Hello! I recently worked on a few kimono dresses so I wanted to show the finished products here. These dresses were upcycled from vintage kimono fabrics. This was the first time I worked with kimono fabric so it presented a few challenges!
The first challenge was that the kimono fabric in Tanmono(反物) form has a very narrow width. If you haven’t seen what Tanmono looks like, here are some examples. Its width is about 35cm and the length is about 12 meters. This is not where I sourced the fabric, but Ichiroya has many beautiful antique kimonos – I love this, this and this (all 100% silk). They also have an English page. Since the width is so narrow, the patterns need to be adjusted so that I can cut out each piece without disrupting the patterns or motifs of the fabric.
Second challenge is how to match the patterns of the fabric. Since many kimono fabrics are one-of-a-kind, in one roll, you might get all different patterns. What I did was to take a look at the entire fabric (12 meters of them!) before I started cutting and planned out accordingly. For the below dress top, I looked for a similar pattern in the fabric and although they were not completely the same, I mixed and matched so that they look like they belonged together. The process is similar to matching plaids. I’ve worked with plaids in the past (did not love the process though) so it helped. 
Overall sewing from Kimono fabric was fun, and I love handling the 100% silk. Have you made something with antique or traditional fabrics? What were the fun parts and challenging parts?
最近お仕立てした着物ドレス達です。
反物を扱うのは初めてだったのですが、楽しかったと同時に中々頭を使いました。
最初に生地（１２メートルほどあります）を確認して、どの模様をどうやって合わせるかを大体決めてから、裁断していきます。
布幅が３５センチほどしかないので、型紙の調整もします。
やはり良い生地を扱うと気分が上がりますね！
絹１００%で、特にブルーのほうはうっとりする手触りです。
Find me elsewhere:
1940’s Swing Dress sew-along – progress 1
Birthday Weekend
Off the Shoulder Top | Three Ways
eimear says
wow – fabulous – the cream dress is my favourite. all are gorgeous
Chie says
Thank you!
Thewallinna says
Love the dresses, especially the cream one! I bet it’s difficult to work around pattern placement. I have one unravelled kimono since Japan, but I can’t decide what I want to make out of that, although I purchased two kimono-remake books…. Any advices? Did you use patterns to make these dresses or they were self-drafted?
Chie says
Hi Inna! What are the name of the kimono-remake books? I’d be curious to read them!
I used patterns to make these dresses, but the patterns had been provided by a customer, so I did not draft them myself. I particularly enjoyed making the blue one. It has kimono-like sleeves and mermaid style skirt. It makes you feel like you are wearing kimono without being bothered to put it on! You know it is a rather lengthy process lol!
I personally would like to make some clutches with kimono fabric. I think kimono obi works very well with bags, since it is thicker. Simple square clutch with a tussle… 🙂
Claudia says
These are amazing Chie! I love to see traditional fabrics re-imagined in modern and creative ways. I believe that it’s important to carrying on a culture’s heritage and artisans.
Chie says
Thank you Claudia! I loved working with the luxurious silk fabrics!