Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! I’ve got a brand new restoration project to share with you, and it’s not even clothing this time! Gasp! I was wanting a bit of a challenge, and to try something I’d never done before, when one of my senpai pointed out this beautiful Edo period mirror to me at a Kyoto Art & Antiques sale.
“18th-19th Century Japanese” is basically catnip to me. 😀
Oh, does that not look enticing? My bad — here’s the other side:
There we go. 🙂
Isn’t it gorgeous?! Pines, cranes, bamboo, and turtles are all symbols of longevity, health, and vitality – The Met has a similar one in their collection, except theirs adds plum blossom to make a full set of the “three friends of winter” (shochikubai) which are good luck symbols and particularly associated with the New Year. Mine appears to be lacking the plum blossom, making it more focused on long life and health. You can see below my hand and finger for scale on the handle and thickness of the mirror itself:
Mirrors are typically just referred to as “kagami” in Japanese now, but this sort of mirror in the Edo period was known as e-kagami. They were usually made of brass or bronze, and the mirror disc itself was greatly enlarged from previous centuries, possibly due to the increased size and complexity of women’s hair arrangements. The handles were sometimes bound in rattan as you can see in these examples from the Pitt Rivers Collection:
Probably a lot nicer to hold than bare bronze!
However, as you can see from this extant image, they might also be framed in lacquered wood. They typically were meant to sit in a small stand or frame, as well, with the handle either down or off to the side – much like a modern vanity.
Mirror-makers and polishers were held in very high esteem during this period, since the three imperial regalia of Japan are a sword, a jewel, and a mirror! The sword represents strength or valor, the jewel benevolence, and the mirror wisdom. They were historically polished around the New Year – on the 20th of the first month “hatsu kagami” or “first use of the mirror,” samurai women would offer kagami mochi and consume them while opening up their newly polished mirrors. Is this the origin of “kagami biraki” – “opening of the mirrors” that my dojo (along with many others) observes? More research is required!
I’m already a little late on getting this done for the New Year (maybe the Lunar one, if I hustle!), but I do look forward to polishing my mirror and crafting a new stand to hold it! (Luckily, my husband is a woodworker and can offer some assistance with the last part…) If you haven’t already, please subscribe below to get a notification each week about my latest post, and I look forward to seeing you next week here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
Ahhh, I remember what it was like being warm…it’s been in the 20s for like 2 weeks now here! Brr!
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing and Happy New Year 2023! I don’t really do “resolutions,” per se, but since 2011 I’ve taken part, more or less, in a project started by scrapbooker Ali Edwards called “One Little Word.“
Here’s a retrospective of some of Ali’s albums to get an idea of what the scrapbooking project is like.
In 2006 Ali began the tradition of choosing one word for herself each January – a word she could focus on + get curious about as she went about her daily life over the course of a year. Her words have included play, peace, vitality, nurture, story, light, up, open, thrive, give, whole, connect, space, habit, less, heart, pause, and joy (2023). Each word has become an individual thread that weaves together stories of her life. They’ve been imbedded into who she is + into who she is becoming. They’ve helped her to breathe deeper, to see clearer, to embrace mistakes, and to grow.
I don’t scrapbook anymore, and I typically find that other peoples’ writing prompts don’t work well for me, so I haven’t participated in her workshop for many years. But I do still pick a word every year to be my guiding star, as it were, and I thought you might enjoy hearing a bit about how I use it to inform my goals for the coming year!
Goal #1: more hummingbirds. 😀 (I just bought 2 more feeders, so I’m well on my way!)
“Wait a minute,” I hear you saying. “You just said you don’t do resolutions – so what’s all this about goals?” Here, someone else explained it exactly how I would have, so I’ll just quote her:
A resolution is a statement of what you want to change. For example, saving money. A goal is a statement of what you want to achieve; the steps you need to take to achieve it; and when you want to achieve it by. For example, saving 10 percent of each paycheck for the next six months, so you can take a family vacation in August.
Goals take longer to frame because they involve planning. But, this preparation provides you with a clear direction to follow to reach your desired outcome. By rephrasing your New Year’s resolutions to goals, you make them stronger and more likely to be achieved.
Anyone who’s talked to me for more than a few minutes knows how goal-oriented I am. 🙂 Also, I find vague statements about what I’d maybe like to do someday to be very demotivating since I need a plan to execute and a deadline to respect in order to accomplish just about any task. It’s not that I don’t have anything I want to change, but I’m already working on all those things. So for me it’s more like “keep working on these things I’m already doing and don’t lose sight of my goals.” 😀 I really love using the One Little Word framework for this because it gives all my goals a connected purpose.
Lovers from a fourteenth-century edition of Le Roman de la Rose, BNF MS Français 1572, f. 3r.
Here’s what I mean! My word for this year is “illuminate.” I actually picked a similar word (“shine”) in 2013 – the difference in my intention is that shine was about personal achievement, whereas illuminate is that and much more. It’s about putting a spotlight on things in my life and examining them more fully (externally imposed narratives! relationships!), about learning more about particular topics (sewing! Iaido! Japanese!), and about bringing more beauty and color to my life. (Think Illuminated manuscripts!) And it’s about turning that light outward as well, and thinking about how I can be a beacon for others.
Obviously, with more strawberries! My incredible friend Puff drew this picture of me and it makes me so happy every time I look at it! ❤
I won’t go into every one of my goals here (and some of them are personal), but here are some that I look forward to illuminating in 2023!
Obviously, keep posting here every week! I learn SO much from doing these projects, and I hope you are also illuminated by them! ❤ This year I want to take on some bigger challenges including sewing a yukata and restoring my Victorian dress (more on this later in the month!).
Attend all my local Iaido seminars and at least one “away” seminar. Of course I love my time at my home dojo! However, getting different perspectives and becoming part of the wider Iaido community is a way that I can shine a light on my practice and improve it even more.
Take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (N4) at the end of the year. I passed the N5 a few years ago, and I’d really like to push myself to learn more grammar and improve my listening and speaking skills. As you can see, learning/becoming illuminated is a huge theme for me. 🙂
Dress in a way that makes my heart sing at least once a week. It brings light into the world – not to mention my life – to dress fabulously! It’s very easy to fall into the habit of wearing athleisure all day because it’s easier to do care tasks/exercise in, but I’m so much happier when I dress up! And it’s easy to see how happy it makes other people too – I always get stopped when I’m out and about by smiling people who are delighted to see something gorgeous and different. ❤
VNV Nation is still one of my favorite bands of all time. I’ve seen them at least seven times in concert! ❤
I really hope I can illuminate both my life, and the lives of all of you in 2023! If you want to pick a word for yourself for the year, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. And if you enjoyed reading this please subscribe below to get a notification each week about my latest post — I look forward to seeing you next week here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! Having finished sewing my obiage, this week I wanted to show them off a bit! Obiage are a relatively recent addition to the kimono corpus – dating from 1823, to be exact. At that time in Tokyo, there was an opening celebration for the new Taikobashi – Drum Bridge – and several geisha attending the event tied their obi in this new style for the occasion. Obiage (along with obimakura – the supporting pillows – and obijime – the cord that ties around and secures the obi) were invented to go along with this new musubi! (Musubi literally means knot, but in many cases the obi itself isn’t knotted – rather, it’s supported in place by the accessories.) As the obimakura aren’t particularly stylish, the obiage is wrapped around it to conceal both the pillow and its ties, and also to provide a pop of color above the obi.
I’m going to show off some pretty pictures while I take you on a walk through historical economics. Here you can see a “flatsuke” (flat-laid kimono outfit) with the dark purple obiage!
They started showing up in woodblock prints from 1877 or so, and commercial advertisements can be seen in old newspapers starting around 1907. The market price back then was about 1.50 yen. What does that equate to today? I’m so glad you asked. 😀
Same kimono, but with the lavender obiage, and a different obi and obiime! The first look with this kimono is a bit more formal, whereas this one is more casual and summery.
Back to the green fukuro obi, but this time with my lavender edokomon and the white obiage. This is more formal than the yagasuri look with this obi because of the kimono – I might wear this as a guest to tea, for example.
It’s a little trickier for me to figure out exactly what that amount is in current yen and dollars because of the effects of WWII – there’s no historical value of the yen during that time, and inflation calculators pick up again in 1956. $1 in 1956 is approximately equivalent to $11 today, and ¥1 in 1956 is roughly ¥6 in 2022. $1 in 2022 is, at the time of writing, exchanging for about ¥140 – it was even more unfavorable for the yen a couple of months ago when it was upwards of ¥170 to the dollar! I shop secondhand for many of my kimono accessories, but a new silk obiage from Mamechiyo Modern currently retails for ¥16,500, or about $118.
And a final look; this one is also more formal than the yagasuri coordinate with this obi, but less formal than the one with the green obi. The dark greens give me a cozy feel; maybe I would wear this on an outing with friends.
An elementary school teacher in my neck of the woods makes, on average, $67k/year, or about $5500/month. They could, then, in other words, afford to buy 45 obiage every month (assuming they bought nothing else, lol). Their compatriot in Tokyo makes an average of ¥7,547,511/year (~$54k/year), or about ¥629,000/month (~$4500/month), and thus can only afford approximately 39 obiage monthly. However, this is still much better than their Meiji-era comrade, who could only buy 5 obiage a month with a little left over for curry rice. 🙂
Finn: photogenic, or the MOST photogenic?? ❤
Another wrinkle to take into consideration, however, is that I don’t know the relative value of the Meiji-era obiage pricing. I’ve taken Mamechiyo’s obiage as a midpoint for modern pricing, but a quick search on Rakuten reveals that obiage range from ¥660 for solid-color polyester to ¥25,300 (~$4.50-$182). On Yahoo Japan Auctions the range is even wider – 1 yen to ¥36,500 (~less than a cent to $262). So if you’re looking at the highest end, a PNW schoolteacher can only buy about 20 obiage a month, and a Tokyoite is buying 17.
I’m so grateful to Sparrow-Sensei for their excellent lessons! My kitsuke has greatly improved!
What should your takeaway be, other than that I absolutely consider “obiage per month” a valid measure of salary and purchasing power? Japanese sources I’ve looked at use a conversion of anywhere from Meiji ¥1 = Reiwa ¥3,800 to Meiji ¥1 = Reiwa ¥20,000. The low end of the scale simply compares prices, but the high end looks at purchasing power as I have done (taking into account that lives, jobs, and necessities vary considerably between the centuries). So if you think about the higher end of the scale, that comes out to an almost perfect equivalency with today’s more luxurious obiage pricing – something that would be (or would have been) a treat, but not out of reach of an elementary school teacher.
This obi is not the easiest to tie, but I just LOVE it! ❤
I don’t teach elementary school, although several of my friends do, so I guess I’ll have to ask them how many obiage they buy every month! 😀 I have 17 obiage including these, and I’ve been seriously wearing kimono for a couple of years, so that’s a little less than an obiage a month. I guess I need to work on that! 🙂
This manga is super cute! It’s “Kimono-chan and Lolita-chan” by Okano Kuko. This mangaka really understands kimono and lolita fashion!
I hope you’ve enjoyed your impromptu lecture on historical economics, and also hope you’ve enjoyed getting to see my new obiage in action! I actually loved the fabric that I made them out of so much that I have another project featuring it in the works, so look forward to that as well as other history and fashion madness next time here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! This month’s theme for the Bay Area Kei Bibliotheca blog circle is “favorite things,” and you absolutely cannot stop me from talking about strab…oh wait, that was last month. 😀 Ok, fine. I’ll take a break from strawberries for a minute, just so I can talk about my new favorite brand Hoshibako Works.
Hoshibako Works is a Chinese lolita fashion brand that opened their online shop on Taobao on July 30, 2017. Their aesthetic vision, taken from their official Japanese site, is: “A jewel box full of stardust. Sparkling things, wonderful things, glittering and shining talents, a small universe packed tightly with things that take shape.” Between 2017 and 2020, as far as I can tell, the designer only created one piece of clothing and a purse.
On January 19, 2020, they posted on Weibo that during that time they had been going to school, and found that managing a brand as well as studying was too much for them. After graduating and thinking things over, they found a like-minded business partner in Japan and decided to restart their brand because it was what they truly wanted to do! That business partner was Shigure-san, who is now a product planner as well as hat designer. Shigure-san previously sold hats at Japanese indie events like Artism.
One of the few pictures I could find of Shigure-san, vending at Artism on March 17, 2019.
Shigure-san had been active as a lolita designer since 2018, and opened their online store (K Shironohosh) in 2019. According to their Twitter they were officially working with Hoshibako Works as of December 4, 2020, but presumably they were collaborating and discussing the relationship prior to that!
Sound Box 2-Way Bag by Hoshibako Works
The first product in the revived brand of Hoshibako Works was the purse they had designed prior to hiatus, a cute purse styled like a vintage radio. “The design concept is an American retro-style radio + a girl who travels with music before listening to the Walkman!” It’s still available from them today in a variety of colors. ❤ In May of the same year, despite the pandemic, they also released an adorable strawberry hat called Gégé Berry (a new version is still being produced as well). The name is SUPER cute in Chinese – 格格莓莓. Gégé uses a character I’m familiar with in Japanese meaning “rank,” – in Chinese it refers to an unmarried daughter (and specifically an Imperial Princess of the Manchu dynasty). The second word, méi méi, is strawberry in Japanese (in which it would be ichigo); it seems that it can be a little more generic in Chinese, so you might translate the name of the hat as Maiden Berry or Princess Berry in English! And you believed me when I said I wouldn’t talk about strawberries today… 😀
The adorably strawberried hat in question!
The brand stuck with mostly hats and brooches for a couple of months (probably because Shigure-san already had a following for their hat business), but in August of 2020 Hoshibako Works began to work on producing clothing, and reopened their Taobao shop. They must have been a hit because by September they had announced a collaboration with popular Japanese brand Ozz On (with whom they still regularly collaborate) and their Summer Manor clothing line released that month as well. And in December of 2020, their Japanese branch opened up! The store in Shinjuku opened not long after – January 16, 2021. Many lolita stores in Japan operate as “select shops” – in other words, rather than selling a single brand the operator “selects” a variety of items that they believe align with their theme to sell from the storefront. Alpstola, founded by a former Atelier Boz designer, is a Japanese brand that does this as well. So while Hoshibako’s Taobao online storefront sells purely Hoshibako products, the Japanese storefront and site also carry a variety of consignment goods that match the Hoshibako aesthetic.
They’re still collaborating with Ozz On for some SUPER cute Qi Lolita looks!
Speaking of their aesthetic, it’s one of the many reasons I love this brand. They have some purely fun and sweet offerings like their pie hats, and some more Gothic accessories like their recent Rouge & Noir release, but generally their style seems to fall into what I might, if pressed, call Victorian Cottagecore or possibly Haunted Doll. It’s full of lace, flowers, and poetry – here’s the release notes for a hat that they produced in early 2021:
You travel through the wilderness of my heart as easily as sunlight through crystal. The classic hat shape with retro printed pink adds a gentle atmosphere. It is an elegant literary girl who writes unsent letters in spring.
Pictured: how I wish I spent all my free time. ❤
They definitely embraced an antique doll impression with their Lilianne Sisters release in September of 2021; marking a dip into old-school lolita aesthetics with lots of black and white combinations, peeking bloomers, and lacy bonnets. They appeared that year at Comiday and The AIG International Animation Game Mutual Entertainment Expo (doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?) in promotion of that release as well. They continue to release new clothes and accessories regularly – this autumn they even produced a series of adorable frilly knit cardigans!
Another feature I really love about Hoshibako Works is their inclusive sizing – their Seven Color Waltz Frilled Blouse goes up to a 160 cm bust! They also make efforts to show their clothes on smaller girls – they featured a try-on series of images for Lilianne Sisters on their Weibo account to give people who might be more petite an idea of how the dress would look on them since it featured longer skirts than usual. And they even make shoes up to size 42 CN (my size)!! How could I not adore them?
I have this blouse in white and was absolutely blown away. It’s SO comfortable and looks just incredible!
They also don’t skimp on the details. They mostly work in synthetic fabrics, but they’re dense, lush weaves and the clothes are very well-constructed with tons of passementerie. Luxurious lace, velvet ribbon accents, fabric-covered buttons, pearls, embroidery, fake flowers, and bows are all par for the course with Hoshibako Works’ clothes and accessories, and the construction is excellent. They also produce clothes in colors that can be difficult to find in lolita fashion such as deep purple, making them a fabulous option for lolitas seeking accessories to match dresses in eccentric colorways!
Seriously considering this beauty!
Are you in love now too? Here are some reputable retailers from which you can purchase Hoshibako Works’ clothing and accessories:
Harajuku Hearts in San Francisco – authorized US-based reseller – they sell many other Chinese and Japanese brands as well. Easiest to order from if you’re in the US, but there’s a markup and the stock is very limited. Atelier Pierrot in Harajuku, Tokyo – authorized Japan-based reseller – they sell many other Japanese and Chinese brands as well. You can order directly from them if you’re not in Japan through their web shop – just use code OVERSEAS. Fairly easy to order from (they have lovely English-speaking staff). There’s a markup over the base price. Hoshibako Works in Tokyo – official Japanese online store – they also sell some other Chinese and Japanese indie brands on consignment. If you’re not in Japan, you’ll need to use a proxy service such as Zen Market. If you’re comfortable with proxies it’s easy to order from them. There is a markup over the base price. Hoshibako Works in China – official Chinese online store through Taobao. If you’re not in China, you’ll need to use a proxy service such as Spreenow. Can be a little intimidating to order from, but isn’t too bad with a proxy! Cheapest price as this is their flagship store.
I have the blouse from this series (Bears Bakery) coming my way in the black x white colorway! I can hardly wait. ❤
Want to just follow them on social media for their gorgeous aesthetic or to keep up on new releases? You can use Google Translate or other translation programs to read through these, or just check out the pretty pictures!
A recent coordinate of mine featuring the Seven Colors Waltz Blouse by Hoshibako! I could have worn it forever…
I hope you enjoyed getting to learn a little bit about my new favorite brand, Hoshibako Works! If you did, please subscribe below to get a notification each week about my latest post, and I look forward to seeing you next week here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! A couple of weeks ago, I was shopping for fabric with my Aunt Sue at an adorable quilt shop, and I ran across some fabric from Moda Fabrics that I went absolutely feral for. It’s their “Wild Ivy” print series, and it has the most delicious combinations of creams, greens, purples, and lavenders. I really don’t like buying fabric without a project in mind…but I also desperately needed this loveliness in my life. Then I remembered that I could use some more obiage — especially a dark purple one (which has proved troublesome to find on the secondhand market)! With that, I was able to pick up each of my favorites with a clear conscience, and get to sewing!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
An obiage (sometimes called an “obi sash”) is a piece of cloth used to cover the obi makura (“obi pillow”) that holds up certain types of taiko musubi – or “drum knots” – such as otaiko and nijuudaiko. The obiage covers the makura from behind, and in front it creates a little decorative demarcation zone between the obi and the kimono. Fun fact – “age” (like, karaage) can also mean “fried,” so often times Google Translate will gloss obiage as “fried obi” when you’re shopping on Japanese sites. 😀 Typically they’re silk, but because the “wrong” side of the fabric and the edges aren’t ever seen, I figured there was no reason I couldn’t do it in cotton!
Somehow these are both a half yard. Cs get degrees, I guess…
Doing the math in my head, I thought a half-yard of each would be enough if I cut it in half and joined the two strips in the middle, but it turned out I wasn’t quite correct, and had to order another half-yard of each from Etsy. Oops! 🙂 Because the fabric was only 45″ wide, I didn’t want to have to buy several yards to get enough length. The center is always going to be hidden under my obi anyway, so it doesn’t matter if there’s a seam there.
Cutting mats with measurements are sent by the gods.
After washing and hot air drying the fabric (to ensure there wouldn’t be any possible dye transfer to my kimono), I began the task of cutting out my strips! Measuring against one of my existing obiage, and allowing for a half-inch seam allowance on each side (due to French seams), I determined I needed each strip to be 35″ long and 13″ wide.
My extremely scientific measurements.
When it came to the width, I cut a narrow strip off of one side to remove the frayed edges, then a wider strip off the other side. This gave me enough fabric to potentially make haneri (collar covers) at some point. Truthfully I find switching out collars to be extremely annoying, so I didn’t want to do sewing for something I won’t use right now. But it’s nice to have it available for the future!
I love my new pins! They’re so much thinner and sharper than my old ones; they hold things much better and don’t do any damage!
I did a French seam in the center to enclose the edges, and then pinned and sewed the rolled seams on the short ends. After pressing everything flat, I pinned and sewed the rolled seams on the long ends!
Pictured: overkill.
Finally, after pressing all the edges once more, I sewed an extra line of stitching to secure the flap down the middle so it wouldn’t get rumpled. Probably overkill, but it looks so much neater this way! I did nearly run out of purple thread during this project even though I only used it on two of the obiage. Fortunately I had just enough…but I’ll definitely need more before too long!
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH THEY LOOK SO GOOD!
Then, it was rinse and repeat to make the other three! It was really quite easy work, just a bit finicky to ensure that my rolled edges didn’t get wonky and that everything lined up nicely. I’m SO happy with these; I definitely foresee myself making more obiage in the future to use up fabric from my stash and give myself more fun options when wearing kimono. So join me again next time when I talk a tiny bit about the history of obiage and show off how these look when worn here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
“A Little Princess” is still one of my favorite stories. ❤
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! This week I was able to get the photoshoot done for the two velveteen dresses so you can see how lovely they look! I wanted to give the impression of the older style of photoshoots from the late ’90s/early 2000s in Japan, so I set the focus to be a little softer than usual! I hope you like the effect. ❤
Headdress: handmade, wig: Maple, blouse: Miss Point, necklace: BtSSB, dress: Metamorphose, stockings: Angelic Pretty, shoes: American Duchess.
I didn’t make a blog post out of it, but the blouse I’m wearing for these shots was actually a little mini-project! It’s a Chinese brand called Miss Point, and when I saw their modeled images there were little bows down both sleeves. However, the listing mentioned that the bows didn’t come with the blouse. I thought “Well, I can do that!” and bought it anyway…then promptly spent a year not adding the bows. I finally got around to doing it over the last couple of weeks, and it really elevates the fanciness of the blouse!
Ashleigh: “What’s over there?”“…surprise! It’s kisses!” ❤
My vision for the Velveteen Princess JSK, as you can see, was definitely a royal look! When it came time for the Velveteen Sundress JSK, I wanted to go with a slightly edgier, old-school lolita inspired look.
Headdress: Summertales Boutique, wig: Maple, blouse: MAM, necklace: Neant Glass, dress: Metamorphose, stockings: Alice and the Pirates, shoes: Antaina.
Striped stockings were SOOOOOOOOO popular amongst lolitas in Japan when when this dress was originally released – here’s another model photo from Meta showing this style:
I’m incredibly happy with how both of my dresses turned out! They’re both incredibly comfortable as well as being cozy and great for winter wear. Almost all of the dresses in my collection have prints, as well, so I also really like having a couple of solid-color options in my wardrobe to mix it up! I hope you’ve enjoyed going on this restoration journey with me, and I look forward to seeing you next week for more fashion, history, and crafts here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
The problem with greyhounds is it doesn’t matter how fancifully I’m dressed. They always steal the show! LOL.
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! Friends, I can hardly believe it, but this is the 100th post here on the blog. Your comments, likes, and support have made this a beautiful community of fashion and history enthusiasts, and I can’t wait to keep sewing and crafting with you for at least another hundred posts (and maybe some more online presentations as well)! ❤
If you haven’t watched my Gramarye: Afterlife presentation yet, it’s now on YouTube for your enjoyment! ❤
So what kind of things can you expect to see coming up? As always, I’ve got a lot of projects in the works! An Edo-period mirror and a Victorian era dress to restore, some truly fabulous fabric to make into obiage, and of course my Victorian undergarments and Edo coat to wrap up. I wrote an article for a magazine that should be releasing by the end of this year, as well — I look forward to sharing more on that once it’s out! — and I’ve purchased some really unusual books that deserve reviews as well.
So thank you again from the bottom of my heart for joining me on the journey thus far, and I hope to see you back every Tuesday in the future here at Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
And this is the most recent dress I’ve purchased! Full circle! 🙂
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! This month’s theme for the Bay Area Kei Bibliotheca blog circle is “food,” and you absolutely cannot stop me from talking about strawberries.
I normally don’t like all-over prints, but this dress is perfect for occasions when a fancier border print dress might be too much.
My only mint dress! I love it so much!
A dress I actually didn’t have to work hard for – Angelic Pretty did a Made to Order release and everyone who wanted one got one!
Specifically, strawberries on dresses – I’m a big fan as you can see. I come by my love honestly; as a young girl growing up in Southern California, my birthday cake every year was a homemade strawberry shortcake and it remains one of my favorite treats. (It’s a little harder to come by good strawberries in the autumn in the Pacific Northwest, sadly…) Good, ripe strawberries are like freshly-picked tomatoes – you can’t beat the taste, and there’s something just so quintessentially summery and refreshing about them. But you’re not here just to hear me wax rhapsodic about my favorite foods; you’re here for the history! So just how long have strawberries been appearing on dresses?
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger BRUGES 1561/2 – 1636 LONDON PORTRAIT OF FRANCES, LADY DERING (1577–1657), WEARING A WHITE DRESS RICHLY EMBROIDERED WITH STRAWBERRIES AND ACORNS WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING IN THIS CAPTION PINTEREST PERSON!?!
A long time apparently!! Frances, Lady Dering, was painted wearing the above dress embroidered with strawberries some time in the early 1600s. These embroidered dresses and jackets were extremely popular amongst a certain set of aristocratic women from around 1600-1620. But strawberries were a popular motif as far back as in ancient Rome, as a symbol of Venus (the Goddess of Love), and in the Viking age were a sacred food of Freyja who is also a love Goddess as well as mistress of magic, fertility, and war (she receives half of the souls that pass in battle as her own Valkyries, after all!) Stonemasons in Medieval Europe, however, often carved strawberries into altars and pillars of cathedrals to symbolize “perfection and righteousness.” They were also associated with the Virgin Mary due to those same traits, and gained a reputation for innocence and beauty that many women of the era appropriated to their dress. “In Othello (first staged in 1604), Desdemona’s handkerchief, embroidered with strawberries, serves as a nod to the popularity of a domestic pastime and has also been read as symbolic of her virginity.” (Jennie Youssef, 2021)
However, they also had a sensuous side that hearkened back to the Roman and Viking interpretations – for example, an awful lot of people in Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” were pictured with strawberries, and doing quite an assortment of un-innocent deeds! And their association with the aristocracy (mostly in cooked formats such as jams and proto-shortcakes) helped create that image as well.
Day Dress, UK, circa 1837-1840
Mary Todd Lincoln, circa 1861
Although strawberries themselves have a short season, they continued to appear as perennial favorites in dress as the years wore on! They were a popular early-Victorian motif, and later in the period Mary Todd Lincoln wore a dress covered in them to a Strawberry Party during the first months of the Civil War — one of the few authenticated dresses of hers to survive. The later Victorians tended to prefer geometric patterns, although because of their love of the natural world and and the association of the berries with “Englishness” at the time, strawberries featured frequently in paintings as well as recipe books. (Strawberries marinated in curaçao served with Chantilly cream? Yes, please!!)
“Rare strawberry-like mysterious pattern” is a great selling point! 😀
Strawberries on kimono are much more recent – they’re quite a popular motif on yukata today, but the oldest one I could find was the above pre-war meisen weave kimono on Yahoo Japan Auctions. However, fruit patterns on kimono are extremely ancient! Tachibana, or mikan/satsuma, have been used onkimono as a pattern since the Heian period (794-1185), and symbolize long life and healthy offspring. Ume, a flowering stone fruit related to apricot and plum, are a symbol of enduring adversity due to flowering in the early spring when it’s still snowing, and have been used on kimono as a motif since at least the Momoyama period (1568-1582).
Atsuki Onishi, Please Fraise Strawberry One Piece, 1993
The first example of a lolita (or lolita-adjacent) dress I could find on Lolibrary was this lovely dress by Atsuki Onishi from 1993. (There was Fruit Parfait from Shirley Temple in 1990, but that was a children’s dress. Still, it did feature strawberries!) Lolita brands didn’t stop there, though – there are SIXTEEN PAGES of berry prints from Angelic Pretty alone, fourteen from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, and six from Metamorphose. Chinese indie brands rack up a respectable eight pages of berries, with another six pages from other indie brands! That’s a lot of berries. 😀 The Japanese site Minne (which is somewhat equivalent to Etsy) has 56 pages of strawberry-related goods, and even curated reseller sites have at least thirteen – clearly, strawberries aren’t going out of season anytime soon!
Seriously though, just look at these incredible embroidered strawberries from my new NyaNya dress. JUICY.
Stefano Pilati for Yves Saint Laurent, Spring 2010
Strawberry Midi Dress by Lirika Matoshi, 2020
Strawberry dresses have graced the catwalk and the zeitgeist as well. Dior had garments with blueberries and strawberries back in 1953! Junya Wanabe featured assorted fruits in 2003, and Stefano Pilati’s minimalist strawberries appeared in 2010. People went wild for Lirika Matoshi’s strawberry dress at the start of the pandemic in 2020, with Vogue affirming, “the dress is popular precisely because it is not practical. It’s over-the-top and fanciful. It speaks to the glamour of black-tie events—the Oscars, the Met gala—special occasions that appear like a distant memory. But more than that, that sweet strawberry print is deeply nostalgic, hearkening back to a time long before COVID-19, to a childhood innocence that feels especially soothing right now.” (By the way – if you can’t access paywalled articles like this one, I highly recommend 12ft Ladder. Also I have to say I couldn’t care less about either the Oscars or the Met gala, but hey, to each their own lol.) I guess I’m not the only one associating strawberries with summer and my childhood! ❤
I received this dress in a gift exchange from a person who understands my deep love of both strawberries and stripes!
This is the first dress I ever bought directly from the brand! It was my Winter Solstice gift to myself!
My hardworking shopping service fought in a massive bloodbath to secure not just this dress, but also the matching socks and headbow for me!
Strawberries, then, have been enchanting our tastebuds and eyes alike for centuries! Whether you love the taste or are allergic; think of them as symbols of innocence or carnal pleasures; or consider them to be allusive to countryside simplicity or Rococo indulgence, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little about their history as the stars of beautiful garments. If you did, please subscribe below to get a notification each week about my latest post, and I look forward to seeing you next week here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Welcome back to Mukashi no Sewing! This week I was able to finish the last piece of the restoration for the Velveteen Princess JSK – the neck ties! Honestly, this was purely for my own sake – they’re removable pieces that attach inside the neck ruffle, so no one would have known they were missing. But I’d know, since I have the original photos of the dress from when it was released, and I wanted to have the option to wear them!
You can see from this brand photo how the neckties are meant to be worn.
I bought some double-sided red velvet ribbon from Mood Fabrics after trying several options for matching the velveteen itself. I couldn’t find a good color match, for one, and for two sewing velveteen is a huge hassle! So ribbon seemed like the perfect option. I have to admit it’s a little wider than I would have wanted in a perfect world, but the color and texture was spot on so I focused on those instead.
This is why we always buy extra yardage, lol 😀
It took a few tries to get the buttonhole centered on the ribbon…I don’t know what my issue was, but I literally kept putting it in the same off-center place over and over. 😀 Eventually I managed to sort myself out, and from there it was super easy to finish the buttonholes and to sew down a rolled hem on either end just in case. This ribbon is super high-quality and seemed pretty fray-proof, but, better safe than sorry!
Did I measure the placement in advance? I absolutely did not. Lucky for me I have a good eye for measurements thanks to years of wargaming!
And just like that, I was done! The buttonholes are a bit larger than my buttons – my buttonholer attachment didn’t have a guide for the size of buttons on the dress, annoyingly. But because they’ll always be under tension due to the nature of the ties, it really doesn’t matter!
One of the cool little things I like about this dress is that the neck ties just attach to the neck ruffle buttons, so I could change the placement to change the look!She’s complete once more! ❤
I’m SO happy I could return this dress to its former glory! Especially since the weather where I lived skipped straight from summer to winter almost overnight, so velveteen is feeling like a pretty attractive option suddenly. 🙂 There might even be some snow in the works for a photoshoot…fingers crossed! No matter the weather, I look forward to sharing the final reveal with you soon here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
I swear one day I’m going to finish this coat…LOL.
Welcome to the fourth and final (for now, at least!) part of Mukashi no Sewing’s eleventh spotlight! As I mentioned previously, the original curation post ended up being SUPER long, so I’ve split it into three sections. This is the third curation post, covering my antique garment collection!
Still happy with this kimono after all this time! 🙂
Of my “alternative” clothing collections, my antique garment one is by far the smallest. One of the main reasons for this is the huge amount of space these clothes take up compared to other clothes. I can fit all my kimono folded flat in one storage box (well, one storage box plus just a tiny bit of overflow into another one!), and all of my lolita dresses squish into the closet together. But my Victorian nightgown takes up almost an entire box on its own! I have very limited space in my house at this point, so I have to be ruthless when it comes to curating my antique garments.
Totally worth the space it takes up, though! ❤
Like with my kimono and lolita collections, fit is one of the biggest considerations for me. I would love to be like Abby Cox and keep a reference collection for sewing my own! However, not only do I not have the space, I don’t wear enough historical clothing to justify a stash of reference clothes plus modern reproductions! So the clothes I do have, have to fit me. They also need to be in good enough shape for me to wear. I’ve talked about this a little before, but I firmly believe that if a garment isn’t of historical significance or extreme value, it should be worn if possible! A gown with terrible silk shatter isn’t going to cut it for me, since wearing it would destroy it.
I don’t wear historical garments nearly as often as I do lolita or kimono, is the truth – I love the Victorian era, but wearing Victorian clothes definitely falls onto the “cosplay” style of “costume” for me. I feel totally normal wearing kimono, but a ballgown…not so much! So the final consideration for me is that my antique garments need to have some kind of personal significance. My Edo coat started as a transaction, but I’m completely making it over into my own, including my own crest! My Victorian nightgown was a gift from a cherished friend, and can be worn as an overdress as well, making it surprisingly versatile. And that same friend happened to give me a gown too… Here’s a little sneak peek for you!
There’s a lot of work to be done…but isn’t she swoon-worthy?!
I KNOW RIGHT?!?! It barely falls into the category of “wearable,” and is going to need some substantial restoration work…but you can look forward to seeing much more of this dress in months to come here! As a family heirloom it’s obviously worth the effort to me, in both repairing and storing it (it takes up three boxes!), so in the collection it stays!
Luckily since these boxes contain only 1-2 pieces of a garment plus lots of acid-free tissue paper, they’re pretty light!
Two of my kimono are technically antique garments as well – my Meiji era kimono that was my very first project here, and a Taisho one (~1920s) that I’ll be featuring soon as well! I don’t think I’m likely to buy many more antique kimono, as they are difficult to wear and tend to be too short for me in both mitake and yuki (length and sleeve length). I actually may be returning to my Meiji kimono here on the blog, as I have learned some new techniques that might be able to clean it up even further! And my Taisho one I bought because of its incredible embroidery – it’s a wearable garment that can also serve as a reference piece for future projects. 🙂
It’s hard to see from this picture, but there’s some incredible gold accents on here in addition to the regular satin stitch embroidery.
I don’t see myself acquiring too many more antique garments unless they’re heirlooms/gifts, to be honest, but I deeply cherish the ones I own! I hope you’ve enjoyed this extended spotlight, and I look forward to seeing you back here next time here on Mukashi no Sewing! ❤
Subscribe so you never miss a post! New adventures in history and sewing every Tuesday.
昔のSewing 