Spring is here! It’s been super hot lately, and that means that it’s almost time to wear unlined kimono again. I wanted to wear this blue and pink kimono one last time, before it’s time to pack it up in storage till next year. The pink wig is something crazy, isn’t it?

I wore my obi in a knot called “kai no kuchi”, which means “shell’s mouth”. I have been waiting to wear this hanhaba obi since I’ve started wearing kimono….I bought it way back in 2008! It was one of my first purchases.

The boots are the “Lady Victoria” from my favorite brand, Poetic Licence. (To my American eyes, that should be spelled “License” lol. I always forget that’s how everyone else spells it.) I really want to get them in white as well.

Here is the official description:

“Go Hime is a “fan magazine” of fabulous kimono wearers wearing Hime and vintage/Taisho-style outfits around the world.

‘Kimono Hime’ is a magazine that inspired and touched many kimono enthusiasts around the world. Unfortunately, the kimono magazine is no longer being published.

In honour, a “fan magazine” of fabulous kimono wearers wearing Hime and vintage/Taisho-style outfits was created.

Lets Go Hime!

Go Himeは、世界の着物愛好家の中でも特に、Himeスタイル とヴィンテージ大正スタイル を素敵に着こなす人たちの、秘密のプロジェクトです。
この謎めいたプロジェクトにご興味をお持ちですか？
是非「いいね！」して、お楽しみ下さい。
お見逃しなく！”

There are a lot of fabulous kimono-wearers involved. Here’s a teaser image that went on the Facebook page. Every Friday, a new kimono outfit was revealed!

The original image:

The final reveal!:

And now, there is a contest where people can submit their own photo and get it published in the “Fan Section” of the magazine!

“Now is your chance ♥ It will still take a few weeks to finish the magazine so we would like to give you an chance to also be a part of Go Hime! Please show us a photo of your Hime inspired outfit. We will pick ☆☆☆ 5 random people☆☆☆ who will appear in the Go Hime fan section ‘Hime around the world’ (^▽~)=☆

Rules:
- Please share your best photo on our Facebook page or e-mail it to gohimemagazine@gmail.com with subject name ‘Go Hime shine!’
- Include your name, age and where your from
- Everyone may share 1 photo, please do not combine photos (^_~)
- Make sure you have a highress copy available for when you get chosen
- Submission closes on sunday april 7th
- On april 12th we will announce the lucky chosen people in the friday update ♥”

Like their page on Go Hime 姫の世界へ Facebook
And follow the Go Hime 姫の世界へ Tumblr for updates!

It will be an online magazine, so you can view it from anywhere. <3
I can tell you guys that it's going to be an awesome project!

Earlier this week me and my friend Choutama no Kimono went to Washington, D.C. to have a kimono meet-up with some others because it was Spring Break.:) Unfortunately we were too early for the cherry blossoms to be blooming as the Sakura Matsuri isn’t until April, but we had a great time anyways!

We went to a place called the Torpedo Factory in Old Town, Alexandria. It’s an art gallery that is housed in a former torpedo factory, so cool! You can meet the artists and interact with them, and watch them create new pieces. We met a lovely lady who made Raku ware pottery, and got invited to a large art party. I was surprised at the amount of Japanese-inspired pottery, paintings and textiles we saw, and even more so at how many kimono were present in so many different artists’ work!

The next day, we met up with a few people and took the metro in to D.C. to visit the Freer Sackler museum. We visited the famous Peacock Room, which I have always wanted to visit. (Art Nouveau is my favorite art style.)

(A little note: People kept stopping us for photos and taking pictures of us in the stations as we were attempting to figure out how to buy Metro passes haha!)

(The detail of the artwork on these pages was so tiny that you had to use a magnifying glass to see it all!)

Later we went to a Japanese restaurant and then relaxed at a tea house.

It was very windy and cold, but we had a great time. I can’t wait to meet up with these lovely people again soon!

I decided to do a 1920s-30s theme, and I finally got to use the Taisho-era obi that I bought from Naomi no Kimono Asobi!

The city I visited has some beautiful 19th century buildings, churches and monuments.

There was some ground lights nearby so I had some fun with dramatic lighting.

This kimono is one of the few in my collection without long sleeves, and it's also one of my favorite!

(I'm sorry for the night-time photos, the sun was setting, and it's been raining all day today. )

Here’s a better look at the houmongi as a whole:

Can you believe I got this kimono for only $22 USD?!

I love the hand-painted quality, you can see the brushstrokes on the fabric!

The night before the show, where we stayed up sewing haneri, tagging outfits, and rehearsing until 4am, and were up again at 8am to set up:

(Somehow we were miraculously able to fit everything into those two suit cases)

Then we spent about three hours getting everyone dressed. One of the models called and canceled the day of the show O.O, but thankfully my friend Kat (who came along merely to help set things up) allowed us to dress her up instead.

Some of our models slipped away with the photographer while my friend and I were busy dressing everyone else, and took some glamour shots. Unfortunately, they ended up loosening most of their outfits so we had to redo or hide the flaws the best we could before we went on stage! But they did end up with some beautiful shots:

Finally we got everyone dressed and ready, and it was time to do the show!

This men’s kimono is my favorite piece in the show.

Afterwards everyone took pictures and we mingled with the rest of the matsuri after changing clothes. There were kendo and dancing demonstrations, festival booths with games like pachinko, origami-making, calligraphy, and of course, food.

The model who wore my geiko hikizuri was very elegant in it!

Later on, my friend and I went walking with our group downtown. We ran into a man who started speaking Japanese to us, and we had to explain that we didn’t speak it haha. We did turn a lot of heads though!

Overall, it was a very exhausting, fun day!

Also, I would like to announce an exciting project! Next month I will be hosting a kimono fashion show with another kimono enthusiast at a large college in our area. I’m really excited! However, since we are having 8 models, it is a lot of time to coordinate outfits, set up the space, find models, sew pieces, and generally plan everything we will need. So I will be too busy getting that together to wear kimono again this month. You will have to wait till January to see this month’s outfit! Don’t worry, we have a photographer who will be taking pictures and hopefully video of the event that I will share with you next month!

I’ve always wanted to attend a zombie walk, but never had one nearby where I lived. Last year I was working when the walk happened, but this year I just so happened to have the day off! It’s really cool because not only do you get to wander around downtown with about 400 fellow zombies, but each person attending either brought canned food for the local homeless shelter, or donated money to the local animal humane society! So you get to dress up as well as give back to the community.

Just to give those kimono lovers who are faint of heart a heads up….yes, I did spray fake blood everywhere. However, I used pieces that were stained already and not really wearable normally.

And, so, on to the pictures!

Practicing how to walk and act like a zombie:

At the walk:

This guy won third place for best costume:

And this little boy won best children’s costume:

I found a cool evil nun:

And I’ve decided that this is going to be my Christmas card photo hahaha!:

Since this is the last time I’ll wear hitoe this year, I decided I wanted to wear my usumono stripe kimono and newspaper print hanhaba obi. Oh, and yes, I dyed my hair darker for winter. I’m more of a burgundy brunette now than a redhead lol.

I tried my hand at tying a kai-no-kuchi musubi variant for the obi. This is one of my favorite obi. It has old newspaper clippings printed on it in white, black and red!

My eyeshadow and lipstick match the colors of the egyptian necklace that I wore with this outfit.