The Wasō Myself Project
Have you ever assumed something like this?
"Kimono-dressing lessons are mainly for casual, everyday kimono."
"For formal kimono worn at ceremonies, you're supposed to have a professional dress you."
Have you ever assumed something like that?
With a dressing method called mae-musubi ("front-tying"), anyone — young or old, male or female — can learn to dress themselves in kimono, from casual everyday wear all the way up to the most formal styles.
At our company,
we design lessons around each person's specific goals and needs, working out exactly what knowledge and skills are required and how long it will take. We call this our Wasō Myself Project ("Japanese Dress, Myself" Project).
Here, we'd like to introduce one part of it:
🌼The "Furisode Myself Project." 🌼
One day, a girl preparing for her Coming-of-Age Ceremony the following year asked me this:
"Can you actually put on a furisode by yourself?!"
Like many people, she'd assumed that while a yukata (a casual summer kimono) was something you could put on yourself, a furisode (a long-sleeved, formal kimono worn by young, unmarried women) simply wasn't.
The reason, as she understood it, was that tying the obi for a furisode isn't something you can do easily on your own.
And it's true — it isn't easy.
But with the mae-musubi method — where the obi is tied in front of the body and then rotated around to the back — it becomes possible.
So she took on the challenge, along with friends who shared the same wish — to dress themselves in furisode and attend their Coming-of-Age Ceremony that way.
Together, they became part of the Furisode Myself Project.
The Furisode Myself Project carries a deeper, weightier meaning than our other Wasō Myself projects.
～"Becoming an Adult"～
It's one of life's great milestones — a rite of passage everyone goes through exactly once.
Of the four major life ceremonies traditionally marked in Japan — coming of age, marriage, funerals, and ancestral rites — coming of age is the very first.
That first ceremony is the Coming-of-Age Ceremony.
Reaching that important day, and attending the ceremony itself, is the first step toward walking forward as an adult.
Being able to dress herself in a furisode — the most formal attire for an unmarried woman — for that occasion, and attend the ceremony that way, becomes an experience that carries real weight throughout the rest of her life.
That's exactly why the goal was never simply to master the technique of putting on a furisode. To make this a space for learning something far more meaningful, every member of the group worked together to clearly define both a "goal" and a "purpose."
"Goal"
Dress yourself in a furisode.
Present yourself with proper composure and appearance, and express gratitude to your parents.
"Purpose"
Pass on, through your own words and actions, the understanding of Japanese and kimono culture gained through the experience of dressing yourself.
"Plan"
What to use, what to learn, who to learn from, and what exactly to learn from them along the way to the goal — and what resources, and how much of them (time, cost, and so on), that would require.
The record of their roughly year-long "learning" and "discoveries" is documented here.
instagram "Furisode Myself Project"
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Click here for more details
Over that year of building both technical skill and knowledge, the group came away with far more than just their original "goal" and "purpose" —
・how meaningful it is to properly express gratitude to parents and family while dressed in the formal respect of a furisode
・the sense of truly becoming an adult — moving on from relying on their parents — through the experience of dressing themselves
・a responsibility, as members of the generation carrying kimono culture forward, to develop the posture and dignity befitting formal dress
They came to understand all of this in their own words, and on the day of the ceremony, each of them wrote a letter of gratitude and handed it to their parents.
Taking on this project became, for them, a chance to learn something important about life itself — not just a skill for wearing a furisode.
The time they spent on this challenge was time spent facing themselves.
That time is something they'll carry with them as their own.
Today, each of them is shining in her own way.
Some are studying at university while also starting their own businesses.
Others have organized "Japanese Culture Exchange" events while studying abroad.
They've taken the purpose they defined for themselves — passing on, through their own words and actions, the understanding of Japanese and kimono culture gained through dressing themselves — and put it into practice, growing into people who now carry that culture forward.
At KIMONO Terrasse,
we're here to help nurture that kind of asset — the kind that belongs entirely to you.
Anyone is welcome, at any age.
Young children are more than welcome too.
Whenever you catch a glimpse of who you want to become, feel free to reach out.
Let's build a plan together and work toward that goal.
We hope we can be of help to you.