Women's Red Bird Kimono Jacket 'Akane'

One rose-pink crane over a brushed circle and the character for crane

One bird on this jacket is not white. On the upper back, a crane rises with its wings thrown open, and its feathers are shaded in rose and madder pink, drawn stroke by stroke as if stitched. Behind it, a circle brushed in one movement, and inside the circle, the character for crane, 鶴, in the same brushed white. Around the pink bird, ordinary cranes, silver-white with red legs and red crowns, fly over the fronts and sleeves between grey-white clouds. One bird in colour, a flock in white, and a word in the middle.

It comes in two grounds. On black, the pink crane glows and the white ones read as light. On white, the composition inverts: the white cranes go tonal, the brushed circle and the character read as pale grey, and the pink crane becomes the only colour on the jacket. Black is the stronger version, white the softer.

The name, Akane, is madder, the red root that gave Japanese dyers their pink, and it is also the word for the colour of the evening sky, which is the colour of the bird.

It is printed, not embroidered, although the feathers of the pink crane are drawn in fine parallel lines so that they look, from a metre away, like thread. That is a trick of the drawing and we would rather say so. The cloth is a light polyester with a smooth surface and a soft drape, chosen because fine line work needs a smooth ground to stay legible, and because a jacket this light should hang rather than stand. Three-quarter sleeves, open front, no fastening, hem at the hip.

At three metres it is a pink bird on a black or white jacket. At thirty centimetres the feathers separate, the brush circle shows where the brush ran dry, and the character shows its strokes. It is a print that respects the person looking at it.

The cut is a short open kimono jacket for women, relaxed through the body and easy at the shoulder. Over a white tee, the tee links to the white cranes and the pink bird has the outfit to itself. Over black, the black version becomes one shape with the pink crane floating on it. It goes with black trousers, white trousers, dark denim, and plain shoes.

It comes in one size, cut to drape with an easy fit. It is Asian sizing, so it sits closer than a Western one-size; if you are usually L or above, expect it to fit close rather than loose.