Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX

Hello Everyone,

Last week I went to a whole day event called Fandango. It is organized by one of the local photographers I've met earlier in September, and I was invited to go as one of the models. I brought several outfits with me, so it felt like I was traveling with my whole closet lol! Of course one of those outfits had to be kimono.

I woke up very early in order to be ready for 4:30 am leaving time, put the kimono on and proceeded to go to the first location. Our first photo shoot place, and the only place I've worn kimono that day, was Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo. From the road the place looks pretty unimpressive, but when you get closer to it, the whole funky potential opens up.

I was very happy I put on the kimono at home! During the ride there my obi fell apart, so I had to fix it on location and boy was it COLD! I could barely feel my fingers, so it took me 3 tries to put the obi back on. After a while I've managed, put on the rest of the accessories and went to take photos.

Photo by Kathy Duncan

The day before I've actually coordinated 3 different kimono outfits, because I was hoping to dress up another model in one of them and also have a change for myself. The cold weather made me change my mind about changing kimono, since it would have taken so long to change. I am pretty happy with the outfit I picked out though, and I still have 2 other outfits to use for something else.

Photo by Amy Jo Fish Flores

Photo by Amy Jo Fish Flores

Photo by Amy Jo Fish Flores

Photo by Kathy Duncan

Photo by Carol Davis

Photo by Tom Heisey

Overall I'm very happy with the photos! I want to thank all of the photographers that photographed me. I simply love your photos!

Have you been to the Cadillac Ranch?

~ Lyuba

Photo shoot with Wayne Hall

Hello Everyone,

Back at the end of July I was contacted by one of the photographers on Model Mayhem, Wayne Hall, who asked me if I would be interested in a TF shoot with him. We decided on a date, and went to the Oasis State Park in Portales. The place was really cool, with lots of wild sunflowers blooming everywhere. Until this point, I've never seen wild sunflowers, and they are really cool!

The day was super hot, so I opted for wearing my sha kimono with ro obi I got from Hong in a trade. I also wore my new straw hat I got in one of the vintage shops here, and the boots from Irregular Choice. All in all, we were able to last about 2 - 2.5 hours there, because it just got so HOT at 11am that I couldn't pose anymore without looking like a tomato.

I'm extremely happy with the photos! Thank you, Wayne Hall, for working with me on this photo shoot!

~ Lyuba

Lets kitsuke like it's 1935!

 Linda at Oranda Kitsuke used my photos for Go Hime Friday update. I absolutely love the way it turned out! She makes me look so good! :D :D

In other news, it's less than a month before our big move back to the USA and I'm slowly going crazy. I absolutely loathe moving. Because of that my updates might even get even more scarce than they already are. 

I can do it!

~ Lyuba

Kimono in Zaporozhye, Ukraine

Before leaving UK for good I was determined to go back to Ukraine one more time, and, if I could fit it in my suitcase, take a kimono with me. Well, on Tuesday I got back from Ukraine and I'm proud to say that I managed to have one kimono day there! Truthfully, I could have wore kimono couple more times, but it was so hot! Plus, I only brought one kimono with me.

The kimono I choose was a last minute decision because up until the morning of, I had no idea if it will fit in the suitcase. I weighted my suitcase, and I still had 11Lb until the max, so I went on a crazy running around spree around my house, looking for kimono to take. I settled on this summer weight hitoe, with a ro obi I got from Bangasa Kimono. In true Lyuba fashion, I wasn't even sure that they will go together but at that point I was willing to take a chance. I piled up accessories I thought would go well together and figured I'll deal with it in Ukraine.

Turned out everything went together very well, and I'm extremely happy with the coordination. I thought the obi might get lost since both kimono and obi are white based, but the obi ended up showing up just fine. This also was the first time I wore this grey ro obiage. Gosh, I love it! Such a change from all the other pale ro obiage I own and have to wear all the time.

My friend tried to talk me out of wearing kimono at first. I mean, it IS Ukraine after all and people are not exactly known for being very accepted to those who are different. I was mentally preparing myself for lots of negative and ignorant comments, but I'm happy to report that I got no negativity of any kind at all! I got exactly the same thing as I get when wearing kimono in US or UK. Couple people asked for photos, some called me "geisha girl", others just did double takes and smiled. Since I'm used to all of that, I was able to be happily oblivious to everything.

The highlight of my day was when I saw two Ukrainian Cossacks reenactors walking around, and I've made a very fast beeline for them! I wasn't missing a chance to take pictures with them! In case some of you don't know, Ukrainian Cossacks is one of my other passions. I ABSOLUTELY FREAKING LOVE THEM! Turned out there was a special event earlier that day, but of course we missed it :( These two guys were just hanging out in the area afterwords. I'm a little bummed, because I missed all the cossack amazingness, but at least I have photos with some of them to make me feel better. They didn't believe me when I told them I LUV cossacks though... HAHA.

I would have taken more photos with them, but my Ukrainian friend is not used to my ways, so she got very embarrassed and the next thing I knew, was walking away very fast with my camera! While I was still talking to the guys! I told her that next time I see cossacks, she is staying the whole time LOL!

Irregular Choice zori

I usually don't post things on eBay, but this time I've decided to try and sell my Irregular Choice zori there. I like them, but since I mostly wear westerns shoes with kimono, they never get any wear time.  

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