In between all of our J-Fashion department staff duties, Jenna of Lovelylaceandlies and I presented a “Get the Look” style panel at FanimeCon 2023. Our objective was to connect real-life alternative fashions to the types of outfits commonly seen in anime, manga, and video games. More specifically, I wanted to not just show “hey, this thing exists in real life!” but also give people the keywords necessary (names of styles, brands, et cetera) to search up examples of relevant clothing (and maybe make a few purchases).
As promised during the panel itself, I am transforming my contribution into a series of blog posts, as that’s a format better suited to archiving this info. (Also yeah, I was low-key promoting my website. But it’s not monetized, nor do I have comments on, so…) So, let’s get started with a familiar figure for longtime(?) readers!
Wa Lolita
That’s right, it’s our favorite film director, Eirin Kino from Murder by Numbers. As mentioned previously, there’s nothing “90’s” about her ensemble, let alone 1996 as specified by the game itself. But it is very much in line with current alternative kimono trends. To that end, I was quickly able to find a recent facsimile of her outfit in the form of a release from Japanese lolita fashion brand Royal Princess Alice.
In addition to the good ol’ Death is Coming spider lilies, also a Big Skeleton friend
But my goal here was not to simply win praise for finding a close match, but to help people emulate a similar style. To that end, I need to get the track jacket(?) out of the way.
Kelp, do people ever layer these kinds of jackets under kimono? They sure do! But I’ve pretty much only seen this with styling strategy with masculine, cold-weather coordinates.
However, I did manage to dig up this punk denim look from alternative kimono expert Misamaru, as well as this cute look from Maria Kawahara.
Okay moving on. There’s two styles relevant to achieving this sort of kimono look – we’ll start with Wa Lolita.
What’s wa lolita?
Wa lolita is a combo of 和服 wafuku “traditional Japanese clothing” and lolita fashion. (What’s lolita fashion, you ask? That’s unfortunately out of the scope of this post…) Fifteen years or so ago, these sort of looks were heavily disparaged in the big Western online lolita communities – this kind of delusional fashion policing rampant in larger communities was a big reason why I discourage people from joining anything bigger than local groups. (Bay Area Kei, of course, is an exception.)
Nowadays, however, wa lolita releases are widely in demand all over the world. Noted Japanese lolita brand Metamorphose temps de fille has been putting them out for a while, and recent releases come in extended sizing.
Left: Kimono Print Frill Ribbon JSK (2005), Right: Kimono Print Crossover Front JSK (2011)
Left: Dozing Cat Tucked Hakama JSK (2015), Right: Kimono Print JSK (2022)
However, most of Metamorphose’s releases are more “lolita” than “wa” – while they do put out blouses and boleros with kimono-style sleeves to complete the look, the overall result doesn’t quite match the first ensemble by Royal Princess Alice.
The other Japanese brand I’d like to highlight is the perennially underrated Ozz On, specifically their Ozz Oneste line. I stumbled over this joke in the panel due to con exhaustion, but also I meant it sincerely: if you want to look like you stepped out of critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, Ozz On has got you covered.
Of course, there are many other brands putting out wa lolita looks, including numerous Chinese brands. For obvious reasons, however, combing through recent releases yielded far more qi lolita looks than wa. That’s right – surprising no one, there is a lolita style based on hanfu as well. And Korean lolita brand Baroque has collabed with Arang Hanbok for, you guessed it, hanbok lolita, which usually combines a traditional jeoguri top with a more lolita-esque chima skirt.
I recommend Girlism’s Instagram, as well as the faceyb account Chinese Lolita Updates for keeping track of what’s going on in the world of Chinese brands.
An Alternative (Kimono)
As I hinted earlier, if I had to put a label on Eirin Kino’s outfit, it wouldn’t be wa lolita. Rather, I’d put it in the general alternative kimono fashion camp, or aomoji-kei kimono. (Why does aomoji-kei mean alternative? That’s…another blog post.)
We covered the track jacket already, so let me get her obi situation out of the way. This is actually a weird combo, which underscores the alternative-ness. The obi itself seems like a plain red hanhaba obi, which is a casual “half-width” obi that can be worn with yukata and casual kimono. However, it’s combined with an obiage (gold scarf bit at the top) and a very fancily knotted obijime (gold tie in the middle). Given that character designer Hato Moa (yes, of Hatoful Boyfriend fame) went through the trouble of drawing all those spider lilies, I don’t think the obi design was simplified here for convenience, making this a mix of very casual and very formal obi elements. We can’t see what kind of obimusubi knot she has (if she has one at all), but regardless, the whole thing is playing with the rules as opposed to following them.
This brings me to My Agenda – English language resources for wafuku and kimono are disproportionately geared towards Rule Followers. People who want to wear the Most Appropriate kitsuke to their tea ceremony lesson, intense collectors, geiko nerds, et cetera.
This is very bad. It’s not just me being a hater, or espousing hyperbolic doom and gloom about it either – it echoes a similar problem in the Japanese language kimono community. Many prominent kimono stylists have pointed out many times on social media that the shift of “kimono is everyday wear” to “kimono is only highly regimented special occasion wear that requires professional help to wear” that happened post-war (roughly. don’t at me.) has been detrimental to getting people to… actually wear kimono. In other words, the people that actually make and sell kimono have opinions that often vastly differ from a lot of the “schooling” and “advice” that is circulated online, in either Japanese or English.
As an example, a while back there was a Twitter thread that went viral from a Japanese illustrator gently admonishing Westerners Who Draw Kimono Wrong, with a series of illustrated tips and tricks on what kimono coordinates should look like. Seems like a helpful resource for artists, right? Except not only did it cover an extremely limited type of kimono coordinates (predictably, the type people might wear for…yep, Special Occasions like a matsuri or a shrine visit), it also had straight up Wrong Information on it once it got into specifics, like obi types. The cherry on top? It ended with a decrying of hegemonic Western feminine beauty ideals (the “hourglass” silhouette) while championing…hegemonic Japanese feminine kimono beauty ideals (the “column” silhouette). How does one become a picture-perfect column, you ask? Gym towels.
No, I’m not kidding. Just like someone might layer shapewear before donning a red carpet dress, special occasion kimono dressing for ladies involves a lot of serious and strategic padding by professional salons. Anyways, I hope from this example you can see why the alternative kimono community is a bit frustrated by the larger conversations that are being had in either language.
To that end, I spent the rest of this section of the panel just clicking through a massive photo dump from the social media accounts of alternative Japanese kimono stylists, and I plan to do the same here, except HARDER. Links and what not will follow.
Usakoma / Usagi Komachi
Has a youtube channel as well where she explains styling choices. Very dialed in to girly/romantic styles
Maria Kawahara
One of my favorite stylists, who has worked with alternative brand HEIHEI. Again, very girly/romantic (can you tell what my taste is yet.)
A newspaper article titled “Kimono: with more freedom” that discusses her mixed/Western-style coordinates.
Switching an obi out for a corset is a common strategy
Some of her styling work with HEIHEI
Likewise, going with a skirt instead of hakama is an easy way to wear kimono
Ayaaya’s
Literally wrote the book on no-knot obi knots (帯結ばない帯結び obi musubanai obimusubi). Including here moreso for an example of layering a pleating skirt under a kimono, as seen on Eirin Kino’s outfit.
Megumi Matsuda / @kimonobancho
Illustrates her alternative outfits and explains the styling behind them. Even if you can’t read Japanese, I think her illustrations are very helpful to see the “nuts and bolts” of the (Taisho→Reiwa) romantic style that is very trendy currently.
A “garden party” coordinate that crucially relies on ivory (instead of white) items, lace, and pearl accents.
An outfit from her Paris vacation, complete with a rain-proof, easy to walk in wool hakama and cobblestone-street appropriate footwear.
For this “rock” coordinate, she explains boots would be a logical choice, but due to the summer weather she instead chose “fetishwear-y sandals”.
Various looks: Rock, Gothic, Classic Dancer, and Nostalgic
It’s Princess Leia.
Misamaru
Was more active on Twitter than Instagram, and now isn’t really active on either, but also wrote a whole book on alternative styling. More punk/goth.
Said book. Worth thumbing through if it’s at your local Kinokuniya.
Misamaru particularly enjoys styling these sort of formal black (men’s) kimono in more goth/punk ways.
Yes, it’s Kyogre, but more importantly, yet another example of layering a pleated skirt underneath. The sleeve layering is also trendy nowadays.
Anji Salz / @SALZkimono
Yet another alternative stylist that trends more goth/punk.
Plaid! Plaid! Plaid!
Unsurprisingly, it’s easy to slap on a harness to any kimono coordinate and make it Edgy.
Some people know it’s easy to make your own obi, but I’ve yet to see a tutorial for this genius DIY.
Even more plaid! You love to see it! Well, I do, at least.
Kinuyo Takashima / Dali
One word: Maximalism!
Tamao Shigemune
Also Maximalism!
That was sure a lot of Instagram embeds I fully expect to break in due time… But anyways! Good luck on your alternative kimono journey, wherever it may take you.
kelp 