Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.506

This is a ro, summer silk tsukesage kimono. The dyed Kikyo flowers (Chinese bell flower) are very lovely and excellent for summer.

It seems to be this kimono is from Heisei(1989- ), or very late Showa(1926-1989). This is a used tsukesage (hand sewn)and have a little flaw and wear but still very lovely.

The kimono has a fatal `error'-  do you find the error?

This kimono can tell, even the professionals can make simple mistakes. The kimono has been worn (it is obvioius), even though this has a fatal error.

At what stage, did the mistake has been known? The possible situation :

1)Gofukuya(kimono seller) could not notice the mistake and the customer wore the kimono without noticing the error.

2)Gofukuya could not notice and the customer was wearing the kimono and someone pointed out the error.

It is hard to imagine Gofukuya selling the kimono with such a mistake.

It is possible----they see details but missed this very simple mistake.

You may have noticed....the pattern on the sleeves are on wrong panel. Tsukesage are dyed as a bolt(roll) and cut into each panel and sewn to make one kimono.  The patterns should be on back of right sleeve and front side of left sleeve. It is that way always.

There is a reason for it- imagine playing Japanese guitar(shamisen). If you see the shamisen player from front, left arm should hold the neck of the shamisen by stretching, and the right arm should be bent to play the strings, so the back of the sleeves will show. Tsukesage patterns are located to show the patterned part when the wearer plays the shamisen.
This particular tsukesage in the photo has patterns on the wrong side.

It happened maybe because the tailor was very old and made this mistake, or the kimono has been tailored somewhere abroad, and came back this way, we cannot know.

This is a fatal error (if Gofukuya finds this mistake they never let them go). Nobody think someone is wearing the kimono with such simple but crucial mistake( as you can imagine, kimono are always made by format, and have many rules, we know this was one of the reason for many people turned out to stay away from wearing kimono). The rules are in a way, the essence of kimono. 

The wearer of this kimono must have had walked with her nose in the air and people might not have noticed, they just thought, `oh she is wearing a nice kimono'.

If someone has pointed out the mistake, there must have been quite a drama. The wearer must have rushed into Gofukuya and complained, and the Gofukuya must have got angry to the tailor.  I do not want to imagine, but there must have been a big scene.....

We all make mistakes anyways! Let's forget about the mistake(we found a photo of tsukesage in WIKI in Japanese had the SAME mistake.)

We hope you enjoy the two summer kimono (they are truly GEMS!), they are museum pieces. Please enjoy the two WEARABLE ART.




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