Japan trip 2019, Nippori Fabric Town

This day my mother and I took off to the fabric district! I had intended to buy some wa printed cottons, some lace, mayyybe look for a kimono for remaking. I’d looked at the best shops to go beforehand, because to see all 80+ shops I’d need a whole ‘nother three weeks of vacation. I chose Tomato as my shop to definitely visit and I figured I’d see what else I’d find on my path. We walked through the district, which was a seamstresses heaven! Shops for leatherware, supplies, trims, I even saw a shop 100% about tassel trims! Pretty quickly we found Tomato, or rather, one of the five(!) Tomato branch shops on that street. We went in and just...it was. Lolita heaven. Dreamy floral prints, oodles of the most gorgeous lace, I even saw some lace I recall BTSSB using, and they had two lolita coords on display as example!!

The blouse on the left has woven flowers in the fabric too!

If you’ve ever tried to sew anything lolita related yourself you probably know that the lace offerings in the west are terrible. I’m gonna use that to justify the €100+ I spent there on /just/ lace. 

Look at it tho!!
My mother found little lace squares somewhere on the back of a rack and she made it into the cutest tiniest pillows for pincushions! After coming out again, broke as can be, I noticed a Tansuya shop right across the street. Tansuya sells kimono, both brand new and high end as well as secondhand casual. I love kimono so I went to check it out. Turns out this Tansuya was specialized in kimono for remaking purposes, having small stains or weak spots. They were also ¥1000 per kimono. 
$10 for a full silk kimono in great state. 
Me being super broke had to limit it to just one if I wanted to be able to catch the metro home. I wrote down the address and came back later and did a nice haul. Never in my dreams could I’ve imagined finding a shop selling $10 kimono! 

Itty bitty pillow + lace haul

Beauties! None of these are in "wearable" condition, most of them have smaller stains or dirty lining, the middle kimono has some larger stains that probably will need to be cut out. I intend on remaking them into western clothes so they can be worn again!

Unfortunately starting this day I started getting choppy with making pictures, I don’t usually take many of them for myself and I tried making more for this blog but I just ended up forgetting about it! I think I’ll be making a few posts with several days each to finish this little Japan trip report thing. I hope you’ll enjoy!

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