Closet Feature: Kimono Item of the Week

This is the final part of my birthday kimono set!! My red sakura obiage and red-silver-gold obijime!

The obiage is made of chirimen (crepe silk) and has a slightly rough texture, but it's good cos that makes it easier to handle compared to slippery satin silks! The sakura are embroidered onto the obiage, so I think it's quite formal (chirimen is quite high up on the formality scale too, for weave type).

The colour is good, since it is a rich crimson colour. It is one of the few pieces of obiage that I have which is not pale/pastel/light!! I sense that I will be using it alot to brighten my ensembles... While technically it is a spring obiage, since the sakura doesn't really show up very clearly when you wear it, I'm going to stick with wearing it all year round! Of course, me being me, I somehow always manage to get the sakura part to show up on where the knot of my obiage will face outwards out of my obi... o_O

The obijime is more formal than is actually appropriate for casual wear, due to the gold and silver threads on the other side of the red part. However, I suppose I can get away with it if I tie it so the gold/silver hardly shows!

Now, as I promised last week, I'm going to put up pictures of me wearing my birthday kimono ensemble. These pictures were actually taken by myself against a mirror, then edited via Picture Manager to flip over the photos so that the folds look correct. Mind, my kitsuke that day was really really messy as I was in a rush to put it on, so there are quite a number of mistakes there. The main thing is that the otaiko part of my obi was reaaaaally crooked and flat at the top, and the obi was actually abit too short for my chubby body!! Oh well... Onto the pics!!

Front view. I don't think there are any *visible* mistakes.

Showing the sleeves. My arm is bent, if you hadn't realised it yet.

Otaiko from the side/back. This was where it was really messy cos I couldn't get it to sit straight and puffy.

That's all for now!