Sunflower Summer Yukata 'Natsubi'

Sunflowers on white with green leaves, and a mustard sash crinkled at the waist

Sunflowers are not a traditional Japanese motif, and this yukata does not care. Yellow flowers with brown centres, drawn large and turned to face out, scatter across a white ground with green leaves between them, from the collar to the hem and over the sleeves, with enough white showing that the print reads as flowers on cloth rather than a field. The obi is mustard, wide and crinkled, a deeper yellow than the petals, and it puts the warmest colour on the garment at the waist.

It is the happiest print in the women's range and the one that reads most like August. Sunflowers are the flower of the Japanese summer holidays, the fields children are photographed in, and a yukata is the garment of the same month. Putting the two together is obvious, and it works, on the cloth and on the person wearing it.

The name, Natsubi, means a summer day, the long, hot, bright kind, and it is the day the yukata is for.

It is printed, not embroidered, with the yellow kept clean and the white around it kept white. The cloth is polyester with a dry, matte hand, chosen because a white this white must stay white through washing and a yellow this bright must not dull, and because a yukata for hot days should weigh nothing.

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 yukata closes into a long white column with the flowers scattered down it and the yellow band across the middle.

At three metres it is yellow flowers on white. At thirty centimetres each sunflower shows its petals and its seed head, and the leaves show their veins. It is a print drawn simply, and drawn well.

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 a summer festival, with sandals and a fan. Open over white, it is a robe that turns a kitchen into a garden.

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.