Hi guys, today I'll be sharing where I rented my Kimono while I was in Kyoto!
After visiting Fushimi Inari Taisha + having lunch, my siblings and I separated from my family and made our way to Kyoto Station. The night before, I found the website for a company called Kyoto Kimono Rental Wargo, and my sister and I decided to rent Kimonos from them while we were in Kyoto.
*When you first go to their website, it will be in Japanese, but you can easily change it to English at the upper left corner of the site.
Aside from Kimono rental, they also provide Kimono dressing service (where you bring your own Kimono and they dress you), cloak service & accessory rental. They also have an in-house studio where you can take pictures in.
They have 8 shops in the Kyoto area + 9 other shops around Japan:
After registering for an account and confirming my email, I proceeded to make my reservation.
They have several plans available, ranging from 2,900 up to 23,000 yen. Click here to view the different plans they have!
They also have several special formal Kimonos available for rent (like Homongi, Hakama, Furisode, Shichigosan, Iromuji, wedding kimono & more), and these ones range from 9,900 to 15,900 yen.
Click here to check them out!
For me, I personally only just wanted to experience wearing a Kimono + didn't want anything too fancy. I decided to go for the Standard Kimono Plan for 2,900 yen:
Do note that this price is exclusive of tax, so in the end, I actually paid 3,780 yen!
The standard Kimono plan consists of 8 pieces:
I selected the Kyoto Tower shop because it was only a 2-minute walk from Kyoto Station. The shop is located on the 3rd floor, and when we got to the store we were greeted by the staff and we directed to an English speaking staff.
We were given storage bags to put our things in, and they gave us a tag with the storage bag number. If you just finished shopping or are carrying a lot of stuff, you can opt to leave your things at the store. If you came with someone else, they have some couches for people to sit & wait inside the shop as well:
After we put our things in the storage bags (except for our valuables which we decided to keep with us), we were led to select our pieces. For me, I needed to choose my Kimono + Haori/coat. If you already prebooked your slot, you'll be directed to the section carrying the kimonos you can shoose from. If you see nicer patterns at a different tier, I was told that you can still top up!
Here are some of the girls' Kimonos:
*I forgot to snap the guys' Kimonos cuz I was too busy choosing my colours haha*
After I selected my colours, I was led into a room where I was dressed by an elderly lady staff. She was super friendly and nice, even attempting to slightly explain what each piece of clothing was for.
My sister went through the same thing, but she got her hair done as well. This was kind of a nice surprise because I thought we needed to pay extra for hairstyling.
The 8-piece set that we got already inclued footwear + bags, but if you want, you can choose other styles of footwear/bags, as well as scarves & parasols.
The rental fee of the entire Kimono set is on a daily basis, meaning you can wear it however long you want as long as you return it by their last return hour. If you can't return it that day and return it the following day, a fee will be imposed.
Here's what my full Kimono looked like:
The selection for guys is mostly comprised of solid colours, and I loved all the colours! I'm personally not one to wear patterns so it was perfect. I settled on a deep purple Kimono and an olive-y nude jacket.
I also chose a matching bag (where I kept my ICOCA card, wallet & phone), and the lady that dressed me gave me a matching brown Obi/belt to pull everything together:
Here I am at a temple we walked past while looking for a nice place to take pictures in:
The shot turned out really pretty!
My sister chose a blue kimono, and the contrast of the blue with her red Obi was relly pretty:
In terms of comfort, it was pretty easy to move around in. You can feel the weight of the whole ensemble but it didn't feel too uncomfortable. I think the only thing I didn't like about it was that my feet were freezing the entire time! I'm not sure if there are special footwear for colder seasons, but I definitely felt like my feet weren't protected well enough hahaha. I was literally only wearing socks and slippers, and it was 5-7 degrees Celsius out!
My siblings and I actually wanted to find a park with nice autumn leaves to take pictures in, but we ended up not being to find one. We did, however, find this playground and took pics there instead:
We managed to reach the return time deadline and changed out of our kimonos before heading back to Osaka. Overall I think the whole process of booking the slot/Kimono was very smooth and easy. For 3780 yen (around RM140), I got a good quality 8-piece Kimono which looked great + was served by nice and friendly staff. I managed to take nice pictures (which was my goal) and I was overall very satisfied. I don't think the price is cheap, but I don't think it's super expensive as well. I think it's reasonable and is a nice thing to spend on if you haven't experienced wearing a Kimono before.
Aaaaand that was it for this post! I hope you guys liked my pictures + found this post helpful.
If you'd like to view more posts from my Japan trip, click here.
See y'all in my next post!
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