At KIM + ONO, our collections showcase a variety of kimono styles you’ll love. From silk to charmeuse, our lightweight kimonos feature botanical patterns to create a modern kimono with elegance and function in mind. Depending on the material, some kimono flower patterns are hand sketched and then must be printed onto the kimono. However, one of our most popular collections is our Handpainted Kimono collection, where we’re able to actually handpaint the design directly onto the silk. It’s such an intricate and delicate process, that this collection is one of our favorites, so we wanted to share the backstory and process we use to bring these works of art to life.
The Family History Behind Our Kimono Patterns One of the things we loved to do when we were growing up was to visit China and Japan with our parents. Our parents owned shops in Chinatown called Old Shanghai and Canton Bazaar, and as they sourced products and worked with vendors, it would delight us to tag along and see how the beautiful objects in our parents’ stores were made. We’d spend weeks visiting silk villages, meeting with vendors, artisans, and other craftsmen who have been preserving the art of kimonos for generations.This love of the handcrafted process has stayed with us and informed us in how we make our modern kimono robes. Whether you’re wearing your kimono as a beautiful silk kimono jacket or hanging it on your wall as a piece of artwork, our hand painted kimono flower patterns bring luxury and art into your every day. Inspirations from Pinterest The Inspiration for Our Kimono Patterns Our kimono flower patterns draw inspiration from vintage Asian art and the various styles of traditional Chinese brushwork, capturing the artistic principles of depth, contrast, space, and balance. Every design attempts to bring those principles to life so that your modern kimono is truly a modern work of art. Many of our kimono patterns feature romantic, tranquil scenes of birds or flowers that bear a special significance for us. For example, one kimono style features the lotus flower, which symbolizes good luck and fortune, a sentiment we wish to share with our customers. Handpainting Our Modern Kimonos All of our kimono patterns are designed in-house in San Francisco by us. We create the original patterns and then they are sketched by hand. After the sketch is finalized, the kimono is saturated in rich watercolors using a traditional paintbrush, again drawing inspiration from traditional Chinese aesthetics. Because this is such an intricate process, our Handpainted Kimono Robe Collection is a special one. It’s important to care for your Handpainted Kimono Robe like a piece of wearable art — keeping it out of the washing machine and only gently hand-washing it when needed. Coloring process for our Handpainted Kimono Robe Collection The beauty of this handpainted collection recognizes our family history and the formative time we spent with artisans in our younger years. Those experiences, in addition to the inspiration we’re always drawn to in Asian vintage art, are the basis for the handpainted pieces in one of our favorite collections. We hope you are as inspired as we are and that these kimonos bring a little luxury into your every day.
