davidcmatthews

Tetsuko (almost) wearing kimono

Added 2024-05-10 21:20:01 +0000 UTC

As a child growing up in Japan, Tetsuko owned (and wore) a couple of child-size kimono along with her school uniforms and Western clothes. When her parents suddenly died and Tetsuko was forced to leave Japan to live with her Aunt Margaret in Florida; one of her biggest regrets was that she couldn't bring any of her kimono with her. She'd outgrown the child-size ones she had, and didn't get around to getting any teen-size ones.

So when she visited EPCOT at Walt Disney World for the first time, and found the Mitsukoshi department store in the Japan pavilion in World Showcase, she was ecstatic: here were genuine kimono from Japan for sale! She could only afford to buy one, however, much as she would've loved bringing home an entire wardrobe.

(In the meantime, she purchased an annual pass to Disney World and renews it every year, largely for access to Mitsukoshi. She has over time bought three kimono, and will still wear them around her apartment now and then; she regrets, though, that there are few if any opportunities to wear them in public.)

(The pattern on this kimono was adapted - and simplified LOL - from a kimono my wife Janet actually owns.)