Finally cold enough to wear gloves!

Since this is my last year in the UK, my goal is to go to as many Christmas Markets as I can. The reason is because I've never seen anything like that where I lived in the US, so I want to soak up as much experience as I can. And as much mulled wine as I can too :) Just so happens, today was the first day of Bury St. Edmunds Christmas Fayre, and also a gorgeous day in itself. I have not worn kimono in a while, so I figured it was a perfect excuse to wear one. Actually, I've been waiting to wear this kimono for a very long time, ever since I gotten in in the summer. It's gotten colder lately so I could pull out all my nice winter accessories.

I have to confess that I didn't wear gloves at the Christmas Market. I saw them in my kimono room and thought they will match perfectly, but I underestimated how cold it was. Thankfully, it warmed up rather quickly, so my hands were not all that cold. I am glad that I took the scarf though, because not only was it nice and warm, but it also added something extra to the outfit. When I got home, I got my husband to take photos with the gloves.

I really goofed with my obiage and obi. I tried to make the obi appear wider by showing a little bit of bottom layer (un-patterned part), but since it's white, and my obiage is beige, in the photos it ended up looking like I have a very wide, messy obiage. While I did have it fairly wide, it wasn't nearly as messy as photos suggest lol! Well, lesson learned.

So you have Christmas Markets or similar in your country? I would love to hear about them!

~ Lyuba

My first proper fall kitsuke for 2012

Technically, it's not really true because I've worn awase for Harry Potter KDJ, but it didn't feel like fall at the time. The weather was glorious, and it was almost too hot in it. And yes, I haven't written about that because I haven't edited all the photos, so bad bad me.

Yesterday I looked at the weather report to see what we can expect for this week and it looked like Tuesday (today) would be the only sunny day out of the week. Of course this is England, and things change every 5 minutes, so I've learned to act quickly. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to wear kimono, because sometimes I just get lazy and don't want to go out by myself. Thankfully, I got a message from my friend asking if I wanted to go shopping with her, so this sealed it and off I went to look for kimono.

Originally I picked a different kimono to wear, but then my eyes fell on a pair of new(er) shoes I haven't worn much at all. So these shoes became the starting point of the whole outfit, and I had to find a whole rest of the outfit to match. After a moment of thinking, I choose this brown awase kimono I got a while back and been dying to wear.

I saw the obi laying neatly folded in my kimono drawer, and knew this was the one. The yellow in the obi goes very well with the yellow stripe in the kimono, and blue and red details on obi bring out the blue and red stripes on kimono. Naturally, my favorite Harajuku Lovers bag went great with the outfit too.

I'm pretty excited about autumn! When it's not raining that is, because I can wear my pretty awase kimono with all kinds of cute accessories.

Expect to see more fall styled outfits from me in the future.

~ Lyuba

Reverse Kitsuke

Hello Everyone,

Lately I haven't been feeling like doing kitsuke much. Last week I went to London to help Hong with her pre-wedding photo shoot where I dressed her up in kimono, so does it count as once a week kimono? This was about the extent of my kimono adventures in August, and I just couldn't bring myself to go anywhere. Sometimes I get tired of going places alone. Yes, I know that I constantly go on and on about not waiting for anyone and just wearing kimono and go for it, but even I get fed up with being the only one in my area. "My area" being the keyword, as I can always count on Hong but that would mean either going to London or her coming to me, which is a whole day thing. Sometimes I want a two hour thing instead.

Anyway, rant over. Today I've decided that enough is enough, and I NEED to wear kimono. My husband had his much dreaded eye contacts appointment, which went MUCH better than we thought it would, and it wasn't raining. So kimono day it was.

I've wanted to wear this kimono and obi combo for a while, but the last time I wore this same kimono, I went with the other side of the obi. Yup, essentially it's a reverse kitsuke. I went pretty low key with the obiage, picking ones that will compliment the colors of my ensemble vs. ones that stand out. Actually... don't I always pick ones that complement the colors of my ensembles? I guess this time I just felt like using obiage that will "blend in" a little more. The idea was to play off the colors in my new Irregular Choice shoes (so comfy too!!!) and a little bit from the haneri.

Everything was going pretty well until I got out of the car and realized that I've gotten car sick. Seriously, that haven't happened to me like... ever! I was the one driving! I think I got overheated (I get motion sick when I'm hot), which was hard to believe since I usually tolerate heat very well. Plus, I wore this kimono to London, on the tube, in the same temperature, with the same obi, and was fine before. So what was different today? I'm thinking it's the combination of humidity, lack of ANY wind, and lack of AC in every place we went to today. I just couldn't cool down no matter what, so I was very thankful that our trip was going to be pretty short to begin with.

The moment we got to the car I took off the obi and untied kimono as much as it was possible without flashing anyone. It seemed to help a little, but I was still feeling pretty wonky for half a day. Seriously though, today just didn't help me get out of my kimono wearing funk at all!

~ Lyuba

Poppies and Asanoha

Hello Everyone,

On Saturday my husband and I went to go see a movie, which I took as a perfect opportunity to wear kimono.

I choose my poppies sha komon with orange and white asanoha patterned ro nagoya obi. I had some trouble with accessories because I only have 3 ro obiage, and none of them were the shade I would have ideally liked, so I settled on a white one with multicolored shibori patter. The obijime was a last minute addition. I actually had a different one on, but then I saw the one in the picture and knew it was THE one.

It was a market day, so there were a lot of people around. I was hurrying to the cash machine when I heard someone behind me loudly ask if I was wearing the right geisha shoes with my geisha outfit. I was in a hurry, so I didn't even bother turning around and just said Sure do! Inside I was fuming and wanted to say something not-so-nice along the lines of considering I'm NOT wearing a geisha outfit, I'm damn sure I'm wearing the right shoes for it! But really, people will be ignorant regardless of what I wear or say, I just wish they wouldn't argue so much to prove their point (like insisting that I'm wearing a geisha outfit). It made a fun status update for FB though.

Have you been called geisha lately?

~ Lyuba

More Sunshine? Bring on Kimono Days!

Hello Everyone,

I'm proud to say that I'm doing very well for my once a week kimono challenge! So far I wore kimono 12 times since January 1st! Although I counted 13 weeks that passed since then, I am not too worried about it much.

Yesterday was a kimono day in Lyuba-land again, and because the weather was so nice and HOT (over 70F/20C!!!!), I settled on this super think hitoe kimono. I didn't realize just HOW thin it was until I could see my juban through it :).

This wasn't the obi I originally thought of wearing with this kimono, but I only had it for over 2 years without actually wearing it... so I figured why not? The reason I haven't worn it before is because it's an "easy" obi that is not so easy to put on. I even pre-folded and secured the stupid thing, but even that didn't help much. Now that I've worn it as is, I will have no problem of cutting it up and shaping into proper EASY obi!

I did the off-center obijime on purpose because I didn't want to cover up the design. I also wore my go-to western shoes with lace tabi. The juban is obviously too big for this kimono, but that's just details! Not going to get my whole day ruined from this little detail! :)

As always, you can see more photos in my FB album. :)

~ Lyuba

My transparent hitoe kimono

Enjoying this beautiful weather in kimono. I think this kimono will see a lot more wearing in next few weeks/month as it is so thin it is TRANSPARENT in places! I simply love it and want more of kimono like this one :)

I had this obi for over 2 years now, but never worn it because despite being 'easy' it's not so easy lol. After today I will just take time and sew it in so I can wear this obi more often.

More photos just as soon as I get back home an edit them.

- Lyuba

Spring is in the air!

Hello Everyone,

Can you believe that less than two weeks ago there was snow on the ground? Looking outside, I can't believe it either! I didn't wear kimono at all last week, because I got a FUGLY cold sore on my lip and I didn't want anything to do with cameras, so this week is my make up week.

Originally I wanted to go with all red and pink ensemble, but then mom just had to go and buy me this scarf and I just had to receive it couple of day ago. And this scarf just had to be so cool and squishy and pretty, that I just had to wear it. In order to tie the whole outfit together, I kept the blue haneri and added my light blue obiage. Instead of obijime, I used two think belts that I've bought in one of the high street stores, I believe H&M. I need to get back and see if they have some other ones with cute buckles, because these belts work like a charm. If you think of using belts for obijime, remember to buy at least a size larger than you would normally get, because with all the padding and obi, you will be larger. Or better yet, go shopping in kimono, so you can try them right there.

It was so nice and warm out, that I've decided to completely go with the spring theme and wear my pink lace tabi with shoes (not boots!). Usually, I don't like when bare leg is showing while wearing kimono, but I think the look works with the socks. Now I need to get myself some more cute lace socks.

I attempted to do a tsunodashi musubi for the first time. I've used my one and only chuya obi, which is just too gorgeous for its own good. It is actually very bright and vibrant in real life, but I think this kimono tones it down in pictures. I need to wear it with a plain kimono, and let it shine on its own! My husband took this picture so I could see how I did, since we don't have a second mirror in the house. I fixed it afterwords, so don't worry, I didn't go out all crooked like that. For my first time, I don't think it was such a bad result, although it's not as puffy as it supposed to be on the bottom. Is is bad that I don't really care that it was pretty flat? I've decided not to worry too much that it didn't turn out, otherwise I wouldn't have left the house at all. It stayed together and didn't fall apart, and I think I figured out what I could do differently next time to make it puffier.

Have spring gotten to your area yet?

~ Lyuba

First Kitsuke of the Year

Hello Everyone,

If it feels like I fell off the face of the earth, well I did... kinda. On the New Year's Eve our internet router box completely died, so up until yesterday I had no internet and I was slowly dying inside. And to think that I had all these blog posts planned for New Year, which I don't particularly feel like writing anymore because my inspiration is gone.

So today I show you my outfit from last week when we went out to movies, which coincidentally was the first kitsuke of the year!

In the past few weeks I've made several cotton tsuke obi, so for this outfit I've decided to test one of them out. Good thing too, because I found out that I needed to make some improvements before this obi can go to my friend in Florida. The small pattern and light color felt just right to coordinate with this striped kimono, and I think the small patterns on the juban also added to the general kimono greatness coordination.

This kimono is fairly short, and while I could wear it without ohashori, I have to confess that I don't really like the look. I much prefer to wear it short on purpose, but WITH ohashori. Funny thing is, my husband was saying that I wore it TOO short, so I had to give him a small "lecture" about different styles and how this is my style. He was still not impressed :)

Generally I'm not too concerned with the coordination, and mostly I wear what I think will look good together. That's the reason why I buy so many geometric komon, because I don't have to worry about seasons as much. In this case, I picked the obiage to match the haneri I've made, and I picked the scarf and hat to match the flowers on the haneri. Looking at this, I think everything works pretty well together at the end, but at the same time I won't be able to explain much on WHY I picked what I picked. It just felt right to me.

On a side note, gosh I need to get  my hair trimmed! It's driving me crazy, but I'm in between stylists right now so I'm being lazy about calling yet another new person.

Have you had your first kitsuke of the year yet?

~ Lyuba

P.S. Shhhhhhh, don't tell anyone, but my top secret New Year resolution is to wear kimono once a week....