When I was an English teacher at a high school in Fukuoka, I took on the role of being an assistant to give diplomas to graduating students. My parents made this kimono for the ceremony. The four seasons flowers are drawn on the gold circles. My favorite flower is the iris. But unfortunately I wore…

My parents made this tsukesage for me when I was single. I wore this to my brother’s wedding ceremony and visiting a shrine for my sons. The patterns are not big but it looks gorgeous since the fabric is shiny and the patterns are classic. It is ochre gold color and looks quiet, so I…

I fell in love at first sight and bought this kimono ten years ago as a roll of cloth. It looks like a maiko’s kimono or a kabuki costume. It was komon tannmono. But I asked to tailor it to close the image of the costume: with long sleeves and rounded sleeve corners after asking…

This Kagayuzen kimono came from my mother. My mother wore this for her engagement ceremony. I changed the length of the sleeves. I really like this because of the elegantly expressed dyeing. I try to wear it often while I’m young, because I don’t think I can wear pink when I get older. In the…

This dark purple homongi is my favourite kimono that I have bought. It is fairly old, with longer sleeves but I worry that the stitching is getting really weak, so I don’t wear it very much any more. It is yuzen dyed with mirror designs on it, and there is a phoenix on the mirrors….

This flowered tsukesage komon is from my aunt. I like the pink flowers and its my favourite kimono. I loved the way it looked on her, and I kept asking if I could borrow it. In the end she decided that it looked good on me, and as I kept asking for it anyway, she…

This kimono is the furisode that I wore at my coming of age. I have kept it carefully because my father chose it for me. Usually he did not say much, but he does have an interest in Japanese culture, so he picked it out. I think it is unusual because of the white background…

This is my favourite kimono at the moment. I found it at a used kimono shop. Its omeshi, and I think it was just 3,000 yen. But I love the blue diagonal stripes, so paid to have it washed, resized and sewn back together again, and that ended up being 50,000, so I paid a…

This kimono is very special to me. I wore it for my first meeting with my husband. In those days about half of people were doing love marriages and half were doing arranged ones. I went the traditional way, and had an arranged one. I had been to meet several men before, and this meeting…

I’m really into meisen and I have two that I really love. I like the colours and patterns on this art deco piece. The black with pink, yellow and turquoise shapes is pretty unique. I like it so much that I sent it to be washed and resewn, so its special for me. I also…

One day I saw a picture of a kabuki actor wearing this black and white check kimono design, and I suggested that it would be cool to my mother. She made two matching ones, so we both have them. We went shopping for the cloth together, and we chose the nearest thing. ある日、歌舞伎俳優さんが黒白の格子の着物を着ている写真を目にしました。母と素敵だね、と話しました。母と二人で布を探しに行って、その着物と近い柄の布を買いました。母が２枚とも縫ってくれました。親子で着られます。