KIM+ONO began as a dream from two sisters, our co-founders Renee and Tiffany Tam, who wanted to bring the inspiration of the past into the modern fashion of the future. With a dedication to their families’ heritage and inspiration from the traditional kimono-making process, the Tam sisters created a kimono robe design for every body. Each charmeuse and silk kimono robe blended the inspiration from vintage Asian art plus their own lived experiences as women in a modern world. All of this is stitched into each and every kimono robe.
But this long history from both their family heritage and their own everyday experiences isn’t the only thing they’re thinking about during the design process. In fact, it’s you, our lovely community, who has influenced us the most. You have so often provided feedback, suggestions, and requests to us and as a small family business and tiny team of ten, we take each and every one to heart. We’ve used this feedback to create new styles, add new collections, and updated our materials and colors. When we say these kimono robes are designed with you in mind, we mean it.
So in today’s journal, we want to show you just how much you have changed our business. You have influenced these designs with your suggestions. Your wear stories have made us consider new options to bring you. And as our community has grown, we have stayed true to our mission to be an inclusive brand with options for as many folks as possible. Read on to learn about how you have changed our business and influenced our kimono robes.
When you write into us through email or on social and share your wear stories, you may just be sharing about a special moment in time with us, but for us, it’s so much more. The way you’ve worn our pieces as long bridal robes, nursing gowns, or beachside cover ups for your most important moments have made us design with these moments in mind. From our women’s plus size robes to washable silk designs, we’re constantly thinking about the stories you’ve told us from your own lives when consider what size, color, cut, and symbol you might love most. Our bridal kimono robes were born out of customers sharing their wedding day details with us and tagging us on social. When we see the photographs of you and your bridal party getting ready in your long bridal robes, we are so honored to be a small part of your big day. So we created an entire lookbook dedicated to these long bridal robes for easy browsing, and to help you create the perfect look for you and your friends and family. And when you find a material or style you love, we make sure we bring you as many options as possible. That’s why we expanded our Kimono Wrap Collection in both short and long lengths, in both charmeuse and silk twill, and with a variety of colors and sizes. You loved this particular style, and we wanted to bring it to you in even more variation.
Here’s a little background on how our small team operates: whenever you reach out with a request for a new style, size, color, or design, our tiny team notes it, discusses it, and once we can see there is demand for the particular request, we launch into research and development. Research and development is the time our design team researches how the requested concept would come to life for KIM+ONO and then develops the actual plan for execution with our talented team of artisans in China’s Silk Village. This is the exact process we used when developing our women’s plus size robes. We researched the women’s plus size robe market, and then cross referenced that information with our proprietary production process and requirements. That’s how our Curve Collection came to life. And it all started with your requests for more generous sizing. You asked, and we answered.
When we started our kimono robe company, we knew that the tradition of silk kimono was going to be essential to our material offerings. But from there, we had many choices of how to expand and many of those choices were based on requests and feedback from you, our lovely community. Some of you wanted a silk-alternative kimono robe that still had the fluidity of a liquid drape and the durability to wash at home. That’s why we offer our silk-alternative Charmeuse Collection. Some of you loved our 100% Grade 6A Raw Mulberry Silk, but wanted to avoid dry cleaning and launder in your own washing machine. That’s why we offer our Washable Silk Collection. Whether you choose Charmeuse or Washable Silk, you’re getting a piece that’s durable enough to be laundered at home but with the fluid drape that’s a signature of our Printed and Handpainted Silks.
When you’re enthusiastic about an idea, we do everything we can to implement. And perhaps no idea was as exciting to you than our men’s kimono robes. While we originally designed these kimono robes for the modern woman, we soon realized that plenty of other folks enjoy luxury too. Our men’s kimono robes blend the beautiful symbolism of sophisticated designs with some of our most incredible materials — charmeuse, washable silk, and of course the velvet trim of our Kimono Wrap Collection. We love seeing you wear these men’s kimono robes are forever inspired by your street style. You take these to the next level, and how you wear these stylish men’s kimono robes will continue to inspire how we design them.
Hopefully this shows you how much you mean to us, and how much you’ve influenced everything we make. From the smallest details to the grandest ideas, your feedback and your requests are the foundation of how we create each of these collections.
