Technically a weekend craft project, but I only finished them on Monday~

 

Happy summer everyone (at least, anyone living in the Northern Hemisphere, which includes Singapore).

This picture because I want a kimono with irises like these on it.



Ignore the botched iris on the left. Please.

 Anyway, I bought this:



I had a hard time locating the book  in Kino. It was in the fashion design section on a bottom shelf. I would have missed it if not for the Taisho Kimono coffee table book which was right beside it and caught my eye first...

I read it cover to cover on the train ride home. Some of my thoughts at a glance:

- The book consists of translated magazine articles, and I feel that they really retain the feel of the original articles...you will feel like you are reading a magazine.

- Seems like they selected the articles that would of most help to beginners at casual kitsuke, there's a small kitsuke section at the back entirely in English. But only step-by-step instructions for nagajuban, kimono, nagoya obi, yukata and kai-no-kuchi musubi (which is odd, most books would use a bunko as the "basic" knot for hanhaba).

- There are translated articles of interviews with Japanese women who wear kimono as everyday clothes and how they caught the kitsuke bug.

- Despite the title, there is not a lot of description of vintage styles (i.e. Meiji, Taisho, early Showa) so don't expect any tips on how to wear short kimono or the like. Most of the book is aimed at creating a relaxed, casual everyday look.

What I liked:

- The "agony aunt" section where people could write in and ask for styling tips. Much like IG! But it's not that extensive. How not to be too "safe" when choosing colours, etc.

- The article on zouri. Four women describe their favorite ones.

- The article on second-hand kimono shops in Asakusa.

What I didn't like:

- The article on raiding your mom's closet for kimono. Most of us non-Japanese don't have the luxury of having a closet of hand-me-down kimono to raid.

- Most of the coordination pages focus on winter and summer seasons only. Some spring, but almost no autumn?

- A lot of the articles talk about recycling vintage kimono into tsuke obi, but don't have actual instructions.

- I'm a fan of modern, polyester kimono and vintage pre-war styles, the wool and tsumugi coordinates didn't quite cut it for me. They seemed rather drab...maybe Nana-o caters to a more mature demographic, there's a lot of talk about dressing down so as to blend in with your colleagues in western dress at work. But if you like tsumugi and Oshima, this is definitely for you.


So, all in all, I think that this book was an interesting read, and it was a good break from just looking at pictures in Japanese-only kimono books/magazines. But I was disappointed by the lack of vintage pre-war styles and modern kimono.

I do hope that there will be a healthy demand for this book so that Nana-o does not stop just at one book and will continue to publish more volumes.

Yet another colour pencil work. I think I was watching MOAG and there is this part towards the end where Pumpkin does a Marilyn Monroe. Too cute.

Dressed the mannequin again. I had taken out the sakura ko-furisode for a viewing, and was loathe to put it back again in storage. I'm glad that I haven't forgotten how to tie a fukura suzume. Despite being a ko-furisode, I think it fits being worn as a normal furisode. And it's polyester, too!

The sakura makes for a great "waiting for spring" ensemble. With CNY around the corner, this get up would make a great conversation piece too! Maybe I should just keep it on Muzuhime over CNY.





Still need to get a hakama....

Vintage, as in really old.

I know I have mentioned before that I was planning to stop renting over at kahouya, but after recent spate of not-so-good news this year I realised that a little bit of extra income would be very helpful to help my family and I tide over this new year. So I have decided to take on rental assignments again. Kahouya remains officially closed, but I have been acceding to requests from old clients who kept my contacts and word of mouth, and people who just want to try their luck. I might reopen kahouya after some changes (all yukata are to be rented as a set), but all this is in limbo now because of the many, many commitments that I have. Anyway, to help me keep in touch with my kitsuke skills, I have dressed Muzuhime again.

This is a vintage komon from pirot29 on ebay. It's probably pre-WWII. Multiseasonal plants (at least 5 different types) on a reddish-brown background. Paired with vintage embroidered black obi. The "obi-age" is a fabric scrap from a vintage ro juban, but please overlook.

Before I forget, here is one of the Man Booker prize nominees for 2010 that piqued my interest. I always try to read some of the nominees every year, usually by treating myself to books at Kinokuniya. Fortunately for my wallet, I only really wanted to read The Long Song by Andrea Levy after reading reviews in the Straits Times. Here is a picture of the cover:



You can click on the link to go to the author's website. It's something about slavery in Jamaica and how the presence of colonial masters influenced the formation of classes even within the slave class. This classes within classes is very intriguing, especially now that I am taking a module in Sociology.

Anyhow, I hope that I can still remember the title when I have free time to read after I graduate (next year, urgh). I'm really hoping for a good read especially after discovering that The Year of the Flood was such a letdown. I don't really like the style that Atwood has been leaning to in her latest books.

Atwood, please, please, go back to writing speculative biology and not speculative theology! Any more of this and I'm gonna have to start reading Murakami.

I remembered two dreams from last night. I must be getting better at the whole dream recall thing, or my dreams are getting more vivid.

Dream 1: Longkang Fish

I dreamt that I went on a bus ride to MacRitchie reservoir. I saw some arapaima in the reservoir, and felt an urge to go fishing. I asked the driver about fishing, and I think maybe he misunderstood and dropped me off at some canal that emptied into the reservoir, handed me a fish net and small red bucket, and proceeded to charge me for an hour for longkang fishing.

I woke up because I was stunned at his multi-tasking. Or maybe because there was a storm brewing outside my window and the wind was blowing my curtains around.

Dream 2:

I think I was in an X-Men-like city setting? Like I woke up right smack in a comic book. All the other people had crazy hair.

One particular guy starting singing in a very Dr. Seuss-like manner, using the root word "grump".

Grumple grumpion grumble grumblon grumpish grumpon...

And then Dr. Grumpion, who had white, long hair and looked a bit like Edward Scissorhands, somehow got into a catfight with his BFF (a red haired dude) over idunnowat.  I found the whole thing very enjoyable to watch, but I was pulled out of the dream sequence by my dad who wanted to wake me up for the Ramadhan pre-dawn meal.

I guess I'm back to dreaming dreams that don't make sense, after a spate of somewhat scary ones.

I dream that I met my faculty's person-in-charge of IT to help me retrieve a journal article. Somehow it escalated into a big argument with emotionally-charged emails flying back and forth. But uh, in the end, I got my journal article after all.

I hope this doesn't count as a nightmare.

Today I woke up to Yuna Itou's "Trust You". That said, it does a worse job of snapping me out of dreamland compared to Sunset Swish's "Mosaic Kakera".

[Inception]I realised that I don't actually hear the song until I'm actually awake. Which would make using a song as a countdown to remind you when a dream will end a bit of a longshot.[/Inception]