(Picture and text  from Baltimore Museum of Art's Website, www.artbma.org .) Kimono & Obi: Romantic Echoes From Japan's Golden Age From July 10, 2016 — January 15, 2017 The BMA presents an exquisite selection of late 19th- and mid-20th century kimono and obi that have never been shown before. Obi are wide sashes wrapped around the kimono wearer's waist and tied in an ornate knot at the back. These stunning garments were made after the lifting of sumptuary laws during Japan’s Edo period (1603–1867) when commoners were forbidden to wear showy clothing with colors like red or purple. The Meiji...

Kimono: The Art & Evolution of Japanese Fashion (Credit:Picture from Amazon.com, click above to go to Amazon page) When we first started selling vintage Japanese kimonos on  www.yokodana.com in 1998 we thought that the West's love for traditional kimonos and vintage Japanese fabric might be a passing fad. Boy were we wrong!Now, nearly two decades later it seems to us that the excitement and love of Japanese kimonos world-wide is far from fading, but continues to  grow in leaps and bounds. We've come to call this love affair with kimono of the West a sort of meme "Kimono Culture" among ourselves here. As we grew up...

  Our most recent Google+ update, samples of a few of the types of vintage Japanese kimono fabrics by yard sold on www.yokodana.com .

YokoDana Kimono Kimono Culture News: Thanks to japannow.com, for this August 10, 2016 news piece about a service started in Tokyo for visiting foreigners to Japan. It has pointers which our (www.yokodana.com) fans might appreciate. It's short enough we'll post the whole thing below; Link to original article is here): TOKYO — Bettergeta.com was established in 2014 by a team of experts in the field of kimono wearing. The company has over 50 years of experience when it comes to the art of the kimono. Having opened a school for teaching students how to wear this historic garment, Bettergeta.com recently...

  Samuel Thomas,Japantimes.com, Aug. 7.2016: Jotaro Saito has been showcasing his kimono brand at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo since 2006, almost a decade before the eyebrow-raising appearance of X Japan frontman Yoshiki Hayashi’s Yoshikimono brand at the event last October. It’s true that Matohu, from design partnership Hiroyuki Horihata and Makiko Sekiguchi, and Takeshi Kunitomo’s Gouk continue to find ways of incorporating traditional Japanese aesthetics into their work, but Saito and his eponymous brand remain the sole proponent of pure kimono as fashion during the weeklong event... Read entire article at JapanTimes.com HERE.