​PASSIONEER

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