To know what a kimono consists of…
… is, in my opinion, quite useful, especially for people who might tend to get deeper into kimono related things. When seeing a fully-sewn kimono you might misunderstand the construction of this traditional japanese garment. Lots of people have tried to sew a kimono by themselves without any deeper understanding of the kimono-parts‘ shape. When you ever have detached a kimono, you’ll know that it is made of nothing but rectangles.
To sew 1 kimono, you’ll usually have to cut a bolt of japanese fabric into 8 parts: 2 sleeves, 2 main panels, 2 overlaps, 1 collar and 1 overcollar = 8 pieces, all of them rectangles.
The kimono-parts, translated into English
As you can see, the diagram is about the kimono-parts and their terms in English and Japanese. I already did a german version of this earlier. But as some of you kimono-fans will surely prefer english contents, I made a translated version of this diagram, hoping it could be of some use for you.
I wrote the japanese terms in rômaji und kanji in order to offer the commonly used terms. Just for the case you want to do a google search for deeper knowledge about the kimono-parts.
The 8 kimono-parts, bilingual diagram
A click on the image will open a new window with the full-size image. The colour scheme will lead you from the kimono-parts to their terminology in English and Japanese, while the japanese terms are provided in rômaji and kanji.
The kimono-parts in Japanese writings
If you are a kimono-researcher or just want to learn more about those mysterious rectangles,which a kimono is constructed of, you’ll need the japanese writings as plain text.
So here they are:
Kanji (alternative Kanji writing) / Hiragana (Rômaji)
- 袖 / そで (sode)
- 右袖 / みぎそで (migi-sode)
- 左袖 / ひだりそで (hidari-sode)
- 身頃 / みごろ (migoro)
- 前身頃 / まえみごろ (mae-migoro)
- 後ろ身頃 / うしろみごろ (ushiro-migoro)
- 衽 / おくみ (okumi)
- 襟 (or 衿) / えり (eri: 2 possible kanji-writings)
- 共襟 (or 友衿) / ともえり (tomo-eri: 2 possible kanji-writings)
If you do have any questions on the kimono-parts or other kimono-related topics, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.