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| Since yukatas do not have pockets, and you do not wear anything else when you wear a yukata, I bought a new bag to go with my yukatas. |
I bought my first yukata two years ago when my parents visited Sapporo. I was quite happy with it and it has served me well. This year, I ended up buying two new yukatas. One with playing card patterning, since my friends insisted this would be great for me as a magician, and one that just looked very nice that I found in a shop when I went to the wrong shop looking for the playing card yukata.
Sadly, both the new yukatas came with obis (belts) with a fake knot and Velcro. I have finally become happy with my results when tying the obi myself (my old yukata has a normal obi that you have to do everything with yourself). The new obis are pretty, but I am thinking of trying to find something similar without Velcro.
Anyway, my friends pester me about photos, so today I spent my sick-day taking pictures of myself in yukatas.
My first yukata
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| My first yukata |
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| My first yukata has flowers, in black on black. |
My second yukata
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| My second yukata has cherry blossoms embroidered on it, and one quarter of the yukata is grey in contrast to the three quarters that are black. |
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| The obi has purple cherry blossoms |
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| The left shoulder also has cherry blossoms embroidered on it, which is the reason I bought this yukata. |
My "playing card design" yukata
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| This is the yukata with (fairly discreet) playing card symbols. |
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| Strangely, there are no hearts, only clubs, spades, and diamonds. Some of the clubs are red, some of the diamonds are grey (and vice versa). |
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| The obi has dragons, which is nice. I am born in the year of the dragon (and it is the year of the dragon now). |
Wow, very nice yukatas!!! Cherry blossom pattern on the shoulder is very stylish :)
ReplyDeleteI like that one too :-) Today I went to a kimono-shop and looked at yukata obis that do not use Velcro. There were some nice ones, though not really one that fit my yukata. I will try some more shops later. And I also need to buy new geta...
DeleteHi lovely Yukatas, you said you got these from Sapporo... any idea what the shop was called? I am going there this year and would like to buy one :)
ReplyDeletethanks
For men it is a bit difficult to find yukatas, but when it is yukata season you can find some, and most kimono shops also carry yukatas for men. For girls, you can find yukatas everywhere. Any department store or mall will have several shops selling yukatas for women.
DeleteThe yukatas above are from the "4 chome plaza" (or "4 pura" for short), from the AEON mall near Soen station, and from the Ryugi Assaku shop in the ARIO mall. The ARIO mall shop has the most interesting selection for men, and has lots of interesting t-shirts etc. too.
For girls, I would guess going to PARCO or 4 Pura and just looking in any random shop with lots of yukatas would be fine. There are cheaper shops, but then the quality is not very good. There are higher quality shops too (kimono shops, for example), but as a foreigner it might not be worth the money to buy a really good yukata since there are so few chances to wear it. The normal department stores will have hundreds of different choices of yukatas for women.