My latest meisen purchase is this brown one with a very unusual pattern in the weave - holly leaves and berries.

To be honest, until I got this kimono I didn't even know the Japanese HAD holly.  It's certainly not one of those patterns that you see around all the time, like chrysanthemums or phoenixes or sayagata. In fact, I've never seen holly depicted anywhere else on a Japanese item.

That said, the Japanese DO apparently have holly, so whether this kimono is influenced by western ideas, where of course the holly is a traditional home decoration at Christmas, I can't say. 

As you can see, it has very long sleeves - about 24-inch - and is in Taisho Roman style. I'm guessing it's early Showa, though, as it has that slightly sturdier feeling to it, and a cotton lining rather than whisper-thin silk. Many of my much-worn Showa items have a cotton doura for practicality. 

This kimono is very high quality meisen with a lovely pattern in the weave, as well as the woven pattern of the leaves and berries. The close-up pic below gives a better idea of the actual colour, which is a mixture of snuff brown and leaf brown, rather than the coffee colour shown in the full-length picutures. The hakkake is pale pink - an unusual colour match (I would have expected red). It's also heavy - nearly 900g - so I expect to be wearing it mostly in winter. 

This arrived last week, when I was playing with my fukuro obis. I wore it all day and it was very comfortable, though I have now put it away until a change in the weather. Smooth and delightful to wear, so another good buy from Kofudo. 

Non-formal kimono are in their turn divided into 'woven things' (less formal) and 'painted things' (more formal). Komons - simple, printed silk kimono - are classed as 'painted things' and are the next step down from formal (haregi) kimono. They are worn in Japan for at-home, streetwear, casual gatherings with friends, and work. Mine show a range of applied techniques and their yummy colours is explanation enough for collecting them.

1970s duck-egg blue with bush clover. This kimono is made from hitokoshi chirimen with an applied design in roketsu-zome- the Japanese version of batik. The cracks through the wax create a dancing, lively feel on the surface of the heavy matt silk. 

Showa red crepe with grisaille flower and stream. This print komon was my first Showa kimono, and my first crepe, kicking off a love affair with both. I love the long sleeves and the soft drape of this kimono. 

Taisho sage green crepe with yellow floral yabane. My first Taisho kimono, creating a lasting romance with this era - my favourite of the 20th century. The yabane - here filled with flowers - is also a favourite theme. In wear, this kimono is quite noticeably adorned with buddist swastikas, which causes some raised eyebrows among those who don't realise the origin of this symbol!

Showa cream bingata crepe with Edo landscape. This 1970s komon, in heavy crepe, has an applied design in Bingata style - a multicoloured stencil technique used in the island of Okinawa. The stencilling creates a slightly off-register look that is very lively and pretty compared with a simple print. 

Showa brown and cream arabesque komon. This quiet 1950s print is on very thin, lightweight crepe and also has applied (though very faded) silver surihaku all over the brown sections. The ribbon hem and cafe au lait crepe hakkake are also very pleasing and quiet. 

Taisho black rinzu with cranes. A wonderfully thin Taisho rinzu, with crysanthemums in the weave and a print of interlocking origami cranes in solid red and outline red. The hem is lightly padded for extra formality and I adore the red doura and burgundy hakkake - a gorgeous kimono. 

1970s pink rinzu with red boshi shibori. My first rinzu kimono, with a wonderful maples and stream pattern in the weave. The faint white lines are kanoko shibori, while the red flowers are created from the boshi shibori technique. Simply gorgeous. 

1970s purple rinzu with tiny flowers. This rinzu is much coarser and heavier than the pink one, and the print - though you can't tell from this photo - is made up from millions of tiny multicoloured flowers that appear abstract at a distance. 

Early Showa grey rinzu with sumi-nagashi pattern. Sumi-nagashi is 'dripping ink' pattern, originally created by floating dyes on water, much as we do with book endpapers. This, however, is a print and dates from before the War. The doura is whisper-thin, as is characteristic of pre-war kimono.

1970s cream ro with printed plum blossom. My first ro kimono, in fine, heavy, silky fabric. The plum blossoms were described as shibori by the the vendor, but are in fact a fake shibori print. Not visible in the photo are hundreds of fine black lines, like the strokes of a pen. Plum blossom is a winter theme but this is very much a summer kimono. 

Navy and black printed stripe with silver glitter. A rather 'iki' item, I feel, as stripes are normally woven, and therefore more casual, but these are printed masquerading as woven - some subtle one-downmanship may be going on here. The rust-coloured hakkake is a surprising touch, and the blue stripes are covered with silver glitter, making this item blinding in the sun. Not sure how old this is, but I would guess 1950s or 1960s.

Taisho sha with blue yabane. This sha (gauze) kimono is made from either rayon or a silk and rayon mix and is in Taisho Roman style. Sadly, it's marked (seemingly indelibly) with some big coffee-coloured stains, but fortunately they aren't too noticeable in wear.  Yabane is one of my favourite patterns, but I like the pattern to be slightly complicated - in this version, I really like the vertical broken stripes and the black and red spines of the feathers. 

A couple of new kimono arrived today - both of them wool, which seems a bit weird in the middle of summer, but a girl likes to be prepared. 

This red one with a broken stripe is from KimonoBestBuy on Ebay, and was only a few cents. I'm guessing it dates from the 1950s from the colour, which in real life is rust-red shot through with black slubs, with additions of green in every other stripe. The fabric is the harsh, stiff kind of wool tsumugi that is practically bulletproof - very easy to wear.

I already have this same fabric in this purple wool komon, bought in 2004, and both are very different from my other wool komon - this navy one with Edo houses, which is much more like a gabardine in feel.

Throughout last winter I kept this navy one hanging up behind my desk as a popover, and it's really extraordinarily warm and comfortable - probably, overall, my most-worn kimono. 

I wear winter kimono over my thermals and a polo-neck sweater, and they're usually teamed - most unflatteringly - with Uggs, as our house is freezing in winter. 

The other kimono that arrived today was this man's one from KimonoBestBuy. Theoretically it's for me. I was so enamoured of the brown striped silk one that I bought for the DH recently, that I put in a one-dollar bid for this one just to make the most of the combined shipping from Japan.

I was the only bidder, which is madness really - this kimono is absolutely beautiful, pretty heavy at 980g, and very warm - the fabric feels something like a quality wool suiting. The DH's eyes lit up when he saw it and I can see I'm going to have to wrest it from him to have any chance of wearing it. My aim then is to hem it up by a couple of inches so that both of us can wear it.

Wool kimono are nearly always unlined, and although you're meant to dry-clean them, they're actually washable in the machine, in a lingerie bag - you need the lingerie bag to prevent the garment getting twisted and stressing the hand-done stitches. 

They are also always considered informal kimono. Wool was a late addition to the Japanese panoply of fibres, and is a western introduction, so cannot be considered as formal. Also, designs are always woven, which makes the garment inherently 'everyday'.

Geometrics and other kasuri-type weaves and abstract designs that look like solid colour from a distance are all common in wool, while multi-coloured pictorial designs like the Edo landscape are less common and considered a bit posher. 

I have been buying kimono again after a long gap, and oh what a joy it is.

The main reason has been the recession - for a couple of years, there simply hasn't been the money to spend on things that I don't actually need, however beautiful they may be. But just recently, things have improved a bit, so I have been able to indulge myself a little. 

The other reason, though, is that I've come up with a form of kitsuke that actually fits my life.

There are many people who dress up in kimono very formally, keen to obey all the 'rules' about what kind of obi goes with what kind of kimono, and how you should wear your collar, etc. 

I am not one of those. Kimono have to fit into my everyday life. That means I have always worn my haoris a lot, over dresses, skirts and jeans (sometimes with the collars flipped forward and the ties held on by buttons), but my long kimono almost never got an outing. I felt rubbish about cutting into them to deal with the overlength, and had quite given up on formal kimono such as tomesode houmongi etc, because I hated to wrap left over right.

However, last winter was glacially cold and in searching about for something to wear, I suddenly realised that kimono were warmer and more comfortable than almost everything else I owned. I started keeping my navy wool komon in the office, to wear as a popover, and now, for some reason, I am suddenly wearing my long kimonos and yukatas, duly wrapped left over right, as if I had always done it this way. 

The trick, I've realised, is the oshahori - the fold that you put in the waist of a modern kimono. I had always avoided this, instead preferring to shorten kimono from the hem, but if you do an ohoshori right, the kimono stays tight shut rather than flapping open all the time. I have come up with a method of securing it with a 2-yard piece of satin lingerie elastic. Fold it in half, slip the raw end through the loop and pull taut, then twist the loose ends in - voila. A very comfy koshi-himo that stays put but can be loosened with just a tug in the right place. 

Over the fold, I wear either a narrow sash, or a length of kimono fabric folded in half lengthways and wrapped round 2-3 times. Whatever way, the bow goes at the front - I sit in a chair  to work and I can't be doing with a taiko bow or somesuch getting in the way. Japanese women wore their obis tied softly at the front for centuries, so I refuse to feel bad about not going in for the obi-ita, obi-jime, obi-age and all the other gubbins that go along with the taiko musabi. Next step is to start making my own obis, I think. I have some cut-off stiff silk from a damaged fukuro that might take a bit of stencilling and work quite well. 

I'll blog individually about my new kimonos separately, but suffice it to say that it's got a bit out of hand, just like before. I must now slow down a bit. But meanwhile, do enjoy these new purchases. They include this black meisen with shaded yabane, blue jinken sha with white yabane, green and yellow tsumugi with takewaku pattern, and grey wool hippari (or possibly a dochugi). I've also bought wool kimono, cotton kimono, juban and yukata, and for the DH four wafuku - a haori, a yukata, a summerweight wool juban and a heavy winter-weight silk kimono, of which I'm deeply envious - they are gorgeous.