“ Revive Old Used Things “

I love remaking. I always feel happy when I finished making something with old things which were not used yet. The reason why I feel happy is that my handmade work revives old used things.

I had an old kimono which was given to me by my grandmother. I liked the kimono but it was too short for me to wear, so I didn’t know how to use it.

One day, I remembered one of my friends who owns a sewing café and also loves old Japanese kimono fabrics. Moreover, she is good not only at sewing but also designing things with the fabrics she loves.

I took my grandmother’s kimono with me and consulted her. She analyzed it and thought how to remake it. As she analyzed the material and created a design for it, she told me it would be best to turn my grandma's lovely kimono into a sleeveless dress. And then she explained how to prepare and make the old fabric from a kimono available for dress making and taught me how to sew.

The old fabric from the kimono that my grandmother sewed takes a lot of time to prepare than buying a new fabric from a store.

The first step involves unfastening the old kimono which my grandmother sewed. When I unfastened her kimono, I found that my grandmother used another old cloth as an inside fabric. For so many years Japanese people loved to use old used things and never waste anything. My grandmother never wasted old things, either.

Second, I had to iron the old kimono fabric. Then I washed it carefully. Finally, I had to iron it again. It took many steps to prepare a kimono fabric. It takes a long time to prepare a kimono fabric before sewing it.

Japanese people loved such handworks before World War 2 but during the time when Japanese economy was booming, people are accustomed to the throwaway principle which is influenced by mass production-mass consumption.

Even though I had to pass many steps before sewing it, I enjoyed going through the steps of preparing the kimono fabric. I remembered my grandmother while unfastening her kimono and appreciated how she took care and made an effort to make use of an old but valuable item. I respect her again.

Thanks to my friend, I could make a nice sleeveless dress with my grandmother’s kimono. It looks very nice. Recently Japanese people began to reconsider the throwaway principle. I hope that people would learn the pleasure we can get from reviving old things.