Friday, August 28, 2009

The Wedding Gift...



This is my first one... my very first real-deal, authentic Japanese Kimono... ever. It was a wedding gift from a dear friend / "cousin" (by marriage) Peggy who lived in Japan for many years and became an avid flea market hound. During the years that she lived there 60's-80's (or so) flea markets had the most amazing stuff, and it was cheap! She was kind enough over the years to send us some totally amazing goodies. The family crest Haori (short thigh length Kimono) was one of the first to arrive. It is a black RO silk (a kind of silk gauze) unlined, for summer. Peggy is a seamstress/stylist extraordinaire (she has accomplished the most extraordinary transformations of vintage Japanese "everything") and suggested I sew in "shoulder-pads" (it was the 80's!) and wear it with jeans. So... I hung it on the wall!... where it remains today... oh, yea, I took it down a couple of times over the years and did wear it... never could bring myself to sew shoulder-pads in it though... by the time I got around to wearing it "Dallas" was so over (we knew who killed JR) and shoulder-pads went out to pasture with it... now don't be alarmed when I tell you this... but the likes of Givenchy and Louis Vuitton are putting them out there again... oh, my! Check out the latest from the "runway".

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