Tag: stage

Kabuki Glamour

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For today’s outfit I was inspired by the lush decadence and pure kabuki glamour of the costuming in Kokuho, which I reviewed earlier this week. This astonishingly big and heavy stage hikizuri was the perfect base, and for once I’m actually in season with it. I waffled between my black and white hakata tsuke-obi and this green short han-darari style, but in the end the bling and the drama of the darari won out. I also really like how it picks up the green in the ume branches of the kimono. They feel very theatrical together, don’t they?

Colour-wise, there was already more than enough going on so I figured white accessories with a lot of rich texture would be the best accent, and I’m glad I didn’t add in anything else. I went with my tried-and-true textured kiku haneri, the white and silver maruguke obijime from one  of my bridal sets, and my white obiage with red shibori clouds. I think they make an excellent combo!

This kimono is so big, and the obi so easy to put on, that I am seriously debating wearing this entire outfit myself and going to take photos in the snow before it melts. We’ll see if I end up finding the time and energy. (ed note: Don’t get your hopes up, the writer is tired)

Also one fun note about this kimono, there are still trace of oshiroi smudged onto the red inner layer. I should have taken a close up, now that I think about it.

 

Winter Hikizuri in Late Summer

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Recently the naughty voice in my head told me to browse eBay, despite having no job and no storage space. I figured browsing hikizuri would keep me safe as they tend to be out of my price range anyway. Unfortunately, I listened to the naughty voice, found a gorgeous ume piece with multiple extra layers that happened to be a huge size, and now this stunner is now all mine! I’m fairly certain it will fit, but right now it’s just way too hot to wear something with so many layers and so much padding. I am looking forward to putting it on eventually, but in the meantime I couldn’t wait to put it on the mannequin instead.

It was listed as a geisha’s hikizuri on eBay, but the overall boldness and huge padded hems make it feel more like some kind of stage or dance piece. Either way, it’s absolutely stunning and it’s already a treasured part of my collection. I chose metallic, heavily textured accessories to balance out the rich black and smooth yuzen. The green shibori obiage isn’t technically appropriate but I really love how it draws attention to the green accents in the kimono that almost disappear otherwise. I think next time (maybe whenever I actually wear it) I might go with a white-and-silver obi instead of the primarily gold one, since most of the metallic accents on the piece are silver, but I think the gold works just fine. I tied the musubi on a bit of an angle to make it feel a bit more chic and I quite like how that looks.

This also happens to be the 100th kimono I own, if you count men’s items, uchikake, and yukata. A piece worthy of the milestone, in my opinion.

Items used in this coordination