After listening to やさしい民俗学‘s series on the history of the kimono, I decided to read Kimono – A Modern History and brush up on my knowledge of the kimono. As the title indicates, this book is about the kimono from 1850 onwards, till about 2014 when the book was published. Split into six very long… Read More Book Review: Kimono – A Modern History by Terry Satsuki Milhaupt
I chanced upon this book at an online bookstore and immediately bought it because of its title. But when I read it, I was pleasantly surprised to find there was quite a lot of substance in this beautiful book! Broken into five sections, Kimono Now aims to explore the world of the contemporary kimono (at… Read More Book Review: Kimono Now by Manami Okazaki
It’s been some time since my post on the different types of kimono but I really wanted to write a follow-up post to further explore the variations in kimono. Since I covered the different levels of formality kimonos can have in the first post, I thought I’d focus a bit more on how kimonos come… Read More Reading in Japanese: Kimono Fabric, Seasons, and the Obi
I bought a new Japanese book! Way back when I was living in Japan, I went for lessons with Morita-sensei. As part of my lessons, I bought a book on how to put on kimono correctly but I didn’t have anything more general about kimono. So I figured it was time to get another one… Read More Reading in Japanese: Formal and Casual Kimono
As part of my research into the world of Genji, I decided to read up about the history of Kimono. Unfortunately, most library books are for reference, so I borrowed the only one that wasn’t – The Kimono: History and Style. This book is a very beautiful book that takes a pictorial look at the… Read More The Kimono: History and Style by Ito Sacico
I once took a course on how to wear kimono, partly because I thought they were lovely and partly because I owned two sets and didn’t know how to put them on. The course definitely helped me get the basics down, although I definitely need to practice, but one ‘side-effect’ was that I ended up… Read More All My Kimono
Apart from Castle ruins and amazing views of the coast, Onna also has something called the Ryukyu Village (English Site). The Ryukyu Mura is a theme park about Okinawan culture. In a way, it’s like the cultural village of Okinawa world, but if we’re just comparing the culture part, I prefer the Ryukyu village more… Read More Onna Part 2: Ryukyu Village and Diamond Blue Cafe
昨日、第２回 きもの美人大賞を参加するために、福岡に戻りました。優勝しなかったですが、先生から「頑張った特別賞」（正式名前ではない）をいただきました！ Yesterday, I took a two hour drive back to Fukuoka to participate in a Kimono-related event! It’s supposed to be some kind of contest where you wear the kimono and get judged on how well you wear it, but I ended up getting a lot of help towards the end. Even my hair… Read More 第２回 きもの美人大賞
I know I am hopelessly late (as always), but I really, really wanted to write about this. It’s sort of related to my previous post on whether foreigners can wear kimono. Basically, while I was not-sleeping one night, I came across this article from someecards: The main point of the article seemed to be that… Read More My Thoughts on the Karlie Kloss Kimono Debacle
On Saturday, I had my final kimono class. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here (oops!) but since April of last year, I’ve been taking lessons on how to put on the kimono myself from Morita Akemi (森田 空美) sensei. Morita sensei is based in Tokyo and her kimono coordinates have appeared in magazines like… Read More Morita Akemi Sensei’s Kimono Class (入門クラス)