Every summer when the children and I attend the Japanese Obon Festival—where the little girls are so adorable in their curled and beribboned ringlets and seersucker Hello Kitty kimonos tied with big fluffy red bows, the older ladies so elegant in their matching dance school kimonos and elaborate obis and clacking getta, and the young men so funny with cool shades and many pagers and cell phones clipped to their kimono pockets while they dance—there are always three or four people who attend wearing bathrobes, with chopsticks in their hair.
I know that bathrobes are not kimonos, and that chopsticks are for eating, but it was not until I had the opportunity to watch a King School mom actually dress two second-grade girls in kimonos (a 20-minute process, and she was going fast) that I realized how complicated it was, with many unseen layers and conventions, and that I had no way to “read” the kimono because I did not understand the language of what the details meant. (click on link for more)
Learn about kimonos at University of Michigan Museum of Art demonstration, exhibit - AnnArbor.com
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