Hi! Sorry for bothering you, I just wanted to ask if you know if there are any kimono patterns inspired by rain specifically? I know snow is a popular motif, but when I've tried searching for rain I didn't really come up with any meaningful results. Thank you in advance!
no worries, I am always happy to help :3
Rain is generically called ame 雨 but that word is not used as such to describe rain inspired patterns so I am not suprised your search didn't bring much (btw, did you know Japanese has a LOT of vocabulary for rain ^^?).
You can have a look at following patterns:
arashi 嵐 (lit. storm), especially arashi shibori 嵐絞り, representing pouring rain via irregular stripes
arare 霰 (lit. hail), regular or irregular tiny dots pattern representing hail (duh) or raindrops
mizutama 水玉 (lit. water beads), polka dots like pattern, representing water drops
Many kind of stripes can hint at rain tbh, see then if kimono or obi has any other pattern giving any hints (hydrangea/ajisai for example are THE star of rainy season in Japan). Rain can be mixed with other concepts like:
nure tsubame 濡れ燕 (lit. wet sparrow), showing swallows in the rain, a romantic pattern symbolizing lovers (especially star crossed)
tsuyu shiba 露芝 (lit. rainy season grass), blade of grass with a dewy water drop
kasa 傘 / janomegasa 蛇の目傘, umbrellas (often with a bull's eye design)
