Tag: pink

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!

 

A pop of sentiment

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Isn’t it funny how cyclical life can be? The last kitsuke coordination I did before leaving Montreal last time involved poppies, and now the last ikebana I’ve done before leaving California involved poppies.

Last weekend, Keith and I were in Palm Springs (doing an escape room – unrelated but super fun!) and I figured while were there we’d check out one of the local florists. I was running under the assumption they’d have more variety than the supermarket near home and typically I’d be right but they’d done a big event that morning and were running low on stock. I found this bundle of pink and white poppies in various levels of bloom and decided I could do something neat with them once I let the buds open up a bit.

Unfortunately, the following day I learnt the very important lesson of Don’t Put Your Hand In The Blender While It’s Plugged In. Thankfully I only pulsed one finger for a fraction of a second, and while there’s a fair bit of gnarly tissue damage it could have been so much worse. But I couldn’t exactly use my hand, or even hold the scissors I needed to cut the stems. I was worried they’d wilt before I had the chance to feature them.

So imagine my surprise when a beautiful set of proper wide-handled ikebana shears showed up in the mail on Tuesday, courtesy of my lovely friend Andrea.

I decided to just let the flowers shine, featuring them at different heights and different levels of open. I love the contrast, and how sculptural the stems are. A bit of foliage to balance things out, and the arrangement essentially put itself together. I could not be happier with it!

Beautiful Belated Birthday Blooms

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Last month on Sunday the 16th, I celebrated my 44th birthday. My husband and I go to pub trivia every Monday with some friends and the day after my birthday, our friends Kelsey and Emilie showed up with this beautiful bouquet of zinnias from their garden for me. I knew I wanted to make an arrangement with them as soon as I got home!

The colours they planted just happen to be the same ones in the lesbian sunset pride flag, (which we all had a good chuckle about) so I figured this rainbow-shaped vase would be the perfect vessel. It’s subtle but still quite thematic.

Rather than over-complicate and clutter the arrangement with separate flowers and foliage, I decided to focus entirely on the bright, blousy flowers themselves, arranging them into a gentle but somewhat architectural-feeling modern diagonal to contrast with the organic curve of the vase.

They lasted roughly a week and brought a smile to my face every time I saw them in our kitchen.

(Also if anyone is curious, our team is currently ranked first at our local venue and third overall in the regional standings. Go team Pet The Dogs!)

 

Autumn Fairy Tale

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Both this kimono and this obi are nearly impossible to coordinate. I’ve used the kimono before, but despite having had this obi in my possession for nearly a year now, I’d never found a good way to use it. Last night it came to me while I was soaking in the bath, as many great ideas do.

They both have a sort of fantastical, storybook, decidedly un-Japanese vibe to them. The kimono has always reminded me of The Moomins and other Scandinavian childrens’ books, and the obi has a vaguely Middle-Eastern fantasy feel to it that wouldn’t be out of place in One Thousand and One Nights. I also thought the green and brown would complement each other very well, and the gold accents would echo each other nicely too.

Was I right, or was I right? I’m over the moon with how these pieces look together. I decided go with pink accessories to make the pink trees in the kimono stand out a bit more, since they can get a bit lost against the white hill. They also help to add a touch of light and contrast between the kimono and obi, which are both quite dark. It worked very well, I think. From a distance they almost read as white, just like the trees do, but when you get close you get this lovely surprise. There are also tiny pink and gold botan on the haneri, which are decidedly out of season but the colours worked so well I had to run with it. Next time I might add a gold date-eri to break things up a little further, but I think it works fine without it too. It also just occurred to me that my pink lace haori would look amazing with this too, so I will have to try that sometime.

Another neat thing about this outfit is that all the items aside from the obijime are significantly larger than average, which means I might be able to wear it if I ever have the energy to dress myself again. Something to look forward to, maybe?

Items used in this coordination