Obi with Maiocchi Skirt

I have a confession to make. I love clothes. I love innovative designs, BUT I am a very impatient seamstress. I have been collecting fabrics, especially over the last year. My fabric box is starting to overflow with the most stunning pieces and I have yet to do anything with them.

I have 3 favourite designers in Brisbane; Maiocchi, Nelson Molloy and Dogstar. Funnily enough, all three are influenced by Japanese design. Each time I go back to Brisbane, I promise myself one piece. Luckily, all three designers have stores just around the corner from each other in the Valley, so I check out the range of each and then decide what to buy.

A bit over a year ago, while I was still living in Brisbane, I had a friend's wedding to go to. It was just before Christmas and my card making business was so busy, so I hadn't even had time to think about what I was going to wear. I wanted something gorgeous, but didn't have time to go shopping.

Luckily I was surrounded by stunning Japanese fabrics and took inspiration from them. I had a black Maiocchi Apron skirt. These skirts are great. They are made with hooks at the top and then you can buy all different things to hang from the hooks. There is a picture of one of their skirts at the top. I own a range of different "hanging bits" so the skirt can be easily changed from a day to night outfit. Many different looks in the same skirt! I took a piece of an obi that I couldn't bear to sell all of. It was quick and easy to sew it up and hang it off the skirt. You can see a picture of it on the right.

The friend who was getting married was Japanese and many of her family members had come to Australia for the wedding. I was seated at the table with her family and her aunt was a designer who specialised in textiles. My skirt was admired by all at the wedding, especially the designer who repeatedly came over to look at it again and again.

We're back!

After a nice, but very busy Christmas, New Year break, we're back up on eBay. I have to confess, I really missed it and was raring to go this morning with the listing.


I thought we'd start the new year with one of my favourite new pieces - it's best we sell it before I decide to keep it for myself. I love black and red together and I love origami cranes, so when Mummy Mel bought this one, pictured to the left, she knew I was going to approve, and was going to have trouble parting with it.


We've also combined Mel's eBay paper store, so we'll be regularly selling origami paper, washi and yuzen.

This year, we'd really like to make our blog a little community and so ask for your help. We'd love to hear from you, hear about your ideas, projects, kimono fabric experiences, comments on our blog posts, links to your own blogs or websites, anything you think people would be interested it. Photos would be great, but even stories without photos are good. Tell us a little about yourself. We've got our first link up to one of our customer's, Jackie, website. She's a really talented photographer whose just finished an exhibition. We'd like to offer our customers a little present, that we'll send the next time they buy with us, for any contributions.

My email address should be showing at the top of the blog page, but otherwise feel free to contact us through the comments feature or through our eBay store. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

What is old is new again

Today Mummy Mel and I were invited to attend a Kimono accessorising day at a beauty salon. As some of you may know, most Japanese can't actually put on a kimono by themselves and so will go to a professional to be dressed. Most of these dressers are in hairdressing salons. The concept of today's event was that people could bring along their kimonos and obis and be shown how to accessorise them to bring them up to date with the modern kimono fashion.

Sadly, our timing was off, so we didn't get a chance to see anyone being dressed today. It did give us time however to chat to the owner of the salon. Kimonos themselves are very expensive pieces of clothing. A furosode kimono with long sleeves which is worn by unmarried girls and women can cost into the tens of thousands of dollars. Because of this, they can become family hierlooms and be passed down generations. To be up with the current fashion, it may not them be reasonable to buy a new kimono. The easiest way to update it them is with the under-collar and the obi and its accessories. Stand-alone collars can be bought and slipped in underneath the kimono collar. I have seen some really funky ones recently and have tried to think of a way of incorporating them into everyday clothes. I've seen some great ones with black lace, worn under a dark red kimono (my personal favourite combination) they can look very Victorian.

I took a close-up picture of this obi styling. You can see that the kimono and obi themselves are quite traditional. At the top of the obi, there are two scalloped shaped pieces. These are a new brilliant idea by the salon's owner. They have been made with antique kimono fabric and sewn onto a board of hard plastic. The plastic is them inserted into the obi and the item instantly updates the whole look. She sells these pieces with matching collars.

Around the middle of the obi is a thick fabric cord. This is known as an obijime. A broach has been slipped through the obijime. The stylist and owner of the shop is Mami Ichikawa. Once she gets her website up and running, we'll put a link to it on this site.

While there I took some other photos of kimonos and accessories.