Kimono de Jack at Carnaby Street, London

Yesterday I went to London for our first KDJ of the year. This time the theme was Akira style, chocolate and tea rooms.

I left the house at 9:30 am and this is when the whole trip started to get downhill. When got to Epping tube station, I found out that part of the Central line was closed so I had to take a replacement bus service. I had to do it once before, and I absolutely hate bus replacement services! Of course, I could have just looked up to see if there were engineering works before leaving my house, but since I know where I was going, I didn't even think of doing that. Then, once I got to the tube station again, I ended up waiting for around 20 minutes on the tube just to move, because of the broken train. After that it was a very slooooooooow journey to my destination, with 3-5 minutes waiting at each station. So yeah... I was pretty much an hour late to the event that I myself organized lol.

Once I got to Carnaby Street all was well again, since the annoying tube was behind me, and all my friends were already waiting for me. I hit up Choccywoccydoodah first to see if they were still there by any chance, but they had already left, so I went to Camellia's Tea House where I've made an afternoon tea reservation.

When I arrived at Camellia's, no one was there yet! Turned out they made a detour to Liberty's haberdashery department, so I just walked around and looked at all the various teas that Camellia's had to offer.

We got to try the greatest chocolate tea ever! I'm not a fan of black tea at all, but this one was NICE! I think  most of us bought that tea before leaving too :) I know I will be requesting that particular tea in care packages after I leave UK (in exchange for American goodies of course!)

After we were full of tea, scones and cakes, we went back to Choccywoccydoodah area to take more photos. This is where some serious hilarity ensured, because I pulled out my Akira style beard and started posing for photos. I can't tell you how many people were stopping to look, laugh with us, and just be entertained in general. I could even see chocolate shop employees looking at us though the window, so I made sure to wink at especially cute guy ;P Don't worry, I had my beard off by then haha!

I had a blast and this KDJ was exactly what I needed! The great time IN London definitely made up for the not-so-great time spent getting there and back. I will definitely be going back to Camellia's to buy more tea too!

~ Lyuba

It's all about the hat

Yesterday was a nice sunny day in England, and in Lyuba-world that means kimono day! Incidentally, I've received this hat that same morning, so my whole coordination revolved around how to mach my kimono to this hat. I took the hat, and off I went into my disaster zone kimono room to look for a suitable kimono. I usually don't have this problem, but this was ALMOST one of those "I don't have anything to wear" moments! At the end, I've decided that this kimono matched because it had those blue stripes, and if I paired it up with a lighter obi, then it was a good start to the whole coordination. 

 I ended up using dark blue obiage, obijime and gloves, because I love the matchy-matchy and repeating colors style. In the photo, my obiage looks like a mess, but I fixed it after I noticed that it "came up". It's hard to see these things when I'm focusing on jumping in front of the camera lol.

I also wore my new haori to complete the outfit. I know that the pattern on that haori are clouds, but the colors make me think of a bright sunny day, so I thought it was a perfect occasion to wear it. It goes gorgeously with this kimono, so I'm very happy I ended up buying it. 

Much needed kimono day

With all the stuff going on lately, I really needed a kimono day so I got dressed up and off I went to Starbucks to read my textbooks. I know, now very exciting, but I got to wear kimono AND read my textbooks, which is something I usually really slack off on. 

I wanted to wear my ship obi, so I figured a blue kimono will match it rather well. I also wore my new yellow brooch, which matches the lining of kimono perfectly. The obi is very soft, and that's why it looks so flat. Also, the design is positioned a little weird (for me) on the front, which requires me to start tying with my right shoulder. I always tie all my obi in the front, and I start by putting the narrow bit on my left shoulder, so it took me a couple of tries to get it right haha. 

I rather like the asymmetrical look, very casual.

At the end I settled on wearing only haori, because I figured I'll be inside anyway and I can handle a little bit of cold walk from the car to Starbucks.

Fun at the Birmingham Frankfurt Christmas Market

This year I have a lot of "lasts" to write about. It's my last year in England, my last December here, and my last Birmingham Frankfurt Christmas Market. For our December Kimono de Jack we have a tradition of going to Birmingham for the Christmas Market there, and like I was saying before, this year is my last. I'm starting to get a bit sentimental about leaving England. Yes, it's not my favorite place in the world, but I still spent the 4 years of my life here, made good friends and great memories, and I will miss some things about living here.

The day before leaving for Birmingham I picked up Hong from London so she could keep me company on the 2hrs drive. Several month ago we talked about wearing out twin kimono, and this trip seemed like perfect opportunity. I mean think about it! Twin kimono, in dark red, with PINE CONES being worn to a Christmas Market. Could it get any more perfect than that?

In reality, the two kimono are not completely alike. Hong's looks like it's made from chirimen, while mine is from rinzu silk with various designs woven in. Also, the mons are different. It's almost seems like her kimono was trying to imitate mine but whoever commissioned it didn't have the funds to get one exactly the same. We had a blast making up stories about these two kimono during the weekend. So far we came up with a story of two sisters, living during Taisho era. One got married into impoverished samurai family (Hong), and the other into a successful merchant family. They got two kimono made that looked almost the same, except the samurai wife could only afford chirimen silk. The merchant wife was a flamboyant modern woman of her time, so she went all out on rinzu with extra SNAZZ!

Christmas shopping in Cambridge

I can't believe it's December already! It seems like just yesterday I've started my once a week kimono challenge, but in reality it's been almost 12 month already. Wow!

Today I went to Cambridge with a friend to do some much needed Christmas shopping. I didn't buy that much, but I definitely needed to get out of the house, and wear kimono of course. I choose to wear one of the new kimono that I've got recently with my new gold striped boots. The boots were a bit of a gamble, because they are actually knee high! Those that know me also know that I rarely, if ever, wear knee high boots with kimono, but I'm happy to say that they worked very well. They also looked great with kimono!

I didn't take any photos without haori, but underneath I wore my dusty pink bamboo obi with two different obijime. Haneri is a greyish color, so it matched quite nicely too. I couldn't go anywhere without my gloves of course, because no winter kimono outfit is completed without a pair of long gloves! I wore the same haori as when I went to a Christmas Market, but that's because I only have one vintage kimono. OH NO! It means I'll have to go shopping for more! :P

I'm loving the cold weather right now, so if it's not raining, you'll be seeing a lot more kimono outfits from me! :)

~ Lyuba

Kimono de Jack UK Orian Showdown at Hyper Japan Christmas 2012

Photo by Stefan Dahl

I finally was able to go to Hyper Japan again! I missed the spring one because of some engineering works on the Central line which would have put me at 3 hours one way journey, so I was going to do my best to not miss this one.

The theme for our Kimono de Jack meet up was Oiran Showdown, where each one of us dressed up as our interpretation of oiran from Sakuran. I've been dying to wear this orange dance hikizuri that Hong has, so I used this opportunity to beg her to let me borrow it :) At first I was going to do something with my hair, like make some oiran-style hair bows, but at the end I didn't want to bother with it all and decided to go with my normal hair. Instead, I've also borrowed a kitsune mask from Hong and used it as my hair accessory.

Photo by April

Photo by Stefan Dahl

Photo by April. 

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