My new houmongi arrived yesterday morning, courtesy of Japanese Antiques.

I couldn't resist trying it on, so I popped it over my home-made juban in white Thai silk, and teamed it with a Showa-era fukuro obi with gold arabesques (with my 5in obi stay tucked inside). The obi-scarf, which you can't even see in these pictures, is just a long silk scarf that I broomsticked, and the obi-cord is actually a curtain tieback, as I'm sure you can tell. The kimono still pretty crumpled because I had just got i out of the packaging.

I was just playing, really, but then the plumber turned up, so I ended up wearing the kimono all morning, and it felt just delightful. 

Old rinzu is a very different kettle of fish from modern rinzu - much more my line. Beautiful soft and silky, with a delicate sheen, it drapes wonderfully and feels quiet against the skin. This one has a very complicated pattern of sayagata and plum blossoms. 

The decoration on this kimono is yuzen, with very subtle shadings, teamed with very stiff, glittery surihaku and gold-thread embroidery - not couched but sewn right through the fabric.

I particularly love these Showa-era kimonos with the contrast-dyed hems and sleeve hems. The subtle contrast between the cream and the light blue is really lovely, like you see in French country interiors, and it marries beautifully with the subdued reds, greens, oranges and golds in the fabric.

I felt quite disappointed to change back into my daily-wear brown kimono with arabesques, though I love it - I am starting to get the bug for these eba-patterned, more formal kimono. 

Well, all I need to work out now is some occasion to wear this thing, otherwise it will be just for swanning around the house and pretending to be a princess. 

Houmongi - literally 'visiting dress' - are the most flamboyant kimono permitted for a married woman. They can also be worn by unmarried women, though most prefer to carry on wearing the longer-sleeved furisode while they still can. However, this houmongi has more rounded sleeves than the tomesode above, and the sleeves are quite long at 24 inches, which may mean it was indeed worn by an unmarried woman. 

Houmongi are considered suitable for almost every occasion - visiting friends, going about town, and performing traditional arts such as ikebana. On this houmongi, the pale mint-green silk ground is woven with a design of streams, then multicoloured flowers are painted on top using the Yuzen technique. I was attracted to this kimono mainly for its lovely colours, especially the the background green, but also because of its distinctively Japanese appearance. 

On arrival, to be honest, I was slightly disappointed in it. Although the silk was beautiful and very textured - it may in fact be fukuro-ori - it was as stiff as a board with size and the synthetic lining stiffened it further. Because it was also lightweight, the garment didn't hang nicely. The colour that I had thought was red turned out to be a dull rust and the pattern that had appeared so pretty at a distance was coarser in close-up - in fact I took it to be a print. Once again, the garment was enormously long (though very narrow), so I was learning that I needed to pay more attention to this aspect of kimono.

After humming and hawing for a while, I decided to take the garment apart completely and use the fabric. I checked it carefully before washing, by sponging it and using an iron and a white cloth. Nothing came off, so I was able to wash the silk, after which it was much softer and more pleasant on the skin. From it, I made a loose jacket about 30 inches long, with short sleeves like a happi coat and a narrow collar, which gave me several pieces left over for scarves.

It was, in fact, only when I dissassembled this kimono that I realised it was Yuzen. The technique hadn't been described by the vendor Yamatoku and I hadn't realised the background silk was actually cream and only painted green where it was visible. The colour runs out at the fold lines, which makes sections of the silk impossible to use. However, I've now got a lovely summer jacket out of it, so I'm happy.