Our co-founders, sisters Renee and Tiffany Tam, consider each and every one of our botanical designs with the same intention: what will this symbol do for the person wearing it? Drawing on their family heritage and inspirations from vintage Asian art, the Tam sisters design each pattern around elements from nature that have been symbolic for centuries. They believe the kimono robe you wrap up in every day shouldn’t just feel beautiful, it should be imbued with intention in the form of a symbol.
That’s because once you know what a lotus, a peony, a cherry blossom, or a chrysanthemum has represented for generations, choosing which one to wear is based on more than how it looks; it becomes about choosing an intention for your day. Each symbol of our kimono robes comes from a long, heritage-rich tradition in Chinese and Japanese art, passed down over generations. It places you in a long, beautiful history even as you are writing your own story. That’s the power of symbolism.
Lotus: Enlightenment and Rebirth
The lotus grows up through muddy water and opens clean on the surface, which is exactly why it has represented rebirth and clarity across Asian art for centuries. Renee and Tiffany return to it for designs meant to mark a significant turning point in your life: a promotion you worked years to achieve, a milestone birthday, the start of a new chapter that took years to envision. A lotus print worn on a day like that is a loving reminder-to-self every time you put the robe to remember that growth is happening all the time, even when (especially when) you can’t see it. Most milestone moments get photographed and celebrated, but the more difficult heads-down stretch of work leading up to them rarely gets acknowledged at all. The lotus is designed to celebrate all parts of your story at once.
Peony: Elegance and Beauty
Few flowers hold as much weight in traditional Chinese art as the peony, long associated with elegance, honor, and beauty. That association is exactly why a peony print feels right for a wedding morning or any event where you want to feel fully, unapologetically yourself. Our Bridal Lookbook features this symbolism across a few collections, since a peony robe worn while getting ready does more than just photograph well. It imbues a heritage and tradition into the moment, symbolized through a flower that has been beloved for centuries. When you slip into your kimono robe, you are wearing a symbol worn by generations of women who felt the exact same nerves and excitement on their own big days.
Cherry Blossom: Beautiful Because It’s Ephemeral
Cherry blossoms bloom for about two weeks a year, and that brevity encapsulates what they symbolize. In Japanese and Chinese art alike, the cherry blossom has long stood for the fleeting nature of life and the transitions that come whether you're ready or not. Renee and Tiffany design with this meaning of cherry blossoms in mind for pieces meant to mark a graduation, a big birthday, or any once-in-a-lifetime event you know won't come around again. Wearing the print doesn't slow the moment down, because truly nothing can. What it does is make sure you marked the moment while it was happening instead of only in hindsight, months later, wishing you had paid more attention while you had the chance.
Chrysanthemum: Well-Being and the Self Care You Deserve
Where lotus, peonies, and cherry blossoms mark a single event, the chrysanthemum has long represented well-being and self care as an ongoing practice. That makes it suited to elevate the everyday: the slow morning coffees, the phone catch-up with a friend, the walk around your garden. These moments may not be “big”, but they are certainly meaningful. Renee and Tiffany designed our flower silk robes around this idea specifically: botanical details meant to be lived in and worn often rather than saved for one singular occasion. It’s the same way self care itself works as a daily habit, not simply an annual one. A big life change deserves acknowledgment too, and chrysanthemum symbolism connects there as well, standing for steadiness on the days when everything else around you is shifting.
Wearing the Meaning, Not Just the Print
The beautiful part? None of this symbolism requires you to explain yourself to anyone. A floral silk robe feels good to you whether or not the person across the table knows what a lotus has meant in Asian art for a thousand years. Knowing it for yourself changes something about how you choose which one to wear. A woman getting ready for a milestone birthday might reach for lotus over peony on purpose, the same way she'd choose a specific song for a specific memory, not because anyone else would notice the difference, but because it means something to her. Renee and Tiffany designed every print with that kind of intention already stitched into it, so the choice is there for you. Gifting works the same beautiful way. A peony robe given to a friend before her wedding says something a generic gift card never could, and she doesn't have to know the flower's full history for the gesture to be felt as soon as she unwraps it.
Traditional heritage and vintage Asian art gave Renee and Tiffany a language most modern clothing has lost entirely: a fluency with pattern and symbolism that makes an item of clothing not just a style, but an expression. Choosing lotus symbolism for a fresh start, or peony symbolism for a wedding, or chrysanthemum symbolism for your everyday mornings, turns getting dressed into a small act of choosing an intention for how your day will unfold. That's the whole idea behind calling these living symbols. They don't stay still in a box waiting for the right occasion. They move through your life with you, meaning something different at every stage you wear them through, evolving with you from a first promotion to a wedding morning to a random weekday when you needed the reminder most. The flower on every kimono robe means something to us. And we hope each and every time you wear it, it means something to you, too.
