Retro Japanese Kimono 'Kanbai'

Large plum blossoms in red, white and black, drawn the way the seventies drew them

The flowers on this kimono are big, flat and bold, and they are drawn the way Japanese textile designers drew them in the seventies: plum blossoms the size of a hand in brick red, white and black, five rounded petals each, with black leaves between them and small dotted centres in blue and yellow, packed edge to edge with almost no ground showing. The obi is mustard, wide and crinkled, and against red and black it is the one colour that could have been chosen and the one that was.

It is the retro piece in the collection and the one with the most attitude, because the palette, red, black, white and mustard, is the palette of a good record sleeve, and the flowers are drawn without a single soft edge. It does not look like a costume. It looks like a decision.

The name, Kanbai, is the winter plum, the tree that flowers in the cold before anything else, and the red on the cloth is the red of its blossom against snow.

It is printed, not embroidered, with the edges of every petal kept hard and the three colours kept clean against each other. The cloth is polyester with a dry, matte hand, chosen because a red this flat must stay flat through washing and the white must stay white, and because a kimono for warm days should hang light.

The obi is included, a wide mustard sash with a crinkled texture that wraps twice and ties at the back. Cross the fronts left over right, tie the obi, and the kimono closes into a long column of blossom with the mustard band across the middle.

At three metres it is red and black flowers on white. At thirty centimetres the dotted centres appear, in blue and yellow, and the black leaves show their outline. It is a print drawn to be read from across a street, and it reads.

The cut is long, falling to the ankle, with wide sleeves and a wrap front that adjusts at the waist. Tied, it is the outfit for someone who wants a kimono and does not want a pretty one. Open over black, it is a robe that makes a room look like a film.

It comes in one size, cut long with a generous wrap. It is Asian sizing and runs small, so it sits closer than a Western one-size; the wrap and the obi give the room, and set the waist where you want it.