Tag: modern

Yellow Iris Ikebana

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Winter continues to be horrible here in Montreal, so when I saw these gorgeous white and yellow iris flowers for sale I thought they’d be a great way to bring a little sunshine into my dreary corner of the world.

I’ve always loved irises, they’re one of my favourite flowers. I love how showy and interesting and almost sculptural they are, and I love the absolutely incredible spectrum of colours they come in. They were, after all, very aptly named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow.

Since they have such a wonderful, almost architectural quality, I wanted to create a very modern and fluid-looking arrangement and I feel like I succeeded well here. I really love the flow of this piece, and how balanced it feels. The big waxy leaves (I admit I have no idea what they are, I just liked the way they looked) form a great anchor and textural contrast, as well as hiding the kenzan. I saved the protective outer leaves of the flowers as I was trimming them down, and I think they add the perfect sharp finishing touch. This is one of those arrangements that came without a huge amount of forethought and succeeded in spite (or because?) of it? It just flowed very naturally from beginning to end, and I love the finished product.

Never too old to play with dolls

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Now we come to the last of my ridiculously indulgent birthday coordinations using items from last month’s kimono bazaar. I fell in love with this obi the moment I laid eyes on it – the dolls are just too cute for words.

The colours in it paired up perfectly with the colours in this vintage-feeling komon Naomi gave me several years back. I also happened to have a haneri and obiage that were a spot-on match for the olive green tones in the kimono. I was a little stumped when it came to the obijime until I remembered I have this one that is an exact match for the navy background and pink momiji leaves in the kimono. I couldn’t be happier by how well every item in this coordination calls back to at least one other item.

Quick note – I am in the process of changing how images are stored. I used to upload them all to my flickr account and then create linked galleries, but they are now confining free accounts and it’s a system I’ve always found a little inefficient anyway. I used to get traffic from there but I don’t any longer, so I’m going through the arduous task of downloading all my content, hosting it locally, and editing every single entry that contains images from flickr. If you’re browsing and see things broken or missing, please be patient! Thanks for understanding!

Items used in this coordination

Mature Elegance

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Isn’t it funny how the older I get, the more my tastes gravitate to the bright and youthful? I’m turning 37 tomorrow and somehow I keep finding myself accumulating boldly coloured furisode and things. When I was younger, I was drawn to more shibui styles, and now I guess I’m making up for lost time?

This gorgeous bamboo houmongi is a lovely exception, I think. It’s yet another of my purchases from the kimono bazaar last month and I thought it lent itself quite well to a more elegant coordination that would still allow me to express myself through pattern and colour. The bamboo leaves are in a lovely range of blues, reds, oranges, and purples, which gave me a lot of selection to work with.

My navy and gold tiger’s eye tsuke-obi is making yet another appearance here. For a silly impulse purchase I made, it’s turning out to be one of my most weirdly versatile and beloved items. It tied in very well with the kimono, and I decided to pull out the warm maroon for the rest of the accessories. The beautiful obidome from Pinto Pony Productions worked well against the ivory backdrop here too, rotated onto its side for a little more drama.

This definitely feels like a more traditional and elegant sort of outfit, appropriate for a woman my age. But it’s not boring or quiet, it’s still got some lovely impact and personality, which is exactly what I was aiming for!

Items used in this coordination

It’s My Party…

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And I’ll… uh… dress up the mannequin if I want to? My birthday is rapidly approaching so for the month of November, I’m just going to do coordinations and outfits based on what speaks to me at the moment. I decided it was time to feature some more of the stuff I got as early birthday gifts at the kimono bazaar last month and this furisode was crying out to be shown off, so here we go!

I honestly have no idea why I was so drawn to this particular furisode when I saw it. I tend to prefer cool-toned colours, don’t particularly like coral or orange, and think Heian-era cart motifs look a  bit like deformed marshmallows. And yet, as soon as I saw this piece, I knew it was coming home with me.

I figured I would lean in to the colour scheme, despite it being comprised of shades that aren’t particularly to my taste, so I used orange and coral accessories. Initially, I’d planned to use an obi with orange clouds and gold grasses, and while I still think it would look great with the kimono, I decided to veer off and use this gold one with hits of orange and seafoam green. I played up the green and gold with a kasane eri as well, which is something I should really do more frequently.

And of course, I thought I’d give the new sanjuhimo I made a try. It really does make things so much less of a hassle! I sort of improvised this musubi, and I think it turned out quite fun and pretty.

As much as I loved doing the Halloween Yokai project, I was really in the mood to just make an outfit based on what looked pretty, rather than having to focus on layers of meaning and symbolism. This absolutely fit the bill!

If by some ridiculous miracle you want to send me a birthday gift, I have wishlists on Amazon, Pinterest, and Tokyo Otaku Mode, or you can always PayPal me a few bucks. Any money received as gifts from here goes right back into the blog and maintaining my collection. Right now my two main priorities are a set of articulated arms for the mannequin, and more tatoushi for storage and organisation.

Items used in this coordination

Elemental Basics Ikebana

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A very clean and modern arrangement for today. My initial plan was for a few flowers anchored in a fair bit of water, but then I found this beautiful dense white mum that I knew would fit perfectly in this glass cube.

The stone at the bottom helps ground everything but makes sure the focus remains on the bloom. I really like how uncluttered the whole piece is, and I realised as I was assembling it that I had nods to all the elements working in tandem. The water is self-evident, and the stone clearly echoes the earth. The glass is transformed by fire, and the flower is balanced between water and air. I don’t normally post so many photos but this arrangement looked neat and unique from different angles, and I couldn’t resist it.

As this is the last weekend of the month, August’s #monokimono outfit should have gone up today but I’ve had rather a long week, I’m having a bad pain day, and I don’t have the energy to wrestle with the mannequin. It will be posted tomorrow!