Event Aftermath: Kimono Meet @ Tenshi no Cafe

A friend and I have been talking about having a kimono meet for quite a while, and we finally nailed down a date for it! So on Saturday, we met with a couple of other kimono-enthusiast friends at Tenshi no Cafe, our local maid cafe and chatted for a few hours over lunch ^_^

(Hm, the choice of venue - we had originally wanted to go to Tokyo Street at Pavilion, but 21st April was the date where our new King would meet his subjects downtown, so we changed venue to avoid traffic. We voted for the maid cafe instead - my main reason is that I'd never been there before and was crazy curious about it XD;;;)

Here's what I decided to wear for the meet-up:



I felt like wearing spring colours, so I chose to wear my (relatively) new polyester hitoe iromuji. The obi I'd chosen is one of Ichiroya's reproduction Taisho pieces. It had just arrived two days before the meet-up and I was so excited I just had to wear it straightaway!

My sister insisted on pairing this obiage with this kimono, so I matched my juban sleeves and zori to the bright pink. I think the outfit looks kinda cute with the bright pops of colour here and there, though they're kind of invisible in the photos XD;;;; The light green obijime was chosen to balance the outfit a little - I think a darker green would've made it look too heavy, while pink made the whole ensemble seem rather bland.

The toes on my tabi also have bright pink flowers and green leaves embroidered on them, though I didn't take a picture.




I tried a new hairstyle today! It was kind of a cheat's hairstyle haha - I just twisted my hair into a bun, then secured it with a hairtie, then tied one of those scrunchies made of fake hair over the top. Voila! Instant fluffy bun XD;;; I think I ought to get a second scrunchie so I can make twin buns for lolita hahaha.

I'm sooo out of practice - for some reason, my obi is really lopsided at the back, and I completely misjudged the amount I needed for the otaiko, which made it difficult to deal with. My ohashori also kept wanting to flip upwards :/ But other than that I'm actually pretty happy with how my kitsuke turned out hahaha. I mean, I think it's not bad considering the last time I wore full kimono was in September last year!

Here's a group picture of the 4 of us:



On the leftmost, RH was wearing this really cool-looking outfit made up of mostly whites and blues. Even her zori were white (and looked sooooo gorgeous <3)~

On the second from the right, JL is wearing a furisode I sold to her weeks ago. That shade of blue looks absolutely gorgeous on her - especially when paired with those hakama! Very striking outfit, and suits her very well.

On the rightmost, L is wearing a super sweet yukata set! Though the obi is pre-tied, I love the way she and JL tied the obijime at the back - really kicks the outfit up a notch. (And yes, I would absolutely steal that yukata if I have the chance XD) It was also her first time dressing herself in yukata, and I think she did very well!


It's really too bad that we didn't manage to get individual outfit shots for all of us, but we were enjoying ourselves too much XD;;; It's a very interesting experience to dine at a maid cafe - stranger still when one of your waitresses is an old friend from primary school!

It was really fun to just get dressed up, have a meal together and chatter non stop XD I wish I didn't have to go early, but my parents decided they wanted to go to church that evening, so I had to rush home haha.

Hey guys: It was really fun! Let's do this again sometime soon~

Omake:
Very funny story that morning: while I was dressing, I opened a cupboard door to get a datejime out - and my cupboard door (which is actually a full length mirror) fell on me! XD;;;; My dad says it's shoddy workmanship and poor quality glue used on the mirror... I'm just glad the mirror didn't break on me!

Closet Feature: Pink & Teal Summer Wool Kimono

Before I'd ever even known that summer wool kimono existed, I spotted this beauty on RyuJapan's wool kimono sale.



I just had to have it immediately! It's on the small side for me, and I definitely can't fit it now, but it's still really pretty and gorgeous :)

As you can tell by the post's name, the kimono is made of a light summerweight semi-transparent wool. The base colour is actually a very pale pink, with a latticework pattern in darker pink. In the above photo, it isn't noticeable, but there is a circular pattern in teal/light green/whatever shade my eyes feel like seeing. You can faintly see that detail in the photo below:



I've only ever worn this kimono once, because it's a little too warm for comfort in Malaysia, but I've coordinated three outfits with it. My favourite outfit is the one I ended up wearing:



Haha, this post almost feels like I'm recycling photos from my old posts ^^;; But going through all my photos to find something to write about really brings back a sense of nostalgia :)

Coordination Comments: Yellow Snowflake Komon & Purple Obi

For the past few months, I've been complaining to a friend that I haven't been blogging much because I never seem to find time to dress up in kimono. She suggested that since I have so many pieces that I don't have the chance to wear, why don't I just post pics and comments on coordinates instead?

Well today, I'm finally listening to her advice! I tend to prefer not to post coordinates before I wear them as I like to wear something completely new each time I dress up in kimono, but well... desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess XD;

Here is today's coordinate!



As you can see, I'm still on my yellow phase XD

This here is another yellow hitoe komon that I got from Shinei's sales sometime last year. I know, I know, I already had one yellow hitoe komon.... But yellow is such a cute colour, and I couldn't resist the snowflakes!

One thing I love about hitoe is that it can be worn with either summer or spring/autumn/winter accessories, depending on the look you are going for. Since I wore summer accessories last week, I thought I'd go for a warmer look for this coordinate.

I wanted to give myself a bit of a challenge today and pair this kimono with a more striking obi. Usually I would just follow a colour scheme that would match the tone of the kimono - in this case, it would be dusty pink, browns and white. However, I just couldn't shake the idea of wearing purple and yellow together, so I brought out my favourite purple obi.

Close-up of the colours:


I matched it with a pale green obijime to give it a bit more of a refreshing feel, and a green han'eri with embroidered pink flowers to bring out more of the green and highlight a little of the pink.

I was at a bit of a loss when it came to the obiage, but my friend had given me this yellow obiage that was perfect - if I fold it correctly, it would have little squares of purple, green and pink showing!

The obiage does seem to blend into the kimono abit, but I wanted both the kimono and the obi to be the main focus of the outfit. A pink obiage (or even a coral one to match the flower in the obi) would've been one too many colours in this outfit and would've made the obi and its accessories the main focus, with the kimono just fading behind as a background to the striking combination.

I forgot to add tabi and zori to the picture, but I think I'd probably have worn white tabi (maybe I can embroider some to have green leaves or something?) and yellow zori. If I had green or purple zori, I'd definitely wear them though!

I'm pretty happy with the formality of this outfit. It's something that I'd probably wear out for lunch at a nice restaurant in a mall, or something that I'd go to watch a movie or musical or concert... Maybe even a house party if I'm brave enough! It's exactly the sort of places and events I'd wear kimono to, which means this outfit is perfectly wearable for me :)

How do you like this outfit? What would you change about it if the kimono and obi had to stay the same?

Outfit Snap: Yellow Polyester Komon

I went out for lunch with a friend today and we had both decided that it would be a dress-up day! Neither of us could seem to decide on what theme we wanted (kimono or loli), so eventually we just agreed to wearing whatever we felt like ^^

I was feeling pretty determined to wear kimono because I've recently received a bunch of new pretties. I'd also bought myself a nice new bag from Coach when I was in the US (was there for over a week for work, but naturally, we had one Saturday at a factory outlet XD), so I really wanted to use it! Unfortunately, the bag was teal - a colour that I generally find difficult to wear in kimono. I do have a hakata obi that is only just a shade darker than my bag, but add in the bag's accessory (strawberry coin purse), and that is one hell of a colour combo I had to find and match in my kimono closet!

Eventually, I couldn't get the right combination for either colour, theme or weather, so I changed the accessory from the cute coral strawberry coin purse attachment to a grapefruit one (colour scheme: yellow and pink). I'd only decided to change my outfit this morning, so I was scrambling to get an outfit put together in time.

(Luckily, I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I had like 7 hours to prepare XD;;;)

Eventually, I came up with this!

I'm wearing a yellow polyester hitoe komon with stripes, pink roses and some sort of leaf (a new komon I'd bought from Shinei during one of their sales sometime last year). To introduce teal somewhere in the outfit to match the bag, I paired the kimono with a teal summerweave hakata obi.

I chose a pink ro obiage and yellow summerweave obijime to balance out the colours a little because the obi looks kind of like a sudden break in the outfit - too striking! I hope the yellow obijime softens the harsh contrast...

I tried to add in a little more teal with my earrings and wanted to wear teal zori, but I don't have any blue or green zori in anywhere near the right shade.... So instead I wore a pair that matched the kimono! I'm also wearing tabi with matching flowers embroidered on the toes ^_^

Today's kitsuke was pretty easy because the kimono is made of a very crisp almost chirimen-like polyester that holds its grip really well. I was also using a two-piece juban with chikara-nuno to hold the collar in place - and my collars didn't move at all today! XD

I also used an obi aid (I think this one is called kairyou makura?) and it was really easy to create an almost-perfect otaiko with it really quickly! I'm always amazed everytime I use this obi aid. All of my obi miraculously fit, and there's no need for me to struggle with putting on the obi at all XD;;;

What do you guys think of this coordinate? The colour combo is a bit disconnected compared to my usual matching preferences, but I kind of like how yellow & teal look together. Any suggestions on how to improve this coordinate? So far, all I can think of is wearing teal zori and adding a teal hair accessory... Maybe something with the han'eri?

Oh btw, we forgot to take pics of ourselves at the restaurant... We did get alot of stares and some comments though XD;;;; My friend was dressed in loli with the cutest hat! Loved her coordinate today!

Random note: My sister chose the location for the photos because the flowers in our kitchen match my kimono XD;;;;

Outfit Snap: Pink Plaid Kofurisode

This afternoon, I was working on something that was starting to give me an awful headache by 5.30pm, so I decided to stop, rest and take some time to myself.

And.... here's the result XD

I've been feeling particularly inspired to wear kimono for the past few months but never found the time, so I thought I ought to take the chance now when I have the house and a few hours all to myself.

I've been eyeing up a couple of Kitsuke Challenges on the IG forums, namely the Stripes challenge and the Stop Buying, Start Wearing challenge. This kimono just happened to fit both! I've been feeling particularly girly lately, so the pink colour scheme was perfect.

I actually had a couple of other outfits for this kofurisode that used a white obi and purple or yellow accessories, but I felt they were a little bland today, so instead I whipped up another outfit that felt bright and girly enough for today. I chose this dark purple hakata obi that Hong gave me a long time ago because, well, it's hakata XD I paired them with pink accessories because I wanted a really girly outfit, and the original yellow I wanted to wear didn't seem so attractive to me after a while.

The loose side-braid was for a more feminine feeling (that, and I was lazy to do a bun), complete with purple accessory at the end of the braid, and I'm wearing matching grape-shaped purple earrings. The bag was a free gift that just happened to match the colour scheme.

I'm always told that kofurisode shouldn't be worn with otaiko musubi (something that I do way too often), but this kofurisode's pattern is so informal that it seems weird to me to wear even a bunko musubi with it!

It's been sooooo long since I last wore kimono! (Well, kimono outside of yukata at any rate hahaha). I think it's been about 10 months since the last time I tried to tie an otaiko on myself! That would kind of explain why my back is so ugly today... :P (=no back pictures! :P)

Today's kitsuke is not as neat as my usual standards, but I suppose for not having dressed in 10 months, it'll have to do XD; Still, I'm happy with the way it turned out, even if it did take much longer than usual :)

P/S: I've been meaning to post something about the Japan earthquake, but at first, I didn't know how to put my thoughts into words, then came that incredibly embarrassing ordeal with Berita Mingguan and the PM's wife.... well, I really had no idea what to say then! I can only offer my sincerest apologies to all who were offended :/ Please believe me when say that no one I know agreed with either of them, and we were all mortally embarrassed to be called Malaysian when we found out as well.

Japan, we're all praying for you! :)

Outfit Snap: Happy Birthday to me~

So today is my 21st birthday. Hurrah! In approximately one hour from the time of posting, I will have experienced 21 years of life. ^_^

Since my family can't celebrate with me today, we celebrated it on Thursday night at Shook, Star Hill Gallery. We had a lovely expensive dinner, and I had way too much king prawn ^^; We also had a small piece of cake, which was actually just the perfect size for 5 of us to share! Anymore and it would've been sickening haha.

Say hi as I cut the cake! ^_^



Aside from my birthday, today is also Halloween. I've never really gotten into the dressing up for Halloween thing, but this year, I remembered that I have an orange and black striped wool kimono in my closet. I never really knew what to do with it, and it occurred to me sometime ago that it would be perfect for a Halloween outfit!

I also have this gauze heko obi with a glittery spiderweb motif on it, which matched the theme well. A few weeks ago, my mum was in a party shop alot for the Senior's Luau, and I spotted a witch's hat made of black gauze with a metallic spiderweb pattern on it. I went back to buy the hat, since it matched the general theme of my outfit.

Of course, that led to getting lace gloves, purple accessories.... ^^; I had a fun time shopping! Actually, I never really did go out of my way to look for these things - they just happened to fall into my lap at the right time! ^^;; Everything in this outfit was rather suddenly bumped into haha.

Pictures!

Here's my front:

I'm not wearing zori, but instead, I'm wearing heels that somewhat matches my colour scheme. I'm wearing black lace tabi, which also goes with the scheme. The shoes were a last-minute find when I couldn't zip up my black boots properly ^^;;;

My back:

I'd used two heko obi: the spiderweb one I'd mentioned, and a solid black heko obi to give it a base. I didn't really follow any instructions on how to tie it. I just did whatever so long as it was on me ^^;;;


My accessories, complete with black cat familiar!



In my original sketch of this outfit, there's a wand, a broom and a black cape, but the brooms I found were very sad-looking and I didn't have enough time to buy a Harry Potter replica wand. My sister took the black cape as part of her outfit for her company's Halloween karaoke competition.

An upclose of the outfit...



You can see the stripes on the kimono, the purple accessories, and the pattern of the heko obi and lace gloves I used ^^

What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Please C&C! ^_^

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Sagano: Take 2

After our very enjoyable meal at Sagano last week, my sister and I told our parents all about it. My dad was, of course, very intrigued, and since we hadn't made any plans for this evening (or rather, my parents cancelled them because they were too tired), we decided to go there again a second time.

We got a room again, but this time it was the room next to last week's. It was smaller and had less decor, but was still a nice tatami room anyway ^_^


Say hi to my mum and sis! (Sis is knitting a hat for my dad in preparation for our trip to London this December)


My dad knew how much I enjoyed wearing kimono here last week, so he said I could wear kimono again today. Of course I did! ^_^

This is what I wore this time:




Upclose of the front...

And the back...


And my usual mirror-shot! ^_^


I decided to be abit more in-season this time, so I chose to wear a kiku (chrysanthemum) kimono this time. Dunno how seasonal tachibana (mandarin orange blossoms - the motif on my obi) are, though... ^^;; There were some little blue shibori dots on my kimono, and I thought this obi would match that well, yet still have enough red to tie it in with the kimono nicely.

I chose a red obiage to place more emphasis on the red in the outfit, but chose a white obijime to lighten the outfit a little and balance the suddenly solid colours in the middle of the kimono. You can't see in these pics, but I'm wearing black zori with red hanao. The red kasane-eri was actually a last-minute addition because I found that the kimono looked very awkward against a white collar. I think it kind of completes the look, doesn't it?

Sadly, I again had alot of problems with my kitsuke today, and they were far more prominent ones compared to the previous times I had worn kimono! I had decided to wear my kantan-eri so that I didn't have to wear a juban = less hot. However, the stupid collar kept giving me loads of problems: it kept closing too tightly at the neck, the back kept riding up, etc etc. Worst part is that it kept exposing too much of the kasane eri at the back! I also hadn't realised my obi wasn't very well tied, and my hem wasn't neat enough for my usual standards... (Of course, for these pictures posted, I had fixed whatever I could so it looked decent! But if I moved just a little bit, it all fell apart all over again..)

Still, we really needed to leave, so I just went to the restaurant just like that. I felt so embarrassed by such bad kitsuke.... Then I remembered that not many people would realise the sheer number of mistakes I'd made, and I was treated really nicely by the hotel and restaurant staff, so I didn't feel so bad ^_^

Sorry, no poser pics because the room was small, and I didn't feel too great about my kitsuke!

Thanks for looking! ^_^ Please C&C on my kimono coordination please!

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Sagano

This month of October is Malaysia's International Gourmet Fest. My sister's boyfriend had seen something interesting at Sagano, so on Saturday night, we went to check it out! :) Of course, since it was a nice fancy Japanese restaurant in a nice fancy hotel, my sister and I decided to wear kimono there.

At first, I had really wanted to be seasonally appropriate, but after a long frustrating search of something that was in-season, not silk, and not too warm, I gave up and just took two of my spring-themed kofurisode out for us. So yes, we are not seasonally appropriate, but I don't think anyone in the restaurant noticed! And not like we have seasons here anyway.. Maybe I can just say I'm following the Australian calendar instead :D Then it'd be perfect!

Here is me dressing up my sister in my room. Please ignore the tourist kimono on display... =^_^=''


Our outfits...



I had quite a few problems with my kitsuke again yesterday :( I really hated my obi and ohashori! What's happened to my fingers?!?!?!?! Oh right. My self-imposed 3 month kitsuke deprivation. Damn myself.

We got to the restaurant a little late for our booking. We actually had to pass by a wedding dinner along the way and lots of people stared. I felt so shy =^^=;; And I was just saying in the car that I really hoped there wasn't any wedding dinners at all!

Anyway, at the restaurant, we were very pleasantly surprised (and super excited) when we were shown to a very nice and cosy private room, with tatami mats and a small indoor garden! I was quite relieved - we didn't have to pass through crowds of staring people, or worry about getting something spilt on the kimono, and we had lots of privacy to take great pics and act as undignified as we wanted XD


We ran around taking pics for a while before settling down enough to eat the first of our seven-course meal ^_^

Here's my sister "presenting" the ikebana display


"Hello? What is this?"


*gasp* "I see something!"


Me at my seat..


Then we discovered that the sliding door to the room next door actually opens! Since there wasn't anyone in there, we of course decided to take advantage and use it for pics XD


"Konbanwa!" :P


My sister was showing off that her nails matched her fan! (BIMBO!)


Along the way, we were eating our delicious dinner. Just before dessert, we took loads of fun photos since it seemed to be taking a while. Of course, I just had to take a few poser photos! XD

This one is my favourite:








We were taking apart the room to see what was in it :P


Then we decided to take some poser photos outside :P


"Irasshaimase! :D"


Still taking apart the room... ^^;


My sister and her boyfriend


We were having lots of fun!


Maneki-neko pose!!! XD


And our obligatory photos with the restaurant's signboard :)




As a treat, I've included a couple of photos of the food we had!

This was our appetizer course. From left to right: foie gras sushi, egg tofu with sea urchin sauce, and live oyster with yuzu koshou.


This was our third main course, and the fifth course overall. It was deep-fried king prawn with butter cream sauce. Yum!!


That was a really fun Saturday night out! ^_^ Great food, great company, great ambience and best of all: KIMONO!!! :D :D :D

I hope you guys enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed experiencing and sharing it!