I enjoy collecting and wearing kimono for tea. I feel comfortable and wear kimono whenever I am teaching tea, in the tea room or sometimes just around the house.
When I lived in Kyoto, Japan, I lived near the district called the Nishijin. It is a famous area in the city known for fabric. Not just any fabric, but designers here, for generations, have produced the most beautiful brocade and woven fabrics used in obi and kimono.
Everyday when I would walk to class, I could hear the sounds of the jacquard looms chink-a-chink-a-chink in the homes where the fabric was woven. But I returned to Kyoto last autumn and walked through my old neighborhood for two days. I didn’t hear any looms working in the homes – not a single one.
Ladies don’t wear kimono very often in Japan any more. Just for formal occasions or when they are going to something traditional like a tea ceremony. Some Japanese women that I have taught don’t know how to put a kimono on because they have never done so by themselves. And certainly, women don’t buy wardrobes of kimono – one for every season – any more. With men it is even more rare to dress in kimono – though it seems like hakama is still worn for many martial arts.
So many of the kimono shops have closed and the shops that supplied the accessories for kimono – hair ornaments, zori shoes, fans, combs, sashes and woven cords have also gone away. I met with a seventh generation kimono designer last November. He is the last of his family to design and make kimono. When he retires, the shop will close.
Like many of Japan’s traditional crafts, the kimono is a dying art. The children of the craftsmen no longer want to carry on the business and finding apprentices is getting harder and harder. Young people no longer want to put in the long hours and the many years it takes to master a craft that has little meaning in the modern world. It is getting harder for these craftsmen to make a living practicing their craft. Though we would like to preserve it, I am afraid that soon we will see very little of kimono, obi and accessories.
Last year, The Washington Post had an excellent article, Twilight for the Kimono about the Nishijin and the the art of kimono.
The kimono in the exhibition were exquisite and showed the wide range of decoration from finely painted scenery to elaborate embroidery to painstaking tie dye. The language of kimono is many layered. Through the theme of kimono through the four seasons you could see not just the obvious symbols of the seasons – snow for winter, colored leaves for fall, flowers for spring and water for summer, but also the literary references to the stories in Noh plays, or puns and witticisms, for example. There were other not so obvious references in the kimono on exhibit such as the length of the sleeves to show the age of the wearer, the summer weight of the cloth and even the differences for a geisha kimono.
For tea ceremony, kimono is more subdued than those on exhibit. Appropriate colors are not as bright and the sleeves are shorter than the kimono shown. The most formal kimono for tea is iro muji, or one color kimono with no decoration. Though there is no applied or painted decoration, the richness of the kimono is apparent in the weight of the silk and weave. Sometimes there will be patterns woven into the fabric like damsak: waves, flowers, pine trees or motifs. The obi for tea can be elaborate and colorful.
The kimono is a garment that is wrapped and tied with lengths of cloth (called himo), there are no fasteners. Thus, every time you put on a kimono it is custom fitted. Though it looks like a kimono is one-size-fits-all, there are crucial measurements to fit a kimono and then can be adjusted precisely to the wearer.
The first time I dressed myself in kimono, it took me about three and a half hours. It was mostly because I didn’t know what I was doing. But with much practice (I wore kimono everyday when I lived in
Dressing in kimono for men is a little simpler than for women. The obi is tied in a simple style and usually there are a limited range of colors: dark blue, brown, grey and black. On formal occasions, men wear hakama, a wide divided skirt-like garment worn over the lower half of the kimono. There is a specific way to tie the hakama to make it look formal and keep it secure.
Some martial arts still wear the hakama for training and formal occasions. If you think that men in skirts look funny, you probably haven’t seen a man in full formal kimono and hakama. They look so gorgeous and manly, just like the samurai.
In America, there is the stereotype and fantasy of geisha girls making tea for men. But in the beginning, women were not allowed to practice the tea ceremony. In this 400 year old tradition, it wasn’t until a hundred years ago that women were allowed to study and participate in tea ceremonies. At one point, samurai were expected to study yin pursuits such as tea ceremony and flower arranging to balance the yang pursuits of sword practice and calligraphy. Even now, most of the highest ranking tea masters and teachers are men.
During my tea training, I have had both men and women for sensei and I have always studied with a mix of men and women. I feel lucky in this regard because the energy in a tea room with men is different. While the training is the same for men and women, there are subtle differences in how men sit, stand, walk and move in the tea room. Unlikely as it seems, tea is a physical pursuit, and a few adaptations to procedures have been made to allow women to study.
When I was in Kyoto, whenever we went to formal tea gatherings at the grand tea master’s house, we were always served by the men – tea masters in training. It is quite an experience to see a man in kimono, like the grand tea master, conduct a tea ceremony. It’s the combination of strength, skill and gracefulness and yes, it is quite attractive.
