​PASSIONEER

Chikusen kago-zome. Stripes on one side, kumadori on the other. One fabric. Two faces. It's almost yukata season. In Tokyo, there's an unspoken rule: once Sanja Matsuri is over, you can step outside in a yukata. In other regions, the local festival sets the cue. Japan stretches so far from north to south that the turning of seasons feels entirely different depending on where you stand. There is no shortage of wasai craftspeople. Overseas production has grown in recent years,

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

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