​PASSIONEER

The arrow feather pattern is striking. Haikara-san. How nostalgic. A shōjo manga from my school days. In 2017, it came back as an animated film. A manga of Taishō romance, but above all a love story. Next to the anime Demon Slayer, also set in the Taishō era, it feels like an entirely different age. In Haikara-san, petals fly everywhere, and your heart skips a beat. The man the heroine marries is a total heartthrob. The heroine moves freely between Japanese and Western clothe

Official PV (Japanese) I watched Demon Slayer. It is a huge hit out there. I had heard it moves you with its family love and brotherly love. I will set the story aside this time. What caught my attention was the patterns on the kimono the characters wear. Each one is carefully chosen to suit the character's personality. Tanjiro wears ichimatsu, the checkerboard. It is extremely famous. Nezuko wears asanoha, the hemp leaf pattern. So cute. Hemp grows straight and strong. In Ja

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris 【A dress goes to the one who dares to dream. I watched the film. Everywhere, there was the scent of a Paris I remember so fondly. It felt like a dream. It is based on a novel by the English writer Paul Gallico. Mrs. Harris works as a cleaner in London. She is in great demand, and works without rest. One day, at a client's home, she falls in love at first sight with a Dior dress that belongs to the lady of the house. And she decides that she will buy

The other day, this film popped up as a "recommendation" on a streaming service, and I watched it by chance. The trailer pulled me in with the beauty of its hand sewing. I didn't even know what a caftan was. 【On the other side of the world, someone was holding the same needle.】 A caftan (Caftan / Kaftan), it seems, is a loose, long robe that has been worn for centuries across the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa. Its structure, remarkably, is close to a kimono. I felt an

A pattern once sewn as a wish for a child's growth now survives as a single piece of cloth. A pattern once sewn as a wish for a child's growth now survives as a single piece of cloth. Combinaison is made from the same fabric used for nagajuban, the underlayer worn beneath a kimono. On the secondhand market, white and pale pink pieces are everywhere, and they go for next to nothing. Unusual designs and true antiques are the ones everyone wants to keep for themselves, so they r

Nagajuban counts as underwear. Under a Western suit, or under a dress. You would never walk around the house in a nagajuban alone. And there is no fixed rule for what fabric a nagajuban should be made of. Looking at my mother's nagajuban, they are made from chirimen, rinzu, mousseline, hemp — all kinds of materials, and some are remade from haori that had grown too showy to wear as is. A quickened pulse, hidden exactly where no one looks. There is a view that says: it's under

Made to sit against bare skin, like an extension of the skin itself. The undergarment worn beneath a beautiful kimono is called nagajuban. It too is, by default, 100% silk, hand-sewn. But lately, extreme weather has made Japanese summers unbearably hot. Wearing a full kimono is hard enough in summer as it is. Bras, sleeveless tops, mini skirts. None of that can compete with a kimono when it comes to beating the heat. So summer nagajuban are made of hemp, or skipped altogether

Teaching a curve, little by little, to a cloth that was born straight. Kimono are cut in straight lines. The bolt is roughly 38cm wide, and that is what we use. Making a combinaison from it, that constraint alone creates problems. To let the beauty of drape come through, an A-line is ideal, and it follows the line of the body. There is a famous scene, in an old film, where a dress catches an updraft and billows. We won't go that far. But light, soft fabric clings to the body

The cashmere coat my grandmother left behind. Inside it, a new silk story begins. A silk fabric made for Western clothing. Perhaps a lining for a man's jacket —the kind you'd find in a finely tailored Italian coat.Laid across my palm, it has that smooth, liquid drape.That's silk, unmistakably. It was easy to imagine how it would look lined inside my grandmother's cashmere coat.The real gamble was using it for my son's haori.Could I line it fully? Wouldn't it be too heavy for

A grandmother's cashmere coat, its black wool exterior now lined with French vintage silk — a new life for both. 　 A French friend gave me a piece of silk.It had belonged to her grandmother, kept all these years. A geometric pattern, impossibly smooth, a sheen that moves like liquid.Ah — I can feel the silk's brilliance, its texture, right in my hands. Japanese silk thread, woven in Lyon, I believe. No proof at all. "My grandmother had this, but I don't know when it's from.I

The dissolving horizon of the Mediterranean Sea and the solitary fortress of Château d'if resting on the sleeve. A one-of-a-kind haute couture masterpiece, born from personal sketches and brought to life by the hands of a traditional Yuzen artisan. When I lived in France, I did nothing but sketch. Day after day, intensely. Looking back now, it seems only natural. Picasso, who pioneered Cubism—when you look at his The Weeping Woman, it might look like a mere prankish doodle to

My friend in France gave me two Hermès scarves. One was a gift to celebrate the launch of my brand, sent along with a beautiful memory of fireflies. The other is a piece worn and loved by her husband’s aunt years ago—a classic, orthodox design featuring noble figures on horseback. Both are irreplaceable treasures to me. When I think about how deeply the Japanese sericulture industry is historically intertwined with France, these two Hermès scarves become even more profound. B

Vintage silk fabric dyed using the stencil of Living National Treasure Hiroshi Kodama, beautifully washed and stretched. Why must Wasai—traditional Japanese tailoring—be done by hand? Although it is a highly exceptional form of haute couture, its rare value has long been overlooked in Japan, perhaps because it was once a natural part of daily life. However, times have changed, and the custom of wearing a garment until it is completely worn out is fading. Today, through a 70-y

The same kimono, reborn. Re-dyed, resewn — the butterflies from my seventh year still dancing. My Shichi-Go-San. This white kimono would one day be reborn as deep purple. The butterfly motif, carried forward into its next life. It is widely known that KIMONO — Japanese traditional clothing — is made to be remade. The needles used in Japanese sewing are exceptionally fine. Unlike the holes left by a sewing machine, the needle's path disappears once the fabric is unstitched and

The hakama became an obi, and now wraps around my waist. From my grandmother, to my mother, to me. This crimson obi was once my great-grandmother's ceremonial hakama — the long trailing skirt worn by court ladies in the Imperial Palace. Passed from my grandmother to my mother, it arrived in my hands already transformed: my grandmother had remade it into a nagoya obi for my mother to wear. I am not a small woman, and it is a little short on me. But as long as my arms can reach

Photograph of great-grandparents attending the 1928 enthronement ceremony A photograph from 1928, taken on the occasion of theEnthronement Ceremony of Emperor Shōwa.It shows my great-grandparents, who attended the ceremony at the Imperial Court. At that time, the enthronement was still held in Kyoto.The previous one, for the Enthronement Ceremony of Emperor Taishō, is said to have involved Nijō Castle as one of its associated venues.For Emperor Shōwa, the ceremonies took plac

1928. The enthronement of Emperor Showa. My great-grandmother attended in a kouchigi court robe. This is where the hundred-year journey begins. In 1928, my great-grandparents attended the imperial enthronement ceremony of Emperor Showa.My great-grandmother stood there in a ko-uchigi, dressed according to court custom. After the war, during a time of severe food shortages, my grandmother—who had married into the family—kept this garment.She never sold it.Even then, it must hav

Unfolded. Laid flat. Time taken to think. Whose shoulders will it rest upon next? In the 2010s, I had my mother's furisode from the 1950s re-dyed for my daughter's coming-of-age ceremony. I chose the color of the deepest ocean floor. Beneath that depth, only the gold leaf remained visible — rising to the surface like light from another world. The mysterious beauty seemed to whisper of my daughter's unknown future, stirring both anxiety and wonder. And now, that re-dyed furiso

My mother's coming-of-age ceremony. The white palace shimmered with hand-applied gold leaf — Baroque grandeur woven into silk. My mother's coming-of-age ceremony photograph. In those days, the kimono world was swept up in Rococo and Baroque influences. The spirit of postwar Japan — catch up, surpass — poured itself into design. An overwhelming longing for the West made its way into silk. My mother's furisode was white, painted with Entasis columns and a palace in vivid color

The crepe texture of ichikoshi chirimen created by strongly twisted silk yarns. Fashion designers around the world often use silk crepe. However, traditional Japanese chirimen silk is almost never used in global fashion. Why is that? The answer begins with the structure of kimono fabric . Kimono cloth is woven as a tanmono — a narrow bolt of fabric measuring about 38 centimeters in width . This width already makes it difficult to meet the needs of modern fashion design. Gar