obi
obi, wide sash or belt made of satin or a stiff silk material, worn since ancient times in Japan to secure the kimono.

If your kimono fabric has sustained enough damage to make large portions of it unusable, you can still make use of the scraps. Cut out patches in cute shapes and embroider them onto jackets and bags, or cut out strips and glue them to barrettes, pins or other jewelry backings.

Kimono Rule #1: Left over Right Always wear the left side over the right side. Only dead people have their kimono worn right over left. So unless you are at your own funeral, remember this basic but important rule for wearing a kimono! A useful and amuzing memory aid for this rule is the phrase “leftover rice”.

Women had come to personify Japanese morality and they could only do that while wearing kimono. It took the utter devastation of the Pacific War to bring to an end to centuries of everyday kimono wearing. With their country and moral in ruins the Japanese saw Western clothing as the simplest option.

An obi belt is a long decorative belt that is wrapped around the body to wear a Japanese kimono or yukata. They have no fastening, and instead are tied together in a bow or other attractive knot. Obi can be made from any fabric if it is strong enough to pull.

Fabric price depends on quality, design and dye process. An average wool kimono costs around $240, one of cotton is about $40. Silk, inevitably, is more expensive, costing about $245 for a kimono’s worth of machine-printed fabric for everyday wear and around $800 for an average formal kimono.

Gentle soap can be used to wash a kimono. Add a cleansing agent. A special, delicate clothing detergent can be used, but none which brighteners or bleach. Also, baby shampoo and mild, alkaline-free soap will work; if something is gentle enough for human skin, it’s usually alright for silk.

It is the symbol of spiritual and physical purity. Since old times, the Emperor of Japan used to dress in white clothes for the main Shinto rituals. However, in Buddhism, the color white also means death, and white attributes have been used for the ritual samurai suicide called ‘seppuku’.

In short, you will not be viewed as ‘stealing’ Japanese culture if you wear a kimono and you are respectful when doing so. In fact, many Japanese would be pleased to see you wear a kimono as it demonstrates your passion for Japanese culture.

Their traditional use was as an informal obi for children and men, and though historically would have been inappropriate for women to wear, the heko obi is now also worn by young girls and women with modern, informal kimono and yukata.