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The kimono (�物, kimono^?) is the national costume of Japan. Originally the word "kimono" referred to all types of clothing, but it has come to denote a particular type of traditional full-length garment.

Kimonos are T-shaped, straight-lined robes that fall to the ankle, with collars and wide, full-length sleeves. Kimonos are wrapped around the body, always with the left side over the right (except when dressing the dead for burial) and secured by a wide belt called an obi, which is usually tied at the back. Kimonos are generally worn with traditional footwear (especially z�ri or geta) and split-toe socks (tabi).

Today, kimonos are most often worn by women, and on special occasions. Traditionally, unmarried women wore a style of kimono called furisode, which have floor-length sleeves, on special occasions. A few older women and even fewer men still wear kimonos on a daily basis. Men wear kimonos most often at weddings, tea ceremonies, and other very special or very formal occasions. Professional sumo wrestlers are often seen in kimonos because they are required to wear traditional Japanese dress whenever appearing in public. They commonly wear the kind of casual Japanese attire that is referred to as yukata, which is of plain unlined cotton.

Kimono hobbyists in Japan can take courses on how to put on and wear kimonos. Classes cover selecting seasonally and event-appropriate patterns and fabrics, matching the kimono undergarments and accessories to the kimono, layering the undergarments according to subtle meanings, selecting and tying obi, and other topics. There are also clubs devoted to kimono culture, such as Kimono de Ginza.

History

As kimono has another name gofuku (呉�, gofuku^? literally "clothes of Wu(呉)"), the earliest kimono were heavily influenced by traditional Chinese clothing, which is known as hanfu today, through extensive cultural adoptions between China and Japan, as early as the fifth century ce. It was during the 8th century, however, when Chinese fashions came into style among the Japanese, and the overlapping collar became particularly a women's fashion. During Japan's Heian period (794–1192 ce), the kimono became increaslingly stylized, though one still wore a half-apron, called a mo, over it . During the Muromachi age (1392-1573), the Kosode, a single kimono formerly considered underwear, began to be worn without the hakama pants over it, and thus began to be held closed by an obi "belt" . During the Edo period (1603-1867), the sleeves began to grow in length, especially among unmarried women, and the Obi became wider, with various styles of tying coming into fashion . Since then, the basic shape of both men’s and women’s kimono has remained essentially unchanged .

Read more at Wikipedia.org