She looks beautiful in her kimono. The man does not look right in the western suit. He would have looked better in a kimono.

# Tornadoes28 · 2008-12-21

Interesting you should say that. The modern black formal kimono, with its striped hakama, clearly draws its inspiration from Western morning dress, as in this picture. What’s interesting to me is that you usually don’t see this anymore: either both are wearing kimono (as in the kamimae-shiki), or both are wearing Western wedding attire (in a Christian or secular ceremony). Mixed Western- and Japanese attire is only seen at things like university graduations and Coming-of-Age Day.

# *shrug* · 2009-04-19

…Shinzen-shiki, rather. (Ah, the wonders of multiple kanji readings.) And I guess HTML doesn’t work on this site.

# *shrug* · 2009-04-19

Hi shrug,

Yes, html doesn’t work. The site uses something called textile. Click Formatting Help for details.

# Kjeld Duits · 2009-04-19

I’m intrigued by the formal kimonos. I have one my grandfather brought back from Okinawa after World War 2. We have no idea how old it is, but the woman’s above is the closest thing I have ever seen to it. Do you, or do any readers have any idea how I can find out more about this precious family heirloom? Thanks!

# kelly · 2009-05-28

Have you already done a search on Google? I got more than 17,000 hits with this search.

# Kjeld Duits · 2009-05-28

Kjeld: thanks so much for researching that for me! Actually, by your post I was able to find out it was a wedding kimono….so now I have a starting place! I’ll keep visiting; I love your gorgeous blog! Thanks! kel

# kelly · 2009-05-29

You are very welcome. Thanks for the nice words about Old Photos of Japan and hope to see a lot of you!

# Kjeld Duits · 2009-05-29

Good post. Thanks.

# Technic · 2014-12-02