Types of Kimono - Houmongi & Tsukesage

After a long wait, here's the next part on my kimono tutorials!

Continuing the topic about types of kimono... Houmongi & Tsukesage!

Houmongi

After the flamboyant furisode and the discrete, elegant tomesode, the next kind of kimono, formality-wise, is the houmongi (or "homongi"). It translates "visit wear", because it was worn as go-out-dress by upper class ladies during the Meiji period (1868-1912).

Houmongi is a semi-formal kimono that can be worn by married and unmarried women, in parties or weddings of distant relatives and friends. It has shorter sleeves than furisode, and patterns that run over the seams, making it more "flashy" - and less formal - than tomesode (which has patterns only below the waistline).

  

Some examples of houmongi. Personally, I think this kind of kimono is 

the most beautiful one (yes, prettier than furisode!). It perfectly balances 

delicate elegance I so admire in kimono and detailed, rich motifs. ^^

 

More houmongi...

Usually, the formal fukura-obi is worn with houmongi, in traditional taiko musubi ("drum knot").

Houmongi worn with fukura obi in taiko musubi, the most classic style.

Tsukesage

 

Less formal than houmongi is it's "sibling", tsukesage. It has smaller patterned areas, usually with more discrete motifs. The patterns are more concentrated below the waistline, but also pop up on the right shoulder and sleeve. Also, different from houmongi, the patterns usually don't cross the seams of the garment, except on the pannels in front.

Tsukesage, with smaller, less spread patterns compared to houmongi. Above the waistline, the motifs
 are even more discrete, only on the right shoulder and sleeve.

Tsukesage is considered a bit more informal than houmongi, unless it has a family crest (kamon) on it's back - althou, it usually doesn't. A fact about tsukesage and houmongi - sometimes it's pretty easy to say which is which, but other times, things become quite ambiguous! 

   

This is technicaly houmongi, as the pattern flows from hem to shoulder, but the subtle motif 
with little crossing of the seams gives the garment a tsukesage-ish feel.

 

Similar casem here... The patterns do cross the seams, so this is houmongi, but the

motifs seem "put" on the kimono's panels in similar look to tsukesage patterns.

Holly kitsuke! What a mess! The explanation for this is that, in fact, there are many "hybrid" houmongi-tsukesage - the examples above may be some of these. It's actually easy to find those "mixed" versions, and for most people in Japan there's no rigid line separating those two kinds of kimono. They can be worn in similar occasions, and their differences are very technical.

Next post: Between formal and informal kimono,
the super-versatile Iromuji! ^^