Kimono Flea Market ICHIROYA's News Letter No.616

f:id:yumejitsugen1:20150923231326j:plain

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/262610/

Hello from Japan.

Since we had a long weekend (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday), this newsletter seems a bit irregular schedule.

We had our shop calender on the top page, but for those who were in a hurry for shipping, we are so sorry, sumimasen for the inconvenience due to this long weekend.

We will be at our office from tomorrow(September 24th) as usual weekeday. We list new arrivals also.

This long weekend is called `Silver Week' and this happened due to the new law from 2000. In order to activate tourist industry and transportation industry, Japanese government decided to move certain national holidays to Monday to have consecutive hoildays together with weekend. Respect-for-the-Aged Day has been moved to the third Monday of September(the holiday used to be September 15th)because of this law, and since Autumnal Equinox Day was 23rd of September, this year, Tuesday, in between, also became a holiday (this is also by the law when the date of holidays have been changed). This year, it became 5 days holidays but this does not happen every year. The next Silver Week (5 days holidays) will be 2026. For us, Keiro no hi(Respect-for-the-Aged Day) was always September 15th, and still we are not used to this new date....

September 27th is Chushu no Meigetsu (The Harvest Moon) day. It is not a natiohal holiday. It is a day to view the moon. The date is decided from old Chinese Calender.

People make or buy odango (rice dumpling) and offer them, decorating with Susuki, silver grasses and enjoy the full moon. The idea is to view the beautiful moon - it is not really like a big festival (Chinese people's Chusyu setsu).

When we were small children, we believed rabbits lived on the moon. Grown-ups always pointed to moon, telling `See the rabbit? She is pounding mochi' and somehow, we started to see a rabbit on the moon. Usagi(rabbit) living on the moon is from a legend from India, it came as one of the Buddhist tales to Japan.

Usagi have been one of the most loved figure (considered to be auspicious figure- with the long ears which invite happiness, and considered to be a messenger from the moon) and appears quite often among kimono and obi design.

Usagi appears by themselves but very often, they come with other motif such as wave, moon, snow or flowers.

We have many charming kimono or obi with usagi and we hope you enjoy seeing them.

Gorgeous Usagi obi:

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/248200/

The usagi design of this kimono is very unique!

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/301137/

Usagi and sakura:

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/309934/

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/284557/

Usagi making mochi:

http://www.ichiroya.com/item/list2/306787/

Colorful Dyed work by a famous dyer, Kuriyama Kichizaburo: