As I've mentioned, I've recently started a Japanese language and culture club at the school I teach at. A few weeks ago I brought in a few women's kimono (yukata, houmongi, furisode) and this week brought in a full formal men's outfit to show the kids.
It was very interesting to see their reactions to both, as my audiences are usually teens and older. Like older age groups, they loved the long sleeves of the furisode, but unlike the older audiences a lot of them found the red obi/black yukata example pairing I usually show to be tacky. ^_^;
One girl shares my opinion that the guys' stuff is much higher on the cool scale than the girls'. And it's always fun to hear the "oooos" when I show an audience the plain black men's haori jacket, talking about it, and then turn it around to show them the beautiful painting inside.
It was also a new challenge dressing myself over my own clothes while standing on a chair so everyone could see the entire outfit, as I didn't have the stage I usually do. Getting my feet through the voluminous legs of split hakama while balancing on said chair was fun, but not something I'd like to do again!
I think the next time we touch on clothing and accessories I'll bring in an authentic wedding wig and see what they think.
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