The kimono micro site on Rakuten is one of my favourite places to browse.
Today however, I am looking for something quite specific. A Ro weave summer kimono (not yukata).
First a word of warning on searching for kimono – the words karieba and karinui mean a kimono is not finished. It has been lightly sewn together for fitting and will need to be finished. If you don’t know the 6 or so stitches involved in sewing kimono I suggest you only buy finished ones!
The Kanji:
Another thing that you see often on Rakuten is Kimono rental – so check the description and if the price is far to good for a kimono set it is probably a rental! Currently there is not a way to remove these from the listings in search.
So back to finding my summer weave kimono. In the kimono section I used the kanji for Purple and Summer:
I drilled right down to avoid the yukata section (a summer cotton kimono) and even though there are still a few yukata in the results, most are purple weave kimono.
Result!
Here is a PDF of the kanji used today so you can copy and paste:
Todays Kanji
