Kimono EXPO Osaka

Ginza Ichiri, a shop that buys its kimono straight from the districts where they are woven and dyed, holds this fair once a year in two cities. Tokyo comes first and Osaka a week later. The Osaka leg is not a repeat of the Tokyo one: different makers travel to each, and the classes on offer are not the same.

Osaka has the longer list of workshops. Among them are a half-collar made with Indian lace, an obi clasp in Kyoto cloisonne, a bracelet of Izumi glass beads, a haori cord in the form of a shooting star, and two classes in tying an obi at the front and turning it round, one for a wide obi and one for a narrow one. There is also a class in dressing hair in the older manner, and sessions that judge which colours and which shapes of pattern suit the person sitting there.

Weavers and dyers come with their work and talk about it, among them Kyoto yuzen dyers, who bring the cloth they have made and explain how the pattern gets onto it.

The clinic is the other half of the event. Kimono that have sat in a drawer for years are brought in, and the craftsmen who clean and mend them say what can be done and what it would cost, for nothing: a stain, a patch of mould, a yellowed hem, a garment cut for someone of another size. A market nearby clears stock at reduced prices.

Nothing is charged at the door and no booking is needed to walk in. The classes are another matter: each is paid for and reserved beforehand, and all of it is conducted in Japanese.