Ryokan style yukata with a basket lattice weave pattern

Many of our customers are introduced to yukata (cotton kimono) on trips to Japan. There, ryokan and other hotels - even business class hotels - often provide yukata for guests to wear after their spa bath or simply as sleepwear. The fabric of these yukata are often blue or white with simple geometric patterns.  We recently received a visit from a customer who wished to replace a gown he had purchased in Japan, as after several years of constant use the collar was starting to show signs of wear and tear. Browsing through our suppliers' catalogues we decided that the yukata shown above - with a basket lattice pattern - although with more blue than our customer's gown was the closest match.  We have recently added this design as a yukata and a happi coat length to our range of gowns. Please note the yukata has been listed as a men's yukata but as with all our gowns could be worn by either men or women.

Japanya kimono used by X-factor dancers

X-factor backing dancers wore our plum blossom and bird kimono on a recent show.  The kimonos, which had been severely shortened to allow the dancers to move, looked exquisite worn with pink sashes.

Hyper Japan Report

We had a fantastic three days at Hyper Japan in July.  An amazing number of people attended the event and though it would have been nice to have a bit more space, everything seem to run extremely smoothly from our perspective. Thank you to all our customers and hope to see you again next year!

Origami Gift Box Auction to Help Japan Tsunami and Earthquake Survivors

 

Some Decorative Hexagonal Origami Gift Boxes made by Dominic Alves are for sale by auction on ebay here. All proceeds - after some eBay and PayPal fees have been deducted - will be donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society. The boxes - and links to each of their auctions - can be seen in better detail at Flickr.   The auctions close from midnight after 2nd June 2011 British Summer Time (GMT/UTC + 1 hour). Postage to most parts of the world is free.

Hyper Japan 2011 OlympiaTwo 22-24 July

A reminder that we will be running a stall at the Brighton Japan Festival 2011 over the weekend 18-19 June (11am to 6pm). We have also signed up to run a stall at Hyper Japan (Oympia Two, Earls Court, 22-24 July). If you would like to see a particular item from our website, for example one of our kimono, please contact us and we will try our best to bring it along on the day.

Japanya at Tower Bridge, London

Here is a short video we made of our day at the wa-no-wa.org event on Friday.  It was a fantastic setting and the weather was wonderful.  If you'd like to donate to the Red Cross Japan Appeal please visit www.wa-no-wa.org  Thank you for all your support.

We will be running a small stall at Potters Fields Park (between City Hall and Tower bridge, SE1 2AA) on Friday 8th April (11am to 4pm). This event has been organised at short notice to raise money for the Red Cross Japan disaster relief fund.  More details about the event and how to donate to the fund at www.wa-no-wa.org

Brighton Matsuri (18th/19th June)

  
We will be running a stall at the Brighton Japan Festival 2011 over the weekend 18th/19th June (11am to 6pm). However, due to limited space, we will only be able to bring a small selection of our Japanese gifts to the Matsuri.  These will include: folding fans, origami paper, lucky cats, T-shirts, daruma, sake sets, greetings cards, samurai sword paper knives, keyrings and hair accessories. If you would like to see a particular item from our website, for example one of our kimono, please contact us and we will try our best to bring it along on the day.

Yukata for Large and Tall Men

Koi Yukata

Dragon yukata

Autumn moon yukata

This week we have introduced three new yukata to our webshop. In traditional yukata colours (kon/dark blue and white) they are available in LL and 3L sizes. The new 3L is our largest robe size and is designed to fit large and tall men.