Where Can You Still See Kimono Worn in Japan Today?

When I wear kimono in France, I am sometimes asked by French people, “Do Japanese people wear kimono every day?”

For most Japanese people today, the answer is no.

For me, however, the answer was different. For several years before moving to France, I wore kimono almost every day because of my work. I was offering kimono experiences in Japan, dressing guests and sharing the day with them in kimono.

But that was far from typical.

On an ordinary day in Japan, people dress much as they do here in Paris — in modern Western-style clothing.

And yet, there are still people for whom kimono is part of their work, their art, their practice, or the role they hold.

And that raises a different question:

Where in Japan can you still encounter people who wear kimono as part of what they do?

That is what we will explore in this article.

In This Article

・At a Ryokan or Ryōtei — Kimono for Welcoming Guests
・In Kyoto’s Hanamachi — Geiko (Geisha) and Maiko
・In Ginza’s High-End Clubs — Kimono in Modern Tokyo
・In the Traditional Performing Arts — Kimono and Costume on Stage
　— Rakugo
　— Nihon Buyo
　— Kabuki
　— Noh
　— Traditional Music
・In the World of Sumo — Traditional Dress Beyond the Ring
・At a Tea Gathering — Kimono in the Way of Tea
・In a Kimono Shop — Wearing What You Work With
・At a Shinto Shrine — Kimono and Ritual Dress
・Kimono as Part of Life Today

1. At a Ryokan or Ryōtei — Kimono for Welcoming Guests

A traditional ryokan or a formal Japanese restaurant known as a ryōtei is one of the places where visitors may still encounter kimono as workwear.

At some establishments, the okami, or proprietress, welcomes guests in kimono.

There may also be nakai — guest-service attendants who show guests to their rooms, serve meals, carry trays, and assist them during their stay or meal. They too may work in kimono.

A staff member may spend the day walking through corridors, sitting or kneeling on tatami, serving meals, carrying trays, greeting guests, and bowing.

For someone who usually sees kimono only in photographs, it can be easy to imagine it as beautiful but restrictive clothing. But someone who works in kimono moves in it throughout the day.

How a sleeve is handled while serving something, how the hem is managed when sitting or kneeling, and how the body moves while carrying a tray all become practical parts of wearing the garment.

Practicality can also influence the clothing itself. Some establishments use washable kimono or two-piece styles that are easier to care for during a working day.

But if Western clothing might often be easier to work in, why continue to wear kimono at all?

Part of the answer lies in the role clothing plays within the ryokan or ryōtei itself. For an okami in particular, kimono can form part of the way she represents the establishment and welcomes its guests.

Before a word is spoken, her clothing can already tell us something about the place we have entered.

2. In Kyoto’s Hanamachi — Geiko (Geisha) and Maiko

One of the most visually recognizable places to encounter traditional dress is Kyoto’s hanamachi, the districts where geiko and maiko train and work.

In Kyoto, the term geiko is traditionally used instead of geisha.

A maiko is an apprentice entertainer who studies traditional arts such as dance and music, along with the forms of hospitality required in her profession. A geiko is a professional entertainer who has completed her apprenticeship, although her training in the arts continues throughout her career.

Their clothing is closely connected with this professional world, and many of its details carry information.

A maiko and a geiko do not look the same.

A maiko typically wears kimono with long sleeves, distinctive obi, and elaborate hair ornaments in her own hair. A geiko’s appearance is generally more understated, with different kimono, obi, and hairstyle, and she typically wears a wig.

Even among maiko, details such as hairstyle and hair ornaments can change as they progress through their apprenticeship.

In the hanamachi, these differences are not simply decorative. They can indicate whether someone is a maiko or a geiko, and in some cases even where a maiko is within her apprenticeship.

This makes clothing part of the professional language of the hanamachi. What may first appear simply as a beautiful traditional outfit can reveal something about the wearer’s role, experience, and stage within that world.

For visitors, however, it is important to remember that geiko and maiko seen walking through the streets are often simply on their way to work. They are not public performers merely because they are wearing distinctive clothing, and visitors should not stop, follow, touch, or photograph them without permission. Photography is also restricted in some parts of Gion.

Their work traditionally takes place in ozashiki — private gatherings at teahouses and restaurants where geiko and maiko entertain guests through dance, music, and conversation. There are also public performances and programs open to visitors where their arts can be seen without needing access to the traditional private world of the hanamachi.

3. In Ginza’s High-End Clubs — Kimono in Modern Tokyo

A very different kind of professional hospitality can be found in Ginza, at the heart of modern Tokyo.

In some of the district’s high-end clubs, kimono can still be seen as professional dress among mamas and hostesses.

The word “club” can be misleading in English. These are not nightclubs with dance floors and DJs, nor are they establishments where sexual services are the purpose of the business.

They are social spaces built around drinking, conversation, hospitality, and long-term relationships with customers. Many high-end clubs are closely connected with regular clientele and introductions, and a mama plays an important role in representing the establishment and maintaining those relationships.

Appearance is part of the profession, but appearance alone is not enough.

A mama or hostess may need to remember customers and previous conversations, understand the worlds they work in, follow current affairs, read the atmosphere of a table, and keep conversation moving naturally. In this sense, the work can require a broad kind of knowledge, memory, discretion, and social awareness.

Not every mama or hostess wears kimono. Western evening dresses are also common. But kimono remains one of the professional choices seen in Ginza.

Ginza’s club culture is part of modern urban Tokyo rather than a classical tradition preserved from an earlier age.

Yet kimono has found a place within it as working dress.

4. In the Traditional Performing Arts — Kimono and Costume on Stage

Traditional performing arts are another place where kimono and other forms of traditional Japanese dress remain very much in use.

But the role of clothing is different in each art. Sometimes it is simply what the performer wears. In other cases, the sleeve, the silhouette, or the costume itself becomes part of the expression.

Rakugo

At a yose, a traditional entertainment venue, a rakugo performer sits on a cushion and tells a story while playing many different characters.

The stage is remarkably simple. A folding fan and a tenugui hand towel may become chopsticks, a pipe, a letter, or other objects, while changes in voice, gaze, posture, and gesture allow one performer to move between characters.

Throughout this, the performer usually remains in the same kimono. The audience understands who is speaking through the performance rather than through a change of costume.

A haori may sometimes be worn during the introductory makura and removed as the performer moves into the main story. It is not a fixed rule, but when it happens, even this small change in clothing can quietly mark the transition into the story.

Nihon Buyo

In nihon buyo, or traditional Japanese dance, clothing and movement are much more visibly connected.

As the dancer turns or moves an arm, the sleeves and hem continue the movement of the body. A long sleeve can extend the visual line beyond the hand, and the way the fabric is held, released, or moved can become part of the expression itself.

Watching nihon buyo, it can sometimes become difficult to separate the movement of the dancer from the movement of the kimono.

In some stage dances, long sleeves can even suggest actions such as brushing away dew or snow.

Kabuki

Kabuki takes kimono and other forms of Japanese dress into a more theatrical world.

Many characters appear in garments that are part of the kimono tradition. A princess, for example, may wear an elaborate furisode with an uchikake, while a samurai may appear in kamishimo — a combination of kosode, kataginu, and hakama.

But these costumes are not simply reproductions of ordinary historical dress.

Costume can immediately tell the audience something about a character. Shape, color, pattern, proportion, and the way the clothing is worn may all be adapted or exaggerated to make a character’s age, social position, personality, or role more visible.

In kabuki, kimono therefore becomes part of a much larger visual language of stage costume.

Noh

Noh offers another way to see garments from the kimono tradition still in use on stage.

Its costumes are known collectively as noh shozoku and combine many different kinds of garments. Some, such as karaori and atsuita, belong to the kosode family — the same broad lineage from which the modern kimono developed — while others, such as kariginu, are different kinds of robes, hakama, and specialized pieces.

These garments are combined according to the role being performed, creating a highly developed system of stage dress with its own forms and conventions.

Traditional Music

Traditional musicians can also be seen performing in kimono and other forms of formal Japanese dress.

In genres such as nagauta, kiyomoto, tokiwazu, and gidayu, performers may sing, chant, or play the shamisen in montsuki and hakama, while women may wear black or colored montsuki; some genres also use kataginu.

These musicians may perform on their own, but they are also closely connected with kabuki and Japanese dance.

So even when our attention is drawn to the actor or dancer at the center of the stage, kimono may also be worn by the people creating the music around them.

5. In the World of Sumo — Traditional Dress Beyond the Ring

Sumo offers a very different example.

During a match, a wrestler wears a mawashi rather than a kimono. But outside the ring, traditional dress remains part of life as a professional rikishi.

The Japan Sumo Association explains that even new wrestlers are expected to wear yukata when going out in warmer weather and kimono when it becomes colder. As its own guide puts it, once a new recruit goes outside, he is representing himself as a rikishi.

What a wrestler is permitted to wear can also change as he rises through the rankings. Certain footwear, belts, outer garments, and other items become available only after reaching particular ranks.

The traditional clothing is not simply a costume worn for the moment when an audience is watching the competition.

It extends beyond the ring and becomes part of how a wrestler appears in public as a member of the professional sumo world.

6. At a Tea Gathering — Kimono in the Way of Tea

Tea offers a quieter example.

Not everyone who practices chado, or the Japanese Way of Tea, wears kimono. Many lessons take place in Western clothing, and kimono is not required in order to learn tea.

At more formal tea gatherings, however, kimono is still commonly seen.

This connection is partly historical. The forms of tea practiced today developed in a world where Japanese dress was part of ordinary life, so some movements and ways of handling objects naturally developed in relation to what people were wearing.

For the host, a fukusa — the silk cloth used during the preparation of tea — is carried at the waist. Guests use kaishi paper when receiving sweets and tea, and when wearing kimono, it is traditionally carried inside the garment.

The movements of tea also involve the whole body: how to sit and rise, walk on tatami, open a sliding door, carry utensils, and move between host and guest.

In this setting, kimono is not simply part of the appearance of the occasion.

It remains connected to the movements, objects, and customs that have been passed down within the Way of Tea.

7. In a Kimono Shop — Wearing What You Work With

A kimono shop is perhaps one of the most obvious places to encounter people working in kimono.

Some staff wear kimono while helping customers, although this varies from shop to shop.

Their work may involve much more than selling a garment. Customers may ask what kind of kimono is appropriate for a particular occasion, how to coordinate it with an obi and accessories, how it should fit, or how it should be cared for after wearing.

And here, wearing kimono can itself become part of the way it is presented.

A kimono folded on a shelf tells us only part of the story. Once it is worn, we can see how a pattern sits across the body, how an obi changes the balance of the colors, and how the complete silhouette comes together.

For someone working with kimono every day, knowledge therefore comes not only from the fabric itself, but also from seeing how it is chosen, coordinated, worn, adjusted, and cared for.

In a kimono shop, the person explaining the garment may also be showing, simply by wearing it, what the garment can become.

8. At a Shinto Shrine — Kimono and Ritual Dress

A Shinto shrine is another place where forms of traditional Japanese dress remain in active use today.

Miko are commonly recognized by a white kimono and red hakama. Their clothing may change for particular rituals or sacred dances, when garments such as chihaya and other accessories may be added.

This is not simply ceremonial clothing seen from a distance. Miko may assist Shinto priests, perform kagura, assist with ceremonies and weddings, receive visitors, and work at shrine offices where amulets and other items are offered. In other words, the clothing is worn while carrying out the everyday responsibilities of the shrine as well as during ritual occasions.

Shinto priests wear more specialized forms of dress known as shozoku. The garments vary according to the ritual and its level of formality.

Here, familiar forms such as kimono and hakama exist alongside more specialized ritual garments, each connected with particular roles and ceremonies.

They are still part of the work and ritual life of the shrine today.

Kimono as Part of Life Today

So far, we have looked at places where people still wear kimono regularly for very different reasons — as part of their work, their art, a practice, or a particular role.

But there is another group of people who do not fit neatly into any of these places.

They wear kimono simply because they love it.

I have several friends in Japan who wear kimono regularly even though their work has nothing to do with kimono. For them, putting on kimono is simply part of everyday life.

I sometimes do the same here in Paris, even on days when I am not working.

When I wear kimono out in the city, people sometimes speak to me because of it. A small conversation may begin with someone I otherwise might never have spoken to, or I may simply find myself enjoying the day a little more.

Clothing can add something not only to the person wearing it, but also to the place and the moment in which it is worn.

We have seen that in different ways throughout this article. An okami in kimono contributes to the character of a ryokan. Clothing becomes part of the visual world of a performance. At a tea gathering, it can become part of the atmosphere and formality of the occasion.

But the relationship does not have to move in only one direction.

When kimono is worn today — in a ryokan, on a stage, on the streets of Paris, or simply in someone’s everyday life — the wearer and the place also enter its continuing story.

Each time it is worn somewhere new, for a new purpose, or simply because someone chooses it, another layer can be added to what it means.

Perhaps this is one of the ways kimono continues to live in the present — not by leaving its history behind, but as new places, people, and experiences become part of its story.

Subscribe to the Kimono Journal

Receive new articles exploring kimono, its history, traditions, and place in life today by email.