Finally uploaded just about everything that was on ebay, plus I added the odori programmes for Kamishichiken. I adore Umeha and I'm so glad she's still working. I took a lot of inspiration from what geiko wear, including during performances.
I opened a Mercari shop recently. It has different things than my Ebay store, still the primary place to find kimono items with the best combined shipping!
Mercari will also have beads, jewellery, clothing, books, and anything else I haven't put on ebay. I will also list kimono items there.
You can also make offers and get a discount for 3+ items right now.
1955 movie “Maiko Three Musketeers” An exciting comedy movie in which three good maikos living in Kyoto Gion work together to discipline the bad husbands.
Please evaluate claims about foreign clothing. (Pt. 3)
above the cut, this section is the same. you might not have read it on part 1, so it's reposted here. the next scenario broken down is under the cut.
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"Foreign clothing" means any clothing not typical of your society. That means your own culture but 300 years ago, or a different culture from right now that does not wear typical American/Euro "western" clothes.
I mean, this was a big problem before but now that google is the most-used search engine and now run with AI, AI videos are EVERYWHERE, etc., it just combines and regurgitates the most popular but incorrect Opinions out there. You can fully intend to do your own research! What happens when all the answers you are given are false?
The thing is... most of us won't even recognise them. Because it *sounds* perfectly logical, reasonable even. If you don't know, you don't know. If you've only ever seen photos, or probably movies (think all these Regency and Victorian-ish 'historical dramas' or "Memoirs of a Geisha") you come to certain conclusions. That doesn't make you a bad person. That means you don't know how to evaluate those claims yet, or the underpinnings of some of them.
The exact nature of the claim probably changes by your native language or cultural background. For the ones I encounter most, the root of these spurious claims or complaints are American-centric, Christian-derivative, and sometimes even Lefty-flavoured versions of misogyny.
Is this kind of "evaluation" foolproof? No. Should we be ABLE to quickly get answers on subjects we aren't deeply invested in, courtesy of idk, THE EXISTENCE OF THE INTERNET? yeah probably but here we are. We need to start somewhere and then evaluate further based on that.
Here are a few claims I've heard recently, and how you can examine them.
(part 1) - kimono aren't feminist because they don't have pockets
(part 2) - women and children's sleeves are open because kimono are hard to wear and have to be adjusted constantly
(part 3) - kimono force women to take tiny steps + walk behind men
(part 4) - obi are like Japanese corsets. you can't breathe in kimono.
CLAIM:
A recurring thing I've heard, over and over since I was a kid, that Japanese women (in kimono) have to tiptoe or make very tiny steps because wearing a kimono is so tight and restrictive. Also, the kimono is restrictive like this so that women are forced to walk behind the men. This is another reason kimono are "not feminist." (see part one.)
inb4 "duh, men spread sexist BS." no y'all. I have strictly only heard this trope from American women. because it's the internet and because it's tumblr, I have to explain to people like they're small children that yes, men CAN and probably HAVE spread this trope as well, but kimono has been a 20+ year obsession and I have strictly only heard this trope from women. Women can be sexist against other women, who learned that trait from women. Happens all the time.
CLAIM, BROKEN DOWN:
Women in kimono can't walk properly
Because kimono are restrictive (kimono in general, not specific formalities or garments)
So woman are forced to walk behind men
FACTS:
This one is partially true, -ish, out of context. I can see how the idea persists, even though it's clearly wrong.
There are videos of women in kimono who make very small, elegant steps. From exposure to these, and likely *only* these, it is assumed that wearing a kimono is restrictive and hard to walk in. When your only experience is in extremely formal garments or seeing people in extremely formal garments that are not meant to be moved in, like you would in daily life, of course you'd have some misconceptions.
Foreigners, and some Japanese, who try on kimono at rental places or the like, do not know how to walk in these garments and so take very small steps in them. As well, the cost of kimono rental and dressing varies wildly, but many people choose these lavish kimono because they want to or because it's for a special event (like Seijin no Hi.) This costs a LOT more money.
Despite what the video says, 'the whole thing' will not just 'fall off.' There's a million ties there on several layers. All of them would have to come undone for that to happen. I guarantee that a professional kimono dresser would NEVER have that happen. That is THE most formal, lavish, decorated garment under a wedding dress that someone can wear. You aren't SUPPOSED to walk like you're grocery shopping. Smaller 'figure-8' style steps will allow one to move faster and keep the hem lines beautiful. I'll have to make videos of crossing a room one day.
If I were a professional kimono dresser though, my reputation would be at stake if that kimono did, for some reason, even come a bit loose at the collar (and look sloppy or careless because of it.) The advice to a novice serves multiple purposes though, although, it might be taken too literally.
People who know about kimono know that videos of these beautiful women demonstrating kimono are moving slowly because showing off the kimono is the point. You can't appreciate details like hand-tied shibori at a demo if the wearer is walking at regular speed. That is not how regular people walk. That is a specific context.
Most people walk just fine in kimono if they are comfortable wearing them. This is an example of what someone might wear in daily life, from Global Heritage Runway, where you can see her stride length from the side. This kimono is still semi-formal, being single colour, with nicer shoes and obi, but you could wear it out on the train and no one would think anything terribly special or important is happening.
You can see people in kimono walking around Asakusa here, getting into cars, etc. Around 7 minutes in, you can see a woman taking normal steps. Of course. In the Kyoto video, these are not people being 'specifically' filmed in that the focus is not clearly on that person, like a movie being filmed. This is an early sound-movie, which you can see still has silent caption panels.
Women in kimono don't have these tiny little shuffling tiptoe steps. That is a specific walk for some performances, or a mark of inexperience.
Next, ask yourself:
If women were hindered from walking, at all strata of society, who would put up with that?
"Sorry, I can't make baskets, I can't even walk in my daily clothes." "Sorry, walking four blocks to the vegetable cart would take an hour, wearing a kimono makes me tiptoe."
Can you freaking IMAGINE that?
Who, again, is making all these garments? By hand? Who, by and large, are weaving the majority of the 'regular person' fabric? Who is doing the labour, harvesting the hemp or feeding silkworms and harvesting mulberry leaves? Women did these jobs! These were not "men only" jobs, like Americans today seem to believe! Who is doing labour like working in the family business, running restaurants (no, *running* them, owning them by themselves, not attached to a husband.) Who.
Is it... women???
Once again misogyny strikes! I'm going out here, totally wild thought, but maybe women know their own bodies, can identify hindrances in their own lives, and will do something about them.
Trust women to use their brains to identify and solve problems.
Trust women to use their brains to identify and solve problems.
Just. Trust them.
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Now show me where women are 'forced' to walk behind men. Show me any proof that their garments were specially designed to enforce this. Show me how thousands, millions of women, across hundreds of years, silently did all the work from beginning to end in production to maintain compliance without complaint.
It doesn't exist.
It never has.
You're probably thinking of those big 'wing hats' worn by Offred in "The Handmaid's Tale" (book version.)
Submissive Asian woman stereotype + white women's fears of patriarchy WHEN WE HAVE OUR OWN SYSTEM OF PATRIARCHY THAT IS REAL AND PRESENT + "Asians are less socially evolved" (see Pt. 1)
Please evaluate claims about foreign clothing. (Pt. 2)
above the cut, this section is the same. you might not have read it on part 1, so it's reposted here. the next scenario broken down is under the cut.
---------
"Foreign clothing" means any clothing not typical of your society. That means your own culture but 300 years ago, or a different culture from right now that does not wear typical American/Euro "western" clothes.
I mean, this was a big problem before but now that google is the most-used search engine and now run with AI, AI videos are EVERYWHERE, etc., it just combines and regurgitates the most popular but incorrect Opinions out there. You can fully intend to do your own research! What happens when all the answers you are given are false?
The thing is... most of us won't even recognise them. Because it *sounds* perfectly logical, reasonable even. If you don't know, you don't know. If you've only ever seen photos, or probably movies (think all these Regency and Victorian-ish 'historical dramas' or "Memoirs of a Geisha") you come to certain conclusions. That doesn't make you a bad person. That means you don't know how to evaluate those claims yet, or the underpinnings of some of them.
The exact nature of the claim probably changes by your native language or cultural background. For the ones I encounter most, the root of these spurious claims or complaints are American-centric, Christian-derivative, and sometimes even Lefty-flavoured versions of misogyny.
Is this kind of "evaluation" foolproof? No. Should we be ABLE to quickly get answers on subjects we aren't deeply invested in, courtesy of idk, THE EXISTENCE OF THE INTERNET? yeah probably but here we are. We need to start somewhere and then evaluate further based on that.
Here are a few claims I've heard recently, and how you can examine them.
(part 1) - kimono aren't feminist because they don't have pockets
(part 2) - women and children's sleeves are open because kimono are hard to wear and have to be adjusted constantly
(part 3) - kimono force women to take tiny steps + walk behind men
(part 4) - obi are like Japanese corsets. you can't breathe in kimono.
---------------
CLAIM:
Men's kimono have sleeves sewn to the body, but women and children's kimono have separated sleeves (separated from the body, like the photos) because their clothes need frequent adjustments.
CLAIM, BROKEN DOWN:
Men's kimono do not need adjustment during daily activities. -> Their clothes fit well and do not come undone or move the wrong way while performing regular tasks, across all strata of society.
Women and children have clothing that bunches, comes loose, does not fit well, etc. during many of those same tasks. (... why? do Americans imagine that women have totally separate, gendered tasks? Are women performing the same tasks as the four year olds?)
To compensate for that, the sleeves in particular are sewn away from the body. (This probably implies the ability to reach into the chest via underarms. But given how kimono function, I'm not sure how this helps.)
FACT:
Men and women's kimono evolved together but differently for a myriad of social, economic, and political reasons. Once, everyone's sleeves were sewn to the body of the garment. Women's obi became larger, more decorative for people who could afford it, and the sleeves became separated from the body to accommodate that.
Children's kimono are simply easier to work with when dressing them. By a certain age, the clothing largely becomes gendered, too... for kimono in particular.
Most people didn't even wear what we think of today as "kimono," which is actually a "kosode." "Kimono" means "things to wear." Working classes and children wore clothes suited to their lives, like samue or monpei (shown here.) Kimono had specific purposes. You might have worn something else at home or when working.
Why is the claim so appealing to our sense of reason?
Women-and-children (this in itself being a Category; adultifying children, or infantalizing women? you decide!) are somehow always lumped together. Have you noticed? Women-and-children first in emergencies, nearly all "women's spaces" like book clubs or social gatherings are "child friendly." Women-and-children pairing is never questioned. If the phrase were men-and-children, would you feel differently? Why is that?
Let's go back to the "feminism" talked about in Pt. 1. Women-and-children serves a purpose as a phrase, and maybe not one you intend... but regardless of intention, the function is this.
When "women" are not fully separate from "children" as concepts, we are not separate in many, many ways. We are not seen as having full agency as men do. We are to be led and raised by the Real Authority of the house (this goes back to a Christian ideology in US culture.)
When "children" are not fully separate from "women," they are assigned a level of agency they do not have. They are suddenly expected to have full control of their emotions and bodies in ways many adults do not. This is why some people think actual babies can be "manipulative." jfc. (one) (two) (your small child isn't either)
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That fits in to the next part: subconsciously conflating expectations.
This is a sliding scale. Some people are worse than others about it.
Women do not have the same social roles or task sets that children do. We are functionally totally different. People unfamiliar with kimono will see an adult woman's ofurisode for graduation and a child's ofurisode for Shichigosan and think they are the same, but symbolically, they "function" differently. From the outside, you would not know. From inside, if you saw your five year old dressed with the same signals as a 21 year old, you would have Questions.
With modern Western clothing, it's easy to conceptualize. Assume, for a moment, we've removed all agency from this and neither person chose their own garments. That alone is a whole Thing.
It's fucking *weird* when your BABY is wearing a shirt that says something like "i don't need a boyfriend, i have a dad," right? That's weird, right? Implying that this baby is a sexual person who would otherwise desire a boyfriend. Okay. So we can agree on that. An adult woman whose shirt says "sexy" on it is NOT the SAME. They both imply a sexual component, but one of those things is wildly inappropriate.
Regardless of whether you are familiar with that culture, adult women's clothing does not signal what a child's clothing does (or should.) They are separate things. Context matters.
The entire idea of a child's sleeves and women's sleeves being 'the same' for the same purpose, both categories function the same way in society and therefore have the same problem (constant need for adjustment) cannot be true.
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"Constantly adjusting clothing"
children
'children's clothing needs adjustment' sounds reasonable if you've ever had to raise a 2-3 year old, you might think, yeah they mess with their clothes a lot. I am not talking about "children who mess with their clothes a lot, but otherwise the clothing is functioning as intended." I am talking about garments that from the get-go, from origin of design, require frequent re-tying and tightening and whatever.
First of all, OH MY GOD, this is why men need to be directly in charge of raising children far more often. Until the aggravation of clothing children while they run and play and ride a school bus and all sorts of shit, newborn-6 years at least, becomes immediate communal knowledge even if they, themselves, have never raised kids.
If men had to deal with that shit, they would understand, even just vaguely, the immediate blood pressure-raising headache-inducing stress level of even IMAGINING that a child *needs "constant" adjustment of their clothes* to keep them on and functioning as intended. are you fucking kidding me.
You know how some countries have mandatory military service? I want mandatory two years of toddler-rearing service for every male over 18. To prevent this shit.
women
If women constantly had to adjust their clothes during daily tasks, they just wouldn't wear those things, right? And if they had to keep an eye on every child, 100% of the time, just to make sure their clothes weren't falling off, there would be major problems.
No one has time for that. No one has mental space for that.
Today, it sounds logical because it's an unfamiliar garment from another culture, that's from a long time ago. Someone who doesn't know how they work would absolutely be led to believe that it's harder, because you don't know how it works so of COURSE it's harder. It sounds reasonable that women's garments have more Stuff involved, so they must need adjustment more.
Regardless of whether underarm access makes *sense* for adjusting kimono (it doesn't) just think about it:
Imagine you have a dress shirt. You have to adjust that dress shirt every 20-30 minutes. Or just once an hour. You are going about your daily life, running errands, grocery shopping, putting gas in the car, maybe you gotta clean the kitchen… and all the freaking. time. you have to adjust this stupid shirt. When you aren't adjusting the shirt, you are constantly monitoring yourself (on some level) to ensure you don't make motions which would cause you to need adjustments more frequently.
Now imagine a middle-class or lower-middle class life in 1750 Japan. Or 1750 anywhere, really, and the labour you'd be doing in that shirt.
Would you EVER wear that shirt again?
Even if the social norm was to wear a shirt like that, would you ever wear THAT shirt again, or would you get (or in the 1800s, make) that shirt again? Probably not. Because you have a brain. You know you're uncomfortable, you know that it's too short or the shape isn't right for your body or whatever, and you can change that because you have agency and problem-solving skills. You probably also have practical sewing skills. You KNOW that you don't need to be constantly distracted by whether your shirt is shifting, coming undone, or loose.
Why would a woman spend 40+ hours hand-sewing a garment that didn't fit right and gave them trouble all the time? (edit: the time is one of learning/lack of experience. if you aren't sewing anything too complex, nothing formal, it's a shorter time. even so.)
Why would MULTIPLE women, thousands of women, for decades, even centuries, continue to use the same garment structure for something that was constantly giving people problems? Why would those same women design and sew clothing for children that needed all their attention?
No one would do that. Therefore, the claim is false.
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Try trusting that women have agency and intelligence.
That'll knock out at least 80% of the BS claims regarding kimono.
Please evaluate claims about foreign clothing. (Pt. 1)
"Foreign clothing" means any clothing not typical of your society. That means your own culture but 300 years ago, or a different culture from right now that does not wear typical American/Euro "western" clothes.
I mean, this was a big problem before but now that google is the most-used search engine and now run with AI, AI videos are EVERYWHERE, etc., it just combines and regurgitates the most popular but incorrect Opinions out there. You can fully intend to do your own research! What happens when all the answers you are given are false?
The thing is... most of us won't even recognise them. Because it *sounds* perfectly logical, reasonable even. If you don't know, you don't know. If you've only ever seen photos, or probably movies (think all these Regency and Victorian-ish 'historical dramas' or "Memoirs of a Geisha") you come to certain conclusions. That doesn't make you a bad person. That means you don't know how to evaluate those claims yet, or the underpinnings of some of them.
The exact nature of the claim probably changes by your native language or cultural background. For the ones I encounter most, the root of these spurious claims or complaints are American-centric, Christian-derivative, and sometimes even Lefty-flavoured versions of misogyny.
Is this kind of "evaluation" foolproof? No. Should we be ABLE to quickly get answers on subjects we aren't deeply invested in, courtesy of idk, THE EXISTENCE OF THE INTERNET? yeah probably but here we are. We need to start somewhere and then evaluate further based on that.
Here are a few claims I've heard recently, and how you can examine them.
(part 1) - kimono aren't feminist because they don't have pockets
(part 2) - women and children's sleeves are open because kimono are hard to wear and have to be adjusted constantly
(part 3) - kimono force women to take tiny steps + walk behind men
(part 4) - obi are like Japanese corsets. you can't breathe in kimono.
-------------
CLAIM:
Kimono are not feminist because they don't have pockets.
CLAIM, BROKEN DOWN:
Kimono (Japanese national garment)
Not feminist (Japanese feminism? American? Iraqi? how is this feminism defined, and by who?)
Because no pockets (how does not having pockets fit in with this proposed feminism, or lack thereof?)
FACT:
"Not feminist" according to who? To what definition? "Feminism" is the pursuit of equity and equality in society. That does not mean everyone functions the same way.
Let's break that down.
Even in one society, like 2025 America, "feminism" does not mean "women should have kids" or "women should have careers" because you can't really have both. It means getting a choice over your own body and decisions.
It drives me INSANE when people my own age blindly parroted the idea that women didn't work outside the house before the 1950s. Girl, have you even SEEN an actual sitcom from the 50s. YES women worked wtf. Seriously, do you honestly believe that 51 fucking percent of the population stayed home, washed dishes, and dusted in between cooking meals? For THOUSANDS of years, until the good ol' 60s when Janis Joplin was famous and saved us all? Seriously? come on girl, I know we're told by fundie southern baptists that women are helpless idiots since we're born, but DO use your head for a minute. Ask your grandparents what they did for a living. What their parents did.
My MIL's mom was a sharpshooter before faking her way into telecommunications as an operator. That was back when phone numbers started with letters in the States. She mostly spoke Italian and learned English eventually. This was Not a privileged group back then, not nearly considered "white."
Go ask what your grandparents did.
The reality is NOT that women were only allowed to be housewives. The reality is that *middle-class and upper white women* were most often Proper, Moral People only by being and staying housewives. Everyone ELSE had to work. That's what the fight was about: not being discriminated against in the workplace... as white women. Black people were still having a Little Trouble being allowed to vote. Or live. (that last one is about Emmitt Till but it spares the gruesome photos.)
So when you hear a claim about how "women never worked" or some tradwife BS about "going back to good days when Women could be Women," I neeeeed you to check out those details.
Okay, so we're good on that, right? That "feminism" does NOT have just one meaning, all the time. Feminism is a concept, an ongoing process in society that is desired by underclass people, but dictated by higher, more powerful social classes. Got that?
Now we've established the concept we're talking about. We need to be able to do that, so we can compare the construction and wearing of kimono to align with that concept.
The definition of "feminism" used here is a white, upper-middle class American one.
Kimono are Japanese, not American. They evolved in Japanese society, for Japanese people, in Japan. Do they make sense in Japanese society?
Yes. Of course. Until relatively very recently, the past 150 years or so, most fabrics were handspun. Made BY Japanese people FOR Japanese people. Imported fabrics from India and China existed, but at a very luxury status most people would never see. Even the servants would be higher-class than regular people's servants, right?
This fabric would be made on an ISLAND. A tiny little island, about the size of California, where much of the land is not even habitable by humans. It has constant earthquakes and tsunamis. There is a monsoon season called "tsuyu." Fabric takes forever to make and is not made of nothing. It can take months to make certain dyes, months to grow jofu or asa (hemp) in enough quantities to clothe a village. A kimono can take more than a year from start to end if you see it that way- and people then had no choice but to see it that way. Anything could wipe out your crops and your belongings.
Fabric was not taken for granted. There was 0% of this "fabric landfill waste" until modern eras because there was no fabric TO waste.
Kimono are made from straight panels. There is very little scrap left over in production, and that is used for padding, fillers, all sorts of things. The way kimono are worn make it very easy to see how pockets, as Americans define them, would be difficult to functionally use and act as more waste. Kimono do not *need* pockets to store things on the body.
Just like in modern-day America, even if people wear a pair of pants with deep pockets, we might still carry a bag or something for larger or heavier objects. Same thing in Japan. I can pack a tonne of stuff into my kimono, on my body, and still carry a bag.
That "pocket thing" being something Western women weren't allowed is also a modern myth, by the way, but it's modern people who are spreading the lie.
Just because Meiji-era American women didn't understand how to carry things in kimono does not mean that kimono did not have that function. Just because Meiji-era American women, some of whom were suffragists, equated a lack of pockets to a lack of women's power in a country we did not freaking understand, does not make a kimono un-feminist.
You know who MADE most of those kimono? Who set fashion trends and demands? Women. For a couple thousand years. Men did not dictate a narrow idea of what women were/were not Allowed and then women just obeyed without a word.
Is this claim trying to say that white women are superior in ideology, their version of feminism was better than Japanese women's? That Japanese women are stupid and submissive? That women in general don't have a fucking brain or any agency?
Because it kinda looks like all three.
Evaluate claims, especially about foreign clothing (and by extension, foreign people.)
Tori to Mushi (鳥と蟲) the Bird and Insect, by Bunkuchitei Kuronbo, 1907. A yūjo (lady of pleasure) gazes out at the rising moon, from the lattice cage of a third-class house in Yoshiwara. Her captivity is likened to that of an insect in a cage, and the notion of sabishii (exquisite sadness) is evoked. On the reverse of the postcard a young man is shown, turning his back and walking away.
An early Showa irotomesode, a type of formal kimono. Curiously, no mon! Not even embroidered. This has a red momi (lining) which had not been replaced with white cotton, like so many were. Collar style is bachi-eri, prefolded and sewn, no snaps or strings. There are various marks on it, like the prominent one on the collar. The kimono outer is in so-so condition.
I love the long sleeves. It feels strange wearing kimono these days. I'm getting too old for long sleeves to look right, but short (modern) sleeves feel inelegant.
Kinsha mon, woven designs with yuzen dyeing on top. Autumn colourings and patterns. I almost have an entire 1930s set! I need an obi. I tend not to count high-use items like obiage and obijime. The collar is from the late 20s or early 30s, however.
The front uses an iromuji in pale peach with sayagata-pattern weave for a nakagi. The peach layer is a bit larger than the gold one, but I tried to make it work on the mannequin. I would have unfolded a juban as well but I don't want to have to re-fold it... I already HAVE a stack at least 5-6 high.
I like the visual and tactile difference between the smooth, shiny iromuji and the textured kinsha of the irotomesode. It's more tan than gold in person, but I expect kimono to photograph oddly when it comes to colouring. Actually, the kinsha doesn't feel entirely like silk, and it has a weird shine to it. Maybe it was semi-synthetic. It doesn't feel crispy or rough like many synthetics of the era do.
Wrist to wrist: 50in / 127cm
Sleeve length: 26.75in / 67.5cm
Body width: 24in / 61cm
Neck to hem: 56in / 142cm
The obi is a modern nagoya obi with patterns of kumihimo, mon, fuji, kiku, and bangasa that resemble the shell game. Can you see it, too? I love the imagination of shape. The colours are perfect for autumn. I tried to keep the mood as close to the original kimono colours as possible.
Obiage is white with clouds shibori, lined in gold. Obijime is a bold paprika-orange with other colours running through it.
I was thinking of this kimono when I bought it, since the original photos looked more golden yellow instead of tan. Still, I like the outcome very much. It seems the red/white clouds pattern obiage was very popular in this booklet! So I chose a plain white clouds pattern one instead. Since the kosode is also tan instead of yellow, and the nakagi here is probably orange, I also toned it down to peach.
If you are interested in old Japanese kimono-related books, Kimono no Asobi (Naomi's) flikr is still active. This scan is from 1932's "Wedding Ceremony Should Know."
Many modern kimono stylists do not feel bound by the rules that dissuade some people from wearing a kimono. | PHOTOGRAPHY & DIRECTION: SHEIDLINA; MODEL: SHEIDLINA; MAKEUP: JENNY; STYLING/EXECUTION: SALZ TOKYO [images and text Japan Times]
Tsunesono, a geiko of Gion, strikes a feminine pose characteristic of Kyomai, Kyoto’s traditional style of dance. Gion Odori. Text and image via mboogiedown-japan blog. 2006, Kyoto, Japan
Artist: Takahashi Hiroaki (Shotei)
Title: Mount Fuji from Mizukubo
Date: 1930–1939
Medium: Color woodblock print; oban
Credit Line: Bruce Goff Archive, gift of Shin'enkan, Inc.
I'm glad so much is going to closets where they will (hopefully) be enjoyed, not just sitting around in boxes. I've posted at really good prices, in the SE USA, too. I hope more can go soon.
Authentic miko hakama from a shrine in Nara, 2005. Burn test shows cotton. They've been stored for years, so I'm very happy someone wanted an authentic hakama instead of a cosplay version.
Ounces of linings (which is a lot of fabric; panels can weigh less than 1/5th oz) and obijime lots went as well. These are great for crafting, wearing casually or formally, or harvesting for threads. I'm keeping some metallic round obijime I never wear for that purpose.
I've been downsizing this year. Hasn't everyone? I do take trades for kimono-related items, magazines, books, etc.
A lot of non-kimono things have been donated to locally-owned non-profits. We have free clothes closets here, pantries for hygiene goods, orgs that collect home wares and decor to refurnish living situations for DV survivors, Section 8, and other low-income families or disaster recovery situations. I'm quite happy with progress.
What are some benefits of my shop?
It's true there are cheaper piles on the market, sure- but I work to provide better, more complete information about each item listed.
I take time to look over all obijime I sell, attempt to detail condition, and measure each so you know whether they're going to fit when they arrive.
Obijime, like all kimono items, are NOT "one size fits all."
Many vintage obijime get a bit 'short' on anyone US size 10-12, when our average size is 16, or about 94cm in the waist. Vintage obijime are often ~140cm.
That can work! … but you need at least 1/3 more length than your waist size to compensate for the kimono + padding, plus obi thickness and method of tying the obijime properly. Modern styles are flexible, and a wearer can make visual references to the short obijime trends of past decades! But if you want a particular look, or are buying for an occasion where proper traditional dress will be expected or desired, you need to know what you're getting in advance.
Sometimes I prefer to pay 'once' and have an expectation, not have the low-grade anxiety and hope that an item fits or looks the way I hope once it arrives. I don't always have time or energy to buy 4-5 items that might work and wait weeks to find out if they do.
If that's also your style, consider looking through my inventory. I have plenty still unlisted, so please check back monthly.
Finally uploaded just about everything that was on ebay, plus I added the odori programmes for Kamishichiken. I adore Umeha and I'm so glad she's still working. I took a lot of inspiration from what geiko wear, including during performances.
I opened a Mercari shop recently. It has different things than my Ebay store, still the primary place to find kimono items with the best combined shipping!
Mercari will also have beads, jewellery, clothing, books, and anything else I haven't put on ebay. I will also list kimono items there.
You can also make offers and get a discount for 3+ items right now.
Lions.and.Exiles at Mercari (link)
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