Put on furisode part 1 : from putting on furisode to tying koshihimo

Thank you for visiting!

I believe you are greatly interested in furisode.

The process to wear frisode is almost the same as kimono but there are two differences that having long sleeves and using kasane-eri.

Please also see How to put on kimono : part 1.

How to put on furisode

Learning target

• How to center the back seam
• How to adjust the hem line
• How to tie koshihimo

Straighten the fabric grains and put on furisode

1. Hold the center and the short lines of kake-eri on the collar called kake-erisen. Pull the collar to both sides to straighten the grain lines of the collar.

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It’s important to straighten the fabric grain throughout putting on. If you fold all parts exactly, you can wear nicely. The collar of furisode is hiro-eri, so you fold it into half in advance.

2. Slide your hand slightly toward the hem. Hold the collar with one hand and bring it to the back.

3. Open the collar.

3-1. Put furisode on so that the collar of kimono gently touches the collar of juban.

3-2. The front view.

4. Hold the sleeve of the juban and put your arm through the sleeve of kimono. Do the same thing for the opposite side.

5. Match up both sleeves. Do the same thing for the opposite side.

Center the back seam

6. Match kake-erisen to wear the kimono symmetrically. If the collar has no lines, hold it equally.

7. Pull the cuffs outward at the same time to center the back seam. It looks like a scare crow.

Adjust the kimono length and width

Stand straight and look ahead. That’s the best posture to put on “kimono”!

8. Slide the hands along the collar and hold the collar about the base of the thigh. It is about 20 cm from the end of the collar called eri-saki.

9. Bring up the skirt part and keep the position of your arms.

10. Slide the skirt part down to adjust the hemline so as to almost touch the floor. Can you see the thin line of the light? That’s good!

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In kimono, we call the left front body uwamae and the right front body shitamae. Start with adjusting uwamae in this stage.

11. While keeping the height and tension of the arms, bring your left hand horizontally to the right hip bone like sweeping the floor.

Put your feet together and make sure okumisen (yellow arrow) is on the split of the right tabi.

12. After adjusting the left skirt part, open it half.

13. Bring the right hand horizontally to the left hip bone while keeping the height and tension of the arms. Then, twist the right hand up so as to raise the right corner called tsumasaki.

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The left body called uwamae is always on the right body called shitamae.

14.  While bringing the left hand to the right hip bone, sandwich the right collar edge on your left side with the left skirt part. Then slide the right hand up a little.

If the right skirt part is wider than your body, fold back the excess. This allows you to walk smoothly.

15. Twist the left hand up so as to raise the left corner called tsumasaki. The hemline at the front center is on your insteps while the back center is touching or almost touching the floor.

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By doing so, your lower body looks slim like wearing a tight skirt, which called suso-tsubomari.

16. Carefully pull out all the extra fabric around your waist.

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The extra fabric you pulled out becomes ohashori.

Tie koshihimo

17. Take the center of koshihimo and pass it to the right hand.

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You are now holding the left collar end with the right hand. So naturally you take koshihimo with the left hand.

18. Slide “koshihimo” to the left side around hip bones.

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Set “koshihimo” on your favorite position between the belly button and the hip bones.

19. Cross “koshihimo” at the hollow of the back. Hold it shortly and pull it horizontally and diagonally.

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It is very important to pull firmly holding near the cross point. If you hold  away from it, you can’t pull enough koshihimo.

20. Bring the ends to the front, tie a half bow knot and tuck the ends in.

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The ideal tightness is that you can barely put in one finger between the body and koshihimo.

21. Remove wrinkles around “koshihimo”.

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It is important to remove wrinkles to do the next step smoothly.

22. Make sure that the left end of the collar is firmly held by “koshihimo”. Pull out the right end of the collar above koshihimo so as not to get the lower skirt part loose.

This is the end of Part 1.

Part 2 starts with closing the collar.

Hang in there!