Morning Glory and See-Through

I can’t help it, but I spotted a gorgeous summer kimono before I left Yokohama. The woman in the photo was in front of me going down in an escalator. She is an instructor of kouta (a traditional form of Japanese singing) and shamisen (three strings). Maybe, I should create another blog spot just for kimono.




If you look closely, you can see through. The top left, you can see a geometric hemp-leaf design beside a morning glory. The hemp-leaf design is very popular classic Japanese design, and I love it. But about ten years ago, I found out that hemp was a family of marijuana plant. So, I used to give this interesting information to Japanese hoping to surprise them, but nobody reacted to it. They were probably annoyed with that information. Well, I’m not going to censor it on my blog.



Do you see a small fan sticking out from the top right of her obi?



Above, a small embroidered pouch of fragrance is hanging from her pink obi band, and a light pink obi-scarf shows a little at the top of the obi.



A summer obi. The design of water flowing and bent pointed leaves

Kimono and Obi

One of my joys in living in Japan is to see kimono. Good kimono and obi are arts. I enjoy the designs and the contrasts that obi and kimono make. The Japanese colors are basically all come from the indigenous plants. The dyeing technique is called kusaki-zome. They are very vivid and beautiful.

In wearing kimono(no singular or plural form in Japanese), the contrasts are enjoyable to look at such as different colors, dark vs. light, small prints vs. large prints, natural motif vs. geometric motif, and dyeing or printing textile vs. woven textile. There are rules to wear kimono, but they are common sense for traditional artists. One rule is not to wear hand-woven textile kimono with a hand-
woven obi. If we wear a kimono of hand-woven material, we wear an obi that went through dyeing or printing process, and vice versa. That’s an effective contrast in texture.

But nowadays, the strict rules do not apply. Many kimono lovers break the rules and enjoy their kimono. I forgot her name, but a young woman with PhD in arts has been making geometric designs using the computer graphic. Her kimono and obi are both geometric although the designs and the size of the designs vary. So, people try all kinds of things to challenge the tradition, but the classic designs and the way to contrast among an obi sash, a kimono, undergarments, linings, a band, an obi-scarf gives kimono lovers immense pleasure. It’s fun to plan the combination as well as just to look at.