Tag: white

Valentine Redux

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Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether you’re celebrating with a partner, family, friends, a beloved pet, or just loving yourself today, I hope you’re having a great day.

I wanted to do yet another obnoxiously girly coordinate and was inspired by my previous Valentine’s Day colour combo but wanted to add a bit more flair. I’d also been itching to do a more kimono-hime style outfit.

Lately there’s been a lovely trend of slightly exposing juban with really sweet pleated chiffon hems, and while I don’t own one of those (yet), this textured while skirt with lace accents worked a charm. I also used one of the skirt’s tiers to fake extra sleeve layers, and love how they look. Especially now that the mannequin has arms!

I also re-used a lot of the lace I’d initially bought for the Princess Tiana coordination, and I think it pops so well against the black kimono. The pink lace shawl has a very similar texture and ties in to the obi perfectly, as well as echoing the layered pink and white collars I used. A shiny silver and pink brooch used as an obidome completes the look. This outfit is still sweet and romantic, but I think that with the black base it feels a little edgier, and I love that.

Items used in this coordination

Yuki-Onna – Yokai Halloween 2018

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Halloween season is upon us! If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know that I like to pick a theme and run with it every October. While I stress heavily that a kimono and in of itself is not a costume, I do think that there are plenty of ways to build a costume or even a series of costumes using kimono as a base.

This year, I thought I would pay tribute to some of the spookiest or most famous female yokai in Japanese folklore. There are so many to choose from, it was difficult to narrow it down to a reasonable number. To start, I decided to go with Yuki Onna, one of the most iconic and well-known women of the spirit world.

Yuki-Onna (雪女, snow woman) is a beautiful maiden with snow-white skin and black hair, typically depicted in white kimono. She is freezing to the touch, thrives in blizzards, and may melt if exposed to fire or hot bath water. I knew I wanted to start with my shiromuku, giving me a clean white base and the drama of long sleeves and a trailing skirt. My beloved Kanbara obi was the perfect focal point. I could absolutely see Yuki-Onna in this landscape! I anchored the outfit with a black skirt underneath and echoed it with a black obiage and obijime. Initially I was going to use this white haneri with snowflakes on it, but it contrasted oddly with the ivory of the kimono and felt a bit too cute and cartoon-like. Instead, I used the solid black reverse side of the other one and accented it with a few glittery snowflake stickers. I love the way they catch the light and sparkle like the sun on snow and ice. A rhinestone and pearl brooch reminiscent of a snowflake completes the ensemble.

Items used in this coordination

 

#monoKimono Challenge – Summer White

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This may be the last weekend in August, but we’re still suffering the heat here. With the humidity factored in, they’re predicting temperatures in the high 30s again this week. So I decided to run with some cool summer white usumono coordination for this month’s monochrome outfit, even though I did a white/cream one not long ago with the wedding ensemble.

I often find myself breaking the rules a bit with these monochrome outfits. I guess I figure that if I’m playing with one rule, I may as well play with them all. So this outfit is sort of all over the place formality-wise and season-wise, but I really wanted to keep it all in that warm white/cream family with yellow accents to make the bells on the kimono pop out.

Also, if I’m being honest, I just don’t have much variety when it comes to actual summer-weight accessories, so I had to use normal ones. Maybe I should limit myself to only buying usumono for a while. I’ve already cut down on my buying habits lately, this would be even better motivation to stick to that.

I quite like how this turned out, even if it does have a lot “wrong” with it. And it wasn’t too terribly overwhelming to put together even in this oppressive weather. Win-win!

Don’t forget, there’s only a few days left to enter the stencil giveaway!

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!

Gothic Wa-Lolita Inspiration

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I’ve done some wa-lolita coordinations before, to varying levels of success, but somehow it wasn’t until I got a solid black mofuku kimono that it occurred to me to do something using this skirt! I found this incredible Alexander Henry Midnight Pastoral skeleton toile fabric a few years back, and Naomi was kind enough to make it into a skirt for me. 💖

I decided to stick to the sort of gothic/Victorian vibe the fabric brought in and paired the solid black kimono with a high-collared white blouse and a black lace choker with a skull cameo on it. In lieu of an obi, I used a wide studded leather belt which worked alright out but I think next time I’d prefer something with a little more volume in the back. As it is, the front of this outfit has much more interest, and feels a little unbalanced because of it.

This didn’t start out as a memorial outfit, but as I was working on it I realised I had Rick Genest/Zombie Boy on my mind. He was certainly not as much of a household name as David Bowie or Anthony Bourdain, but he was a true original and a Montreal native, as well as being an artistic muse to so many misfits and creatives. The repeated skeleton motifs in this particular outfit, as well as the use of the mofuku kimono, seem like a fitting tribute for yet another flame snuffed out too soon.