Event Aftermath: Pink striped wool kimono kitsuke

Today, there was a Chado (Japanese "way of the tea") talk and tea ceremony demonstration at the British Museum. I was curious about tea ceremony, so I dressed up and went! Of course, I didn't go alone :) aoi84 said she was free, so we met up at Holborn Station and walked to the museum, which took about 10 minutes tops.

There were lots of people in kimono around!!! Of course, they were all in nice, formal kimono (I saw iro-tomesode, tsukesage, iromuji, furisode..), so I felt really underdressed, but the two women in front of me were wearing komon, so I didn't feel too bad. Only thing was that my kimono was bright, so I kind of stood out, but hey, I'm a young girl! :P

After the talk (which was really interesting and illuminative) and the demonstration (very informative), we went to Haagen Dazs to have ice cream, then to Kulu Kulu for dinner because I was telling aoi84 about it, and we both got hungry (yes, while eating ice cream). We both realised we live really close to each other - if the DLR wasn't under works, there would be a direct train from her place to mine with only 4 stops! - so we promised we'd meet often and maybe trade some kimono pieces when we need them to match with our kimono!

We also made plans on what to wear for the MCM Expo this October ^___^ If hellokitty8182 is coming along too, then we'll dress up as Meiji schoolgirls again! That is to say, we'd wear hakama :P I'll be looking for a yabana kofurisode or kimono for the next few weeks hehehe.

Anyway, here are pictures of what I wore:


If my hair looks funny, it's because it's a side-ponytail. Very Ah Lien (how do you spell that??), but with what I was wearing, I think it worked.

The kimono is wool and has stripes of pink, white and what I think is purple, but can look maroon. For a wool kimono, it was quite soft and smooth! The obi has a pattern of kikyo (Chinese bellflower). I'm not sure if it's an August or September motif but *shrugs* it's an autumn motif, that's for sure. The obiage is black silk with the motif of ume (plum blossoms), which isn't seasonally appropriate, but you can't see it so NYAH. The zori are also black, but I really actually wanted to wear black tabi with bright pink zori. *sighs*

The point of today's ensemble is actually the han-eri, which is the black collar sewn onto my juban. I made this han-eri myself (okay, okay, so I cut two strips of cute cloth and sewed it together. It took work!!) and was happy that it turned out so well. I know I'm showing an ungodly amount of collar, but I think it brings the black bits in the ensemble together.

Ling, this was collar thing was made from the cloth that we bought in Singapore! It works really well! I can't wait to see the other cloth you got for me! :D