Tag: purple

Late Bloomer

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So today is Seijin no Hi (成人の日), or Coming of Age Day in Japan. Traditionally, it’s a day for young adults who have acheived the age of maturity, twenty, to celebrate. It’s traditional for young women to wear their brightest, most fun furisode (long-sleeved kimono), sort of as a way of saying goodbye to childish things. Once women get older and marry, they no longer wear this type of kimono, so for a lot of girls it’s the last “appropriate” time they’ll have to wear one.

This year, I will be turning thirty – not twenty. However, I also currently live with my folks (who are incredibly awesome people, and I will get to that again shortly), I work in a toy store, and aside from kimono I collect toys and comic books. It would not be a stretch to say that mentally, I have not really reached any reasonable level of maturity XD. So I figured I may as well bust out one of my furisode, since I rarely have the opportunity to wear them anyway. I chose to wear my mauve peony and bamboo furisode, since it’s beautiful and has special meaning to me – I bought it the first time I went to visit my best friend. I paired it up with my irridescent blue-green paving stone obi, and hot pink accessories. Oh, and an eyepatch. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I managed to use my mad coordination skills a week ago to scratch my cornea with a fork. Yes, you did read that right. And yes, it was as painful as you’d imagine. Thankfully it is getting better!

Botan Furisode

“Arrrrrr!”
Botan Furisode

Now, to one of the many reasons I have awesome parents. I really wanted to try doing a furisode-appropriate musubi with this outfit, but I don’t own any tools to tie them on myself. My amazing dad offered to help me out, and using his magical engineer brain figured out how to tie a fukura suzume (chubby sparrow) knot in a few mere minutes. Unfortunately, this obi has no core and is incredibly floppy. The bow looked great as long as I stood perfectly still. As soon as I moved, it would just sort of collapse in on itself and look like it had melted. He tried several times, but through no fault of his it just wasn’t going to work. This obi is just too soft. In the end I decided to work with the floppiness and make a sort of a poofy bunko/chou-chou bow-style knot. I think all things considered, it turned out quite well.
Botan Furisode

Botan Furisode

I also decided to go a bit nuts with my footwear and layered some pinky-ivory lace tabi over some dark purple tabi. I really like how this looks.
Botan Furisode

Pretty new hanhaba obi

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I realized recently that I had no hanhaba obi that were not hakata weave. I told myself I should probably remedy that and then promptly got distracted by bigger and shinier things. Such is life. Thankfully, I stumbled across the listing for this little beauty on eBay with less than a few hours to go, tossed out a bid, and won it for a song. The pictures portrayed it as sort of a flat purple with yellow which seemed cute but not particularly exceptional. Imagine my pleased surprise when I opened the mail to discover a rich, shimmering aubergine with bronze accents and a bronzey-gold back side. I am not sure what I’m going to wear it with yet, but it’s beautiful, multi-seasonal, and dressy enough to wear with more slightly formal kimono. I’m so pleased!

Dressy Hanhaba Obi

Dressy Hanhaba Obi Dressy Hanhaba Obi

This is Hallowe’en, everybody make a scene!

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I was invited to a party on October 30th this year, and I figured it was high time I broke out my Gothic Landscape houmongi. I’d originally wanted to wear it with my crow obi but I still haven’t had the opportunity to repair it. Oops! I figured in the spirit of all things Creepy and Spooky, I’d see about pairing it up with my spider obi instead. I’ve been hesitant about this combo since the kimono and the obi are so close in colour, but my salvation arrived in the mail on the Thursday before the party, in a boxful of shigoki obi. A splash of red was the perfect way to visually separate the two pieces as well as tie in the leaves on the obi. It also helped that one of the shigoki had tassels in the exact same shade as the glorious spiderweb haneri from Naomi.

I decided to further emphasize the spooky theme of the ensemble with accessories – I made myself a cute little hairband with black feathers, a raggedy purple “veil” and a sparkly little spider. I used some of the same tulle from the veil to make a big puffy bow to stick in my obi. Unfortunately, I spent nearly two hours in the car before I was able to get these photos, so my obi musubi has gotten sort of squished and lopsided 🙁

Having fun (after a few drinks) with some of the awesome decorations.

A close up of the amazing spider haneri

I even did my nails to suit the theme. Orange with black spiders and rhinestones! Again, I had fun wit the decorations for this pic

The party was a huge blast. Unfortunately, I had to get out of the kimono around 2 in the morning. I’d been drinking and going to the bathroom was starting to become a challenge! It also started snowing pretty profusely that night and I was worried about ruining my kimono on the way home.

Montreal ToyCon October 2010

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So as some of you may know, I work in just about the coolest toy store in the universe and twice a year we organze a toy convention. I usually use it as an excuse to wear kimono, and this year was no exception. I’ve been wanting to wear all these pieces for a long time now, and I’m so glad everything came together so well. The kimono is way too small so I could not swing an ohashori, but it’s a casual enough outfit that I think it’s sort of irrelevant.

I decided to pair up the purple yabane I bought last year in Boulder with the meisen haori I bought this year. I paired them up with black and yellow accessories; a black obi with yellow, purple, and orange karabana, the same yellow shibori obiage and hakata obijime I wear with pretty much everything lately, a pretty black haneri from Naomi, crazy black weiner dog tabi from Kansai_Gal, and my new moon-shaped obidome. I feel like this is a very cohesive outfit, every colour is echoed on at least one other item, so it all ties together well.

And a close-up of the best tabi ever:

If anyone needs further evidence that my job is indeed incredibly awesome, one of the cosplayers at the con allowed me to wear his handmade Ghostbusters Proton Pack and take a few photos. It was surprisingly comfy, even with the obi!

In the dealer’s room, I found an awesome little bit of nostalgia – the original Crystal Swift Wind, She-Ra’s mangical flying unicorn/pegasus. I had one of these when I was a little girl, but the plastic was thin and brittle, and someone (most likely me) stepped on her at some point and she shattered. Unfortunately, she was way out of my budget for the day, especially for a used toy, so I had to say my goodbyes. But not before getting a picture of me pouting with her.

Thanks for looking! If you’d like to see pictures of the convention itself, there is an album on my Facebook that is viewable by following that link.

New kimono and obi

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It’s difficult to get everything I own catalogued when I keep buying new things! Nothing terribly exciting to see here, just posting reference photos of some of the new komon and hakata obi I’ve acquired recently. I also got a new iromuji not long ago, but since I haven’t catalogued my other iromuji yet, I plan to just do them all together.

Taisho Pink Ume Komon


This is a gorgeous vintage piece. It’s covered in thick ume branches and sweet flowers, a few of which are outlined in gold and silver. I snagged this for an amazing price, due to a few unfortunate water spots on the front. They’re not terribly visible, and I’m going to look into removing them eventually.

Purple Lamé Komon


This is the kimono I wore here, so yes, if you’re a regular reader (thank you!) you’ve seen it before. It’s a bit of a weird thing, being heavy lined synthetic, but covered in high-summer motifs. If you can’t be warm, at least you can think warm!

Striped Mauve Komon


This is the kimono I wore here. It’s a nice, big, synthetic piece that has an old feel to it. Cute multi-season designs of kiku (chrysanthemum), sakura (cherry blossom), and yukiwa (snow crystal design).

Pink and White Hakata Obi


A sweet pale pink and white hakata fukuro obi that I got for a steal, due to a few spots of rust discolouration on the ends. I figure so long as it’s tied in something other than otaiko musubi, it won’t ever be visible. Haven’t worn it yet, but I’m looking forward to it!

Reversible Red and White Hakata



Two, two, two obi in one! One side is a gorgeous, dramatic white-on-red hakata, and the other is a great versatile bright red with gold, silver, and white diamonds and various designs. I’m shocked this didn’t sell for more, and thrilled that I won it.