INFLUENCES影響
I had two encounters with two kimono shops.
In my 20’s I started to wear kimono, I didn’t know much about kimono and went to a kimono chain store that was in my neighborhood. The staff member of the shop was so kind and had great knowledge so I learned a lot about kimono from her. We became friendly, went to drink together and she gave me some advice about my complaints with my work situation. If I had not met her, I would not know the pleasure of kimono. When I went to this shop, kimono seemed like special wear for going out in and I was recommended and had made some dyed kimono. After some years, I was deepening my knowledge of kimono from books and magazines, and I got to know about tsumugi. I thought that I liked tsumugi better than dyed kimono and asked the shop staff to show me some Oshima-tsumugi or Yuki-tsumugi and I ordered them.
In that time, I was a high school teacher but I wanted to produce something with my hands. I tried to learn many things in my 30’s and I found a waeving class and began to practice weaving. Then as my kimono knowledge and weaving skill grew, I looked for somewhere I could get cheaper kimono and I found a second kimono shop. The owner of the shop was searching for kimono bolts that are getting rarer, from all over Japan, and was selling them at a reasonable price. I couldn’t help buying Basho-fu, Kurume-gasuri and Kumejima tsumugi even they were expensive, after I heard about their back ground stories.
For me, the first kimono shop was the place where I learnt to understand basic dyed kimono, and the second shop was the place where I about the kimono for weaving maniacs.