My friend who takes tea ceremony lessons said, "It's nice to wear KIMONOs, but KIMONOs require high maintenance and cost too much". Indeed, it will be quite a price if you take them to professional cleaning. Besides, if it rains...your KIMONO will have countless numbers of stains...
However, here's one thing you should know: in old days where KIMONO was commonplace, formal KIMONOs made of silk were so expensive that people had only a few chances in their lives to wear them.
In the Edo era, people except nobles were banned from wearing silk products. As time goes by, luxury KIMONO called KOSODE became popular among successful merchants, however, they still wore washable cotton or linen KIMONOs daily.
My mother and grand mother used to do the maintenance of their KIMONOs at home. After New Year's Day or any events where they wore KIMONOs, they would wipe the collars and cuffs with benzin, give a good airing for a day or two, fold them in a careful manner, and finally put them in a chest. Unless there were major spots or smears, they didn't use the professional KIMONO cleaners called SHIKKAIYA.
Today, we also do not have so many opportunities to wear KIMONOs unless you take classes of Japanese traditional arts, such as tea ceremony or Japanese dancing. Reasons can be different from the old days, but wearing silk KIMONO is still a very rare but worksome opportunity for us today. Therefore, I recommend YUMEYAKATA rental KIMONOs which is very convenient for any occasion from casual to formal.
Click here to see the blog by a Former MAIKO, "Do You Know?"
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