Kimono

One of the lecture series we follow here at the University is dedicated to Japanese traditional culture. We already had instructions on how to perform a classical 'Sakura Sakura' dance while holding a fan and doing all kinds of things with it except for fanning ourselves and last friday we had a class about the old Kimono 着物 with a very nice Lady. The womans one is rather difficult to put on with various strings and sashes and bows but the men's summer kimono a.k.a. Yukata is decidedly easier. Just the kimono and a sash called Obi 帯 . There are two obis one is called a kaku-obi (a plain blue, grey or whatever demure colour band made out of cotton) and the heko-obi ( a more elaborate one made out of silk or polyester with a worked ending on both sides called shibori 絞り .The artist first creates a design and then the cloth is stitched, bound, resisted, wrapped or gathered by hand. Any number of these methods are used on one piece and often involves a dozen different techniques. The cloth is then dyed in natural dyes such as indigo, bark, roots, leaves, insects or resins. For each color, dozens of steps have to be altered, re-stitched, gathered etc. and the complicated processes repeated from start to finish).
There are some quite exquisite ones to be found with a price to match ofcourse.
As you can see we're all (except for Ruud) looking in another camera....distracted by the Paparazzi once again!
Three more nights before I'm off to Bangkok to see Paul for his 45th (already) birthday........