This haori was my first purchase after deciding to start collecting kimono in 2005.

It is a silk haori from Yamatoku which I bought for both its beautiful lining, and its urushi outer layer.

Urushi is brocade weaving with lacquered threads and is my favourite technique in kimono. Sometimes the lacquered threads are coloured, but most often they are in shades of gold, copper and silver. In older kimono they are made of actual metal wrapped around a core thread of linen, but in this more modern garment, they are simply lame.

The black background silk is rinzu - a kind of silk damask used only for women's kimono. Here it is woven with a background pattern of waves. The urushi appears in 'karabana' - Chinese flower-shaped rondels, which are further enhanced with landscape motifs in black, gold and copper lamé. These landscape motifs are called Chaya-Tsuji and date from Heian court literature or Japanese Noh plays.

  The lining of this haori is particularly beautiful and when it was for sale, it was photographed mainly inside-out. It is a yellow print silk with applied gold paint, with a design of maple leaves in red and brown. I wanted a black haori and it was very nice to get such a beautiful example, especially as my first online purchase.

On arrival, the haori was quite different from what I was expecting. I had expected more texture in the urushi and a matter, crepe-like fabric, but this haori was very fine and silky, and the urushi was not very prominent. However once over the surprise, I began to appreciate that it was very beautiful. The rinzu silk is fine quality with a beautiful drape, and the flowers in the rondels are copper-coloured, not red, as I had thought.

Because I had never seen a haori before, I also didn't expect the lower back of the garment to be lined, which haoris always are unless otherwise indicated - this gives the garment better weight and drape. Because it is rinzu, this haori is light weight and is very softly ‘tailored', so it is very comfortable to wear - a great contrast with hitokoshi chirimen haoris, as I would later discover. The lining glimpsed through the sleeve openings is very enticing and when wearing a haori of this type, you feel that it is definitely the equivalent of the Western black evening jacket.

The first time I wore this haori was for Scrabble night at friends and I hardly knew I had it on - this is one of the characteristics of Japanese clothing - because it wraps, it is incredibly comfortable. One of my friends said I looked like I should be wearing a mortar board, but I remained undeterred. The second time I wore it was to a party at a restaurant and I felt equally comfortable and was more heartened by several people commenting how pretty it was.

Over the past few years I've worn this haori a lot for evening, mainly over black knitted pants, black silk pants or a long black velvet skirt. It remains one of my favourites.

Building a collection of vintage kimono is a hobby that is endlessly fascinating and absorbing, and I hope to share it with you here.

I began collecting kimono seriously only a couple of years ago, but the seed was planted long before.

When I think about it, and look around me, I've been interested in kimonos all my life. For years I would drool over Hokusai prints, devouring every detail. I wore Japanese-style smoking jackets and bedjackets in my teens as evening wear. When I left home for university in 1981, I found what I thought were kimono in vintage clothing shops, but they were so far out of my price range that they remained only a pipe dream. I settled instead for checking kimono books out of the library on an almost permanent basis.

It was a another book - called Sew Vintage - that changed all that. I'd been collecting western vintage clothing and textiles for 25 years by this time, but in this book, which is about how to make garments and household furnishings from recycled vintage fabric, I came across something new – listings for resellers who sold kimono pieces.

The Internet was really getting going by this time and my husband Steve bought me my first fabric online several panels about 32 inches long and (of course, as I would later find out) about 12.6 inches wide, from which I made myself a loose-fitting jacket.

I was entranced by the fabrics, which seemed so much more complicated than western ones. I later came to realise that because the shape of a kimono is simple, great energy is put into making the fabric beautiful – a single fabric might have a pattern in the weave, a different pattern applied with dyes, the centres of the pattern painted in gold or embroidered in silk, and then the outlines couched with metallic thread in tiny stitches. Complexity is layered upon complexity.

Having found the one reseller, I wanted to know more. It was clear these panels of fabric were from kimono which had been taken apart, which must mean that such kimono were available, and since the fabric had come from the US, not Japan, there must be some form of international market. I then had one of those lightbulb moments: I typed: 'vintage kimono' into the search engine on Ebay.

I had thought there might be the odd kimono. But I hadn't expected what I found. There were thousands of them. Thousands, every week. Every day, tens of new kimono were listed and most of the sellers were clearly in Japan. Best of all, I couldn't believe the prices. I'd seen one or two vintage kimono (what I now know to be uchikake) come up for sale at auction, but they fetched several hundred pounds. In contrast, these kimono started at 99 cents or so.

So began a habit that is slowly taking over my life – and my house – and I hope to be able to share some of that passion here.