a road map for the future of this blog. Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere and it’s not going to stop being about kimono. It’s all good news, I promise. I just need some time to formulate my thoughts.

In the meantime, starting the year off with a new coordination seemed like a good way to open things up. My initial plan was going to use my usagi shifuku tsukesage but I couldn’t find it. This relates back to my aforementioned plan and roadmap. My collection is that much of a mess.

I decided instead to use this kurotomesode with the tagasode motif, which seemed like a good kimono-related omen to start the year off with. I paired it with a gold obi with a celebratory tabane-noshi motif and white accessories, for a more traditional coordination than I usually do. I feel like these combine for an outfit that invites good luck and celebration of kimono for 2023, which I need right now!

I apologise for the lighting in these photos, up here in the wilds of Montreal it gets dark very early in the winter, so I don’t have much light to work with. I still think they convey the essence of the coordination so I’m happy enough.

This will be my only coordination for a few months, as I’m flying out to California again on the 7th. I’ll still be updating though! See you soon!

Items used in this coordination