Kimono Nagoya

Via MetaFilter, the blog Kimono Nagoya to address all of your kimono wearing needs. Do you know whether the appropriate kimono style for older unmarried woman (25-35) is still furisode? No, unfortunately it's not, because traditional Japanese culture expects you to be married by 25. If you're not you're "Christmas cake" (because after 25 nobody wants any); furisode is worn by younger unmarried women who would not be embarrassed wearing it.

See?  I, for one, didn't know that.



The blog, by an American artist resident in Nagoya, celebrates the variety and continuing beauty in the kimono. In the words of the author:

Lots of blogs focus on the untouchable beauty aspect, the exotic-ness, the stoic and poised image of a woman in kimono. The geisha, foreign and somehow celestial, mystic.

I think that’s crap. Kimono is a living, evolving part of Japanese culture and putting it on a pedestal is starving it away to museum relics that the two younger generations don’t even know HOW to wear, much less want to. Kimono can be immediate and accessible.

The kimonos and discussions are wonderful, often reflecting not only beauty and color but modern sensibility and style.