Now You See It, Now You See It Less

Kimonos are not cheap things to acquire in Japan. Even a good summer kimono (yukata) can fetch for a few hundred dollars. A good silk kimono can cost somewhere from a thousand dollars to, say, $15,000, which gets the average Japanese girl (or her parents) thinking about how much she wants to spend on something that she may not wear too often, given that people would have seen the design once worn. It is perhaps the equivalent of wearing a Gucci or a Dolce & Gabbana: once you wear it, people will remember it. How often will you then don the same thing for the next function?

Now enter the Tokyo-based Kyoto Kimono Yuzen Co. (京都きもの友禅) with a seamless solution of the Dress-Furisode: a kimono that converts into a party dress or an evening gown, where the wearer puts the full-length dress first, then an undervest, a jacket, and finally the obi (the sash or the belt). A young lady or perhaps her parents may buy one for her Seejin no hi (Coming of Age Day), and the lady could wear the evening gown for another occasion.

Furisode is formal kimono for single women. Click HERE to learn more about Furisode or kimono in general.

Coming of Age Day ( 成人の日 : seijin no hi)

The United States of America has their Debutante Balls, Mexico has their Quinceañera, the Indonesians have their Sweet Sixteen/Seventeen, and Japan has their Seejin no Hi or the Coming of Age Day (literally, seijin means "to become a person"; "seijin no hi" therefore means "to-become-a-person's day"). This national holiday celebrates those who turned 20 during the preceding year (during the current school year, which in Japan began in April). According to the Daily Mainichi, this year's number of debutante is the lowest ever in 20 years, prompting concern about the declining birth rate in Japan. Last year, 1.39 Million Japanese reached adulthood.

In Japan this used to be celebrated on January 15 until 1999 when it started being fêted on the second Monday of January. Twenty is the legal age for voting, drinking, and smoking (and I shall see which of these three new rights is celebrated the most by these youth!). In the two times that I had attended the festivities (the first in Asakusa Temple back in 2005) I noticed that the majority of youth who donned their kimonos were mostly the young women. This year I only spotted a few, but was not sure if they were the girls' dates or fellow debutants.

(I caught sight of a couple of kimono-clad middle aged women who were too coquettish for local standard, prompting me to believe that they must have missed their own Coming of Age day a few decades ago; or perhaps they are now celebrating the Coming of Old Age day. Rejoice!)

There were a few three-generation groups of women: a set that included the grandmother, the mother, and the debutante. You can almost trace the genetic line on most of them. The elder ones were beaming with pride as spectators snapped pictures of their progeny (not to discount a number of fathers who proudly escorted their daughters to the shrine). As soon as I load the pictures to my Flickr account, I will create a link here.

The Yukata Party

The Yukata Party, originally uploaded by bloompy.

Last night I attended my first Yukata Party. It was quite exciting a soirée with about 80 men attending. The event, hosted by my friends at their residence at the posh Roppongi Hills, started around 7pm on Saturday evening, and the last guest left at around 4 in the morning on Sunday.

Yukata is a type of kimono worn by both men and women during the hot summer months. Since my move here in 2004, I learned that yukata was becoming popular again. Perhaps the cultural ministry wished for the young people to wear the traditional costumes from time to time, if not the full kimono then at least this informal yukata.

I learned that the men wear their yukatas loose on top (revealing a little bit more of the middle of the chest) to allow some natural ventilation. The obi (sash or belt) is to be worn under the stomach area, to emphasize the bulge of the belly, which in the olden days signified wealth and economic prosperity; but with young metrosexual men and gay men being very healthy and image conscious these days, the bulge is no longer... As a result, with too skinny a man, a towel has to be wrapped around the belly to give the illusion of a protruding stomach. I have yet to find out if, like the Scottish kilt and the Balinese sarong, underwear is supposed to be worn with the yukata.

The women unfortunately are to wear theirs with the lapels closed to display modesty. Still, I believe that the colors and patterns of the women's yukatas and obis are much more interesting than the limited color palette of the yukatas available to their counterpart.

I read a year ago about a young female entrepreneur who started producing and selling inkjet printed yukatas and kimonos. These are to be sold at a less expensive price than the traditional kimonos. Her aim was to get the young people to buy them at an affordable price with hope that if they enjoyed wearing them, the experience would become the springboard to buying a more traditional kimono, thus preserving the national costume.

In my experience, it is very easy to tie the obi on my own. You start with a temporary sash that holds the yukata closed while you wrap the decorative obi about three times around your hip (not waist). At the end of the wrapping, you tie the obi into a knot two times, and once it looks tidy, you rotate the sash so that the knot would be slightly off centered in the back. Then you untie the temporary sash that is buried underneath the decorative obi.

When I was buying my yukata, I saw a ready-made obi: a sash that had a beautifully tied knot and is easy to apply, using a velcro. I was tempted to buy this until I realized that this was the Japanese version of an American "clip-on tie". So, I learned quickly from the staff on how to tie the obi properly. Later on, I learned from a new acquaintance another way of tying the sash.

I have worn the yukata many times since the purchase. Having paid dearly for it (a good quality yukata can run from ¥22,000 to ¥50,000, an equivalent of US$200-$450), I better put a lot of miles into it. I have riden a taxi, picked up my partner from the train station and have lunch with friends wearing the yukata. My pair of geta (Japanese sandals) was quite comfortable and fashionable too, a little modification from the more traditional and the more painful to wear geta.

With the limited color palette and pattern for men, I am tempted to have my yukata custom made. I have had my shirts and pants custom or tailor made for some time (the US and European garment industry is not really that accommodating to smaller framed people like I am; and the boys department's largest size is still a tad bit too small for me), so why not have a custom made yukata?