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!

Event Aftermath: Girls Day Out! Yukata Dress-Up Session

It's been a really long time since I last posted! ^^;;;;

This post is rather late compared to my post on the IG forums as I was having some trouble logging in through Internet Explorer.... I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to use Firefox till today XD;;

Anyway! Here goes :)

My godsisters and I have been planning a Yukata Day for the past few years, and we've only recently managed to book a date for it! The hubbies were sent to do some car-shopping and general bro-bonding XD; We think they had fun - we didn't hear anything from them the whole day!

The girls met up at my house in the morning for a dressing, hair and make-up session, before we all piled into a couple of cars and headed to Pavilion (a downtown mall) for lunch and light shopping. It was really fun, cramming all 6 of us into my tiny room, with everyone doing each other's hair and make-up, and choosing accessories for each other! XD

 I'm afraid I was rather sloppy with dressing them - too many of us in one place, and I've been really out of practice with dressing others!! I even forgot how to tie alot of musubi, which got me pretty upset ^^;;; I need to practice more!

Group pic before we left the house (because my mum wanted a photo of us on Facebook already XD;;):



We had intentionally decided that everyone should wear a different colour, and the effect is quite pretty! Except for my sister (the second one from the left), they are all wearing yukata sets that I'd given to them as Christmas gifts years ago :) My mum also joined in the fun by accessorizing them once they were dressed and did their hair and make-up!

I did try to convince them that yukata would look much nicer with an up-do hairstyle, but they were more comfortable with leaving their hair down, so I let them do what they liked XD;

We had lunch at Kampachi, because Olivia can't eat much pork, so we couldn't eat at a few places in Tokyo Street. Good thing we decided to eat here too - Kampachi has a better menu selection, so everyone could eat what they wanted, rather than being confined to a restaurant's specialty! (Tokyo Street's restaurants are rather specialized - there's a ramen place, a tempura don place, a shabu shabu place, a tonkatsu place... Kampachi has a bit of everything!)


After lunch, we walked around for a bit of shopping!

Part of the reason we'd decided on Pavilion: Muji's opening day in Malaysia! There are only these two pics outside of Muji because the rest of us pretty much ran in the moment we saw the store, and went mad XD;


Some random snaps while we were shopping. You can see just how sloppy I was with the obi musubi :/ I tied the obi a little too loose for some of them, and the bows were a little too floppy! I wanted to tie more intricate stuff, but somehow my fingers wouldn't cooperate with my mind, so I had to stick to the more basic musubi ^_^;;







Group pics outside Shu Uemura!






As we were rushing to get home in time for a dinner party at my house tonight, we didn't shop very much and headed straight home after buying a few items at Shu Uemura. We wanted to go to MAC too, but there wasn't enough time... We were all inspired to buy make-up and facial stuff after the long discussion about make-up that morning hahaha :)

But we did make sure we had the time for some individual outfit snaps :)

Stella was our main photographer for the day, since she was experimenting with her new camera :) My sister and I chose this yukata for her because she loves animals, and bright and cheerful colours suit her really well!



Sandra is always so sweet and lady-like, so my sister and I gave her a soft and delicate yukata set that suits her personality. Uh, she does have an ohashori, but I'd accidentally tied her obi a little too loosely, so it kept slipping down and hiding her ohashori ^^;;; You can still see a tiny bit of it in this photo!



I couldn't decide on a colour for Olivia, so I asked her outright about the colour that she liked, and she chose purple. I picked this one because it's something that I personally would wear - and she really liked it too! :) I wish I'd thought of lending her one of my yukata obijime, because that would look really good with this obi and yukata set.



The reason why I'd given everyone a yukata was because I'd bugged Carolyn into buying one when Jusco was having their first Yukata Fair two years ago, and when everyone found out, they wanted one as well! This yukata that she's wearing is her second one, which I'd given her for Christmas. It's a little somber, but she doesn't like very bright colours, and I knew she'd appreciate the intricate designs of the patterns :)



My sister's coordinate was a last-minute thing, because I'd forgotten to show her our wardrobe options till the morning of this event. She felt like wearing something monochrome-ish, so she chose this yukata. Since she'd mentioned "monochrome" specifically, I knew immediately that this obi would be the best choice for this outfit, rather than a hot pink or purple one.



I really love this yukata and obi combination! It's very difficult to capture in photos, but this obi is one of the higher quality ones that can also be worn with kimono, with a woven latticework pattern on the plain black side. I feel it really made her outfit stand out. She noticed that there were some purples in the yukata, so she matched them with our newest handbag, and coordinated her accessories around that. She's also wearing black and white geta and a black and white bead flower hairband to complete the look. I think her coordinate was probably my favourite!

And finally - my outfit! ^_^



My outfit was mostly chosen by the godsisters! After my sister had picked out her yukata, we eliminated the ones that were too similar in colour to everyone else's yukata, and they picked out the one they thought looked the nicest. I really really like this yukata, because it's false shibori, has a pattern of grapes, and is in a really gorgeous colour. Unfortunately, I've never worn it before because I'd always had problems coordinating the yukata properly. After going through all my hanhaba obi and even some of my nagoya obi, I got a little frustrated and just threw on a plain white yukata obi.

While dressing myself, I suddenly remembered that I have a few yukata obijime in my collection and decided to break them out - and immediately liked the effect of this bright blue obijime against my outfit! Makes for a really lovely contrast, and adds colour to an otherwise bland outfit :) I coordinated all my accessories around this bit of blue. I really like this ensemble now!

(And by the way, I also really like this photo because Stella somehow managed to make me look thin :P)

It was a really fun day - we are already discussing our next girls day out, though it might possibly be a lolita day next (HAHAHA not XD;;;). It was also fun in the evening when the hubbies came home for the dinner party :)

Thanks for reading! Any C&C on coordinates are much welcome!