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Spooky season with a Japanese twist:

Explore Fantastical beasts and Iconic costumes 🦇🖤🦇

We can see how important costumes, garments and physical symbolism is important in story-telling. Halloween is a special time when there is an unveiling between the spirit world and ours and why it’s the best time to feel RE-connected with our ancestors.

Halloween is a special time when there is an unveiling between the spirit world and ours and that makes it the best time to feel RE-connected with our ancestors. We can see how important costumes and physical symbolism is important in our storytelling. Culture, art, Oral myths have a way of teaching us about our stories and how clothes tell a tale and have a history of their own. Enjoy our curation of iconic Japanese folklore spirits and scroll through at your own expense. 🚨

🏳️ Significance of White – White kimonos represent Purity, innocence and the next stage of reincarnation hence why the significance of the spirits often wearing white is a juxtaposition of what white stands for.

📖 Folktales as an allegory –  The characterisation of mythical creatures are actually a maid’s tales to show how being immoral can result in you becoming a maleficent spirit or being troubled by one. 

🌾 Nature – The temperament of nature is represented through deities, see how they are used in stories to preserve respect for nature by using prankster spirits as a way of offering consequences. 

Folklore, in the end, is good fun–  folktales provide us with a cultural and historical nuance of what everyday children and people believed in.

Yurei 👻

The Yurei is a very popular yokai, a ghost that takes on the appearance of a woman with dishevelled inky black hair and dressed in the iconic paperwhite kimono, which is usually adorned on the dead when laid to rest.

Tengu 👺 

The Tengu are famous mountain deities. their garbs are worn by mountain ascetics from the Heian era. Simple, wide cotton Hakama trousers and a Robe with a red decorative mask

Ohaguro Bettari 😱

A terrifying yokai who loiters around shrines adorned with a beautiful traditional wedding kimono in pure white with a headdress concealing their face to scare young men. The kimono ensemble typically includes a trailing hem, called Kakeshita.

Jatai 👘

It is said that if you lay your obi next to you while you sleep, it would strangle men with wicked hearts as they dreamt in a fervent sleep. Obi is a belt that is secured around the mid-waist to fix the kimono closed, intact and in this case, a menace.

Did this leave you feeling thirsty for more bite-sized content on Japanese culture? 🧛

🎌 Keep an eye out for our Japan Culture day blog where we will be spilling hotspots for Japanese food, drinks and dessert places for you to visit in London to celebrate on the 3rd of November. 🍜🥐🍵

Find us: @ 88 Regent Street

Trick or treat yo’ self to our spooky scrunchies – our special pumpkin colour scrunchies make for a perfectly chilling accessory 🎃 You can find us & more at 88 Regent Street at our concept store

Not only that:

It doesn’t have to be Halloween nor do you need to be a ghost for you to be able to rock a /kimono. We have upcycled kimono outfits that you can dress up as an everyday outfit staple so come and grab our one-of-a-kind pieces or customize your own – we also offer on-site consultations. Come RE-create history in your wardrobe and RE-connect to our roots by celebrating culture by championing a future that is sustainable, maybe even with one of our vintage kimono bespoke pieces?