Kimono

“ Her hair was hanging in two burnished, dark-red braids to her waist, Above the soft, dull-blue folds of the kimono, her face was colorless and tranquil. In the midst of the danger and confusion she looked ethereal and childlike and strangely quiet. The man lingered, still gazing at her stupidly. ”

“ Lady in the blue kimono,
Heavy is our heart and dumb,
Though we weep no tear nor show no
Sign of sadness, we are glum;
For that wrapper, silk or cotton,
You eternally had on—
It is gone, but not forgotten.
Still the fact is, it is gone.
Lady in the blue kimono,
Although deadly hot the day,
Don't you think— (alas! we know no
Way to put what we would say!)
Er—although your smile is pleasant,
Wondrous fair, and all that stuff—
Do you really think, at present,
It is—er—ahem—enough?
Notions
Myrtie, my notion of no one to write about
Seems to be any one other than you ”

“ They remove from his side the thick warm mattresses upon which his wife has been lying, the hard wooden pillow like the block of history, the white sheets and the heavy padded coverlet with sleeves like an enormous kimono. They roil up all these yagu (night implements) , fold them and put them away into an unsuspected cupboard in the architecture of the veranda.
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro still snores.
After a while his wife returns. She is dressed for the morning in a plain grey silk kimono with a broad olive-green obi (sash) . ”

“ Under the outer kimono is an inner kimono, and the garments are girt about the body with a large sash, called an obi. The obi is the pride of a Japanese girl's heart. If her parents are rich, it will be of shining costly silk or rich brocade or cloth of gold; if her parents are poor, they will make an effort to get her one as handsome as their means will allow. Next to her obi, she prides herself on the ornaments which decorate her black hair--fine hairpins, with heads of tortoiseshell or coral or lacquer, and hair-combs, all most beautifully carved. ”

“ The grotesque personages of the prints, the taiyu of old Yedo, are reproduced, the glittering robes of gold and bright embroidery, the elaborately decorated headdresses, and heavily padded brocade rolls to their many kimono, making them the most topheavy persons that could ever be imagined, balancing themselves on their stilt-like black geta, or high footgear, as they lean on the shoulders of their male attendants for support. A whole hanamichi of these extraordinary creatures, men bearing large lanterns, and little maids in scarlet, following in the wake, makes a picture that fairly dazzles. ”

“ It is in the dress of the men, however, that the greatest changes are to be seen. The number of combinations that the average Japanese can ring upon kimono and coat and trousers, I have never yet tried to count, but you cannot go into a city street without seeing a new one. It is sometimes the kimono and trousers, sometimes the trousers without the kimono, or the kimono without the trousers. They view the derby hat with great favour, and some wear their hair long, like an American football player. ”

“ A second time he had seen her, on the beach at Kamakura. Then she had worn a kimono of rich brown, soft and clinging, and an obi stamped with yellow maple leaves and fastened with a little [pg 23] silver clasp in the shape of a firefly. She was with a party of girls bent on frolic; they had discarded the white cleft tabi and clog and were splashing through the surf bare-kneed. He could see yet the foam on the perfect naked feet, and below the lifted kimono and red petticoat, the gleam of the white skin that is the dream of Japanese women. A flush crept over Phil's face as he remembered. ”

“ Drawing her shade, she finished her preparations for the night; then with her kimono on, lifted the pendant and thrust it into a small box she had taken from her trunk. A curious smile, very unlike any she had shown to man or woman that day, gave a sarcastic lift to her lips, as with a slow and thoughtful manipulation of her dainty fingers she moved the jewel about in this small receptacle and then returned it, after one quick examining glance, to the very spot on the dresser from which she had taken it. “If only the madness is great enough!” that smile seemed to say. ”

“ Children’s clothes differ slightly from their elders’. Up to about ten they often wear at home the tight-sleeved kimono. Boys, indeed, may continue to put them on far into the teens; but girls are soon dressed in kimono of fancifully-figured crêpe or mousseline de laine, the gayest of which are specially made for their wear. Their outdoor kimono have sleeves almost touching the ground, and their formal dress is black with light patterns on the lower part of the sleeves and round the skirt. Their obi is folded almost perpendicularly behind, the folded end coming close up to the shoulders ”

“ These goods are woven in the usual thirteen-inch Japanese width, although occasionally made wider for the foreign market. A Japanese kimono is a simple thing, and one may put on the finished garment an hour after choosing the cloth to make it. The cut never varies, and it is still sewn with basters’ stitches, although the use of foreign flat-irons obviates the necessity of ripping the kimono apart to wash and iron it. The Japanese flat-iron is a copper bowl filled with burning charcoal, which, with its long handle, is really a small warming-pan. ”

“ Not only is the kimono of the geisha, its colour and design, thought out by the artist, but all the accessories of her toilette, such as the obi, the fan, and the ornaments for her hair. It is the artist’s ambition that she should be a picture, perfect in every detail, and the geisha is always a picture, beautiful beyond description. ”

“ Little girls with hair elaborately dressed, tied with gold cords and bright crape, and gowns and girdles of the brightest colors, look like walking dolls themselves. The tiniest toddler is a quaint and comical figure in the same long gown and long sleeves as its mother, the gay-patterned kimono, the bright inner garments showing their edges here and there, and obis shot with gold threads, making them irresistible. Nothing could be gentler or sweeter than these Japanese children, and no place a more charming play-ground for them. ”

“ The whole street, with its rows of gilded cages was a gleaming vista of tableaux-vivants, drenched in prismatic hues. Each, Barbara noted, had its uniform scheme of costume: one showed the sweeping lines and deep, flowing sleeves of the pre-Meiji era; another the high, garnet skirt of the modern school-girl; in one the kimono were of rich mauve, shading at the bottom to pale pink set with languorous red peonies; in another, of gray crepe figured with craggy pine-trees ”

“ The Japanese woman has the courage to look upon her face purely as so much surface for decoration, a canvas upon which to paint a picture; and she decorates it as one might decorate a bit of bare wall. The white is simple vegetable white; the red is pure vermilion toning with her kimono. The white makes no effort to blend with the natural tone of her neck: it announces itself in a clear-cut, knife-edge pattern above the folds of the kimono. ”

“ Her mind had to work as fast as her fingers. There was n’t a single thing among her belongings that she could make stockings of, unless—she sighed as she picked it up and shook out the folds of the prettiest kimono she had ever owned. It was the softest possible shade of gray with white cherry blossoms scattered over it, and it was bordered in wide bands of satin the exact color of a shining ripe red cherry. ”

“ These harmonize with the obi in color and give a dainty finish to the costume. As the kimono is quite narrow in the skirt, the women take very short steps. This short step, coupled with the dragging of the sandals, makes the women's gait quite unlike the free stride of the American woman. In the middle and higher schools the girls wear a pleated skirt over the kimono. These are uniform for each school and wine color is the shade now prevailing. The men and women of the same class wear practically the same kind of shoes. ”

“ Beside the lowest step there grew a plum tree in blossom, and upon the highest step there stood a fair and very young lady. She was most splendidly attired in robes of high festival. Her kimono was of water-blue silk, with sleeves of ceremony so long that they touched the ground; her under-dress was scarlet, and her great girdle of brocade was stiff and heavy with gold. In her hair were pins of gold and tortoiseshell and coral.
When Hagiwara saw the lady, he knelt down forthwith and made her due obeisance, till his forehead touched the ground. ”

“ In hot weather a kimono of light silk, often white with a coloured pattern, is worn by well-dressed women. Beneath this there will be another light kimono which is considered underwear—though other underwear is worn beneath it. Japanese underwear is not at all like ours, but one notices that many gentlemen in the national costume adopt the Occidental flannel undershirt, wearing it beneath their silks when the weather is cold—a fact revealed by a glimpse of the useful but unlovely garment rising up into the V-shaped opening formed by the collar of the kimono where it folds over at the throat. ”

“ She would scream with horror at the thought of a pink and white organdie gown, made over rosy taffeta, but the kimono is another story.
Green dressing-sacks are not often seen, but more’s the pity, for in the grand array of colour nothing should be lacking, and the wearers of these garments never seem to stop to think whether or not they are becoming. What could be more cheerful on a cloudy morning than a flannel négligée of the blessed shade of green consecrated to the observance of the seventeenth of March? ”

“ Pretty as she is on a pictured fan, the living Japanese woman is far more satisfying to the æsthetic soul as she patters along on her wooden clogs or straw sandals. The very poorest, in her single cheap cotton gown, or kimono, is as picturesque as her richer sister in silk and crape. ”

“ What I am terrified about with success is the way she comes. I hate anything accidental, It is, I think, a great test of my strength that I greatly fear to meet her on my road of life.
If there is anything admirable in Japan, that is no other but the Japanese woman’s kimono quite formless, even fantastic. And it is the woman’s love or personality when she makes it tum to a shape. ”

“ If the dress is of silk, hemp, or of a better kind of cotton, an underwear of bleached cotton is put on. This resembles the kimono in form, only that it is much shorter, coming down only to the thighs, and has open sleeves and no gores. The unlined kimono is worn when one goes out in summer; the yukata is mostly for home wear or put on for a walk in the evening. The unlined clothes are worn through midsummer from the middle of June until the latter half of September. ”

“ The kimono, haori, and girdle, and even the long hanging sleeves, have only parallel seams, and these are only tacked or basted, as the garments, when washed, are taken to pieces, and each piece, after being very slightly stiffened, is stretched upon a board to dry. There is no underclothing, with its bands, frills, gussets, and button-holes; the poorer women wear none, and those above them wear, like Yuki, an under-dress of a frothy-looking silk crépe, as simply made as the upper one. ”

“ There were a hundred bright kimono sleeves pushing and reaching toward the shelves of dolls in [pg 25] the shop. There were fifty little Japanese girls chattering together about the smiling face of one and the beautiful silk kimono of another. ”

“ When we ate supper, sitting on the floor around an eight-inch high table, with little O’Tatsu presiding and waiting on us, not only her beauty but her charming frankness, simplicity, quickness, and grace made further conquest of us all. The maiden enjoyed our admiration immensely, arrayed herself in her freshest blue-and-white cotton kimono, and submitted her head to the best hair-dresser in town, returning with gorgeous bits of crape and gold cord tied in with the butterfly loops of her blue-black tresses. ”

“ Girls in fiction or plays who are surprised in negligée are always “distractingly lovely” in silks or satins, with hair becomingly flowing. But real girls in negligée, unless they know they are going to be inspected, are quite a different matter. Joy’s hair was strained back in tight braids from a face which, without rouge, was as thinly white as skim-milk. The ribbons of her night gown had had their colour laundered out of them; her kimono was—well, it was a kimono, not a negligée, nor lingerie, nor a tea gown. ”

“ One sees no longer the beautiful embroidered robes, except upon the stage, for the abolition of the great leisure class has put the flowered kimono out of fashion. There are no courts, small and great, scattered all through the country, where the ladies must be dressed in changing styles for the changing seasons, and where the embroideries that imitate most closely the natural flowers are sure of a market. When one asks, as every foreigner is likely to ask, the Japanese ladies of one's acquaintance, "Why have you given up the beautiful embroideries and gorgeous colors that you used to wear?" ”

“ This opening is made in all female dresses and exposes the sides of the body to the air; but it is hidden from view by the sleeve and the obi, and is visible only when the sleeve is held up; the object of this aperture is to give free play to the breast part of the dress. In all female dresses the sleeves are left open and hemmed from their joints with the body pieces to the lower end. The skirt of the wadded kimono is more heavily wadded than men’s and is rounded to show more of the lining and the bulge of the wadding.
Under the kimono a woman wears much the same clothing as a man ”