My doña Mizuno Kiku Ibara was elevated to the Order of Defense at Caer Galen Midwinter, December 14 2024. The writ was offered in October 2024, so I had about two months to prepare an outfit. Her request was “French or Japanese” and so I prepared my first Japanese outfit. I originally planned for moderately early period but then decided I liked the silhouette of late period better than early period. (less boxy? …differently boxy?) I also received the advice that recreating the specific outfit I was looking at (an afab crossdressing performer) would be difficult to do respectfully on a first try to a short deadline, which I think was good advice that I am glad I heeded.

I used modern construction techniques - the serger and home sew machines at our hackerspace, mostly - so can’t speak to the proper/period way of assembling.

The orange kosode (shirt/dress) and blue obi (belt) are silk; the green hakama (pants) and hitatare (semiformal jacket) and white kosode (under layer shirt) are linen. The hakama and hitatare probably should’ve been silk but I wanted them to be fully opaque and washable with less fear (a personal problem, perhaps, but I remain scared to wash silk). I bought tabi shoes and socks on everyone’s least favorite bookstore website to complete the look.

I am still looking for photos of the actual elevation. I held a giant banner and I can’t be responsible for my facial expression during the event since my feet hurt a lot the whole time (see above re shoes).

Also note that this outfit takes 15-20 minutes to put on.

Special thanks go to:

  • the SCA discord “Choi Min’s Teahouse” #japan - many of whom are also authors at https://tanbo-cho.com/ which was a great resource
  • Anneke, who helped get me started with in-person patterning of my white kosode layer
  • Aífe for taking progress pictures of me at home, for being patient with me spending 20+ hours focused on this, for everything as always

Progress pictures:

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