Konnichiwa! I’m Takako Elting. I’m a kimono and tea specialist in Portland, Oregon USA. Let me introduce myself.
I was born and raised on a small island called Shodoshima, in Kagawa prefecture, Japan. Kagawa is part of Shikoku island and located in the southern part of Japan.
About 15 years ago, I was an intern at a Japanese immersion school in Portland. During this time, I volunteered at a Japanese festival at an Asian market and I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. An American lady who I was volunteering with wore a kimono. One guy stopped by and said “This is strange. It’s supposed to be the opposite!” I felt a little embarrassed :-).
This stuck in my mind and was one of the reasons I wanted to learn how to wear a kimono.
I got married to an Oregonian in 2009 and moved to the United States in 2011. At this time, I was not able to wear a kimono by myself even though I had been learning the tea ceremony for a long time in Japan. At the tea ceremony, we often wear kimono but there are some places around my neighborhood which could help put a kimono on. I started to take tea ceremony lessons in Portland and I decided to learn about kimono. I took a kimono instructor course and became a certified kimono instructor and started teaching kimono dressing classes in 2014.
I’m also the founder of the Portland Kimono Club, which I founded in 2012. The Portland Kimono Club is a community of Japanese women in the Portland area with an interest in the kimono.
Now I do kimono rentals and kimono photoshoots with photographers and I teach table style tea ceremony which is a casual tea ceremony for daily life.
I’d like to share how to enjoy Japanese cultural life in the United States through this website. Hopefully, you’ll like it! Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.