Photographing my collection!

Firstly, I am really bad at taking photos. There, you've been warned.
Anyway, for the longest time I've wanted to take really nice photos of all my kimono... still do. Buut until such a time when I get better I've been taking crappy photos of my stuff :p

So....

My entire obiage collection to date. At the start of the year I bought a mixed lot of obiage. I nearly have every possible colour, at least in the pink/orange/red section and most of them are shibori and only two are ro lol! Better work on that...

 The majority of my obijime collection, except I didn't make a pretty rainbow out of them :(

Two pretty fans I bought from Shinei before they got shut down... on ebay I should say.

If you are interested in close-ups of the above they are in the Kimono accessories folder of my flickr.

Now the good stuff ;)
Since I sold my kiku kuro hikizuri last year I'm technically down to two geiko's hikizuri.
Both of them I think are around mid Showa age and not in wearable condition, so please admire them for all their prettyness.

This wave hikizuri has golden thread woven into the fabric all over giving it a beatuiful shimmery look that makes some photos look off in colour, but the base colour is a nice purple.

The fabric is old and ripping in certain places.

This was the first hikizuri I bought back in 2009 from the original Ryu on ebay.
Like I said, I'm not a great photographer but this one looks much nicer in person. But its badly stained, like someone splashed tea all over it :(

Maiko hiki!

I bought it listed as a furisode with the tucks removed, but because the upper body is so badly discoloured it was rather obvious what it was.

It has beautiful autumn leaves that I just love!

I was also lucky enough to find a maiko wearing it in my 1958 Miyako odori porgam.

So at 54 (if not more) years of age its retiring with me :)

Here is the set on Flickr to see more photos or to view them in a larger size.

Hopefully will get around to doing more soon, but knowing me it'll be a while lol

Piecing together a maiko hikizuri's history.

I recently posted a photo of an unnamed maiko-san wearing the first maiko hikizuri I ever bought.

From this book Here.

I think the book was published in 1978 so I then had a look at my Miyako odori programmes around that time and came up with a few surprising results.

From the Miyako odori program for 1963 Here:

With all the maiko portraits I used for this you can see the crane motif on her left shoulder, that is how I am identifying them as my hikizuri, I could very be wrong about all of this.

From the 1970 Miyako odori program:

From 1975 Miyako odori program:

From the 1982 Miyako odori program:

So there we go, four different maiko supposedly wearing my hikizuri.

Very curious. Senko and Teruji really make this a puzzle, because their names aren't similar, however I feel confident saying Mameharu and Mameryo were sisters because they have the same "Mame" in their names. 

I know that isn't always the case but mostly its how it goes.

Mameryo also wore this hiki here:

I also found some other "Mame" girls possibly wearing this hiki:

Possibly looks like the same hikizuri? If it is then there are another two maiko-san that are possibly sisters.

Mamehiro seems to be the only one still working, however what I can find about her says that she's affiliated with the Niben yakata in Gion, I don't know if that is the yakata that she was a maiko in as Niben has a Hanabishi mon and as a maiko she is clearly wearing a kikyo mon.

More photos of Mamehiro as a maiko:

From Here. If anyone could help translate the text above that would be very helpful :)

If the portrait of Senko from 1963 is my hikizuri that would put the age of the hikizuri at 49 years of age, at least. 

So if this hikizuri was in use for about 20 years between 1963 and 1982 possibly longer but I haven't anymore evidence just yet.

Some time between mid 1980's and 2010 the hikizuri was sold/given away/somehow made its way to a henshin studio in Kamishichiken: Katsufumi

I seem to have lost links to the original pages that contain the following photos, if you know them please let me know and I shall link it up...

Here  is a random Japanese blog with a henshin wearing this hikizuri, the date of the blog entry is January this year but unless they stole it from my mum's house (!) its an old photo ;)

What an interesting. busy life its had. There are a few yakata in Gion it might have belonged to, I won't know for certain though until I get more information.

If anyone knows what okiya Mamehiro belonged to as a maiko that would be very valuable information!