Kami & Kimono

An elderly woman is sitting on the pavement amongst many other vendors at the Oedo market. She has placed her items on an elegant piece of cloth, some earthenware cups, a buddha, a neatly organized arrangement of kimono cords. I am focused on a pile of old paper books, hoping to find one that has images in them. I patiently wait my turn until the girl ahead of me has finished her rummaging. One of the book has drawings but it takes some time to understand what I see, there are no landscapes (Hiroshige style) or endless sketches of little scenaries (Hokusai style) but images of kimono’s. The woman laughs when she sees my realization; it is a sales brochure (CATALOGUE) from a century ago! Printed in black on white the most beautiful patterns are displayed. You can imagine two girls endlessly watching them, leafing the pages and imagining in which colors the kimono’s would come. Wearing their winter kimono’s in frosty blues and spring in greens and peach, and the many layers they would wear underneath in styles that would be show to be daring and almost unfitting.