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U.S. Orders Ship from Within USA, Import VAT Pre-Collected on all EU Orders
U.S. Orders Now Ship from Within USA - No Dealing with Tariffs, Import Fees, or Customs

Shipping Only Available for U.S. - Global Shipping Unavailable until Spring, 2026

Global: Shipping from our Kyoto office is currently suspended and will re-open for the spring sales season.

USA: Orders can be placed at any time and shipped out once or twice per week, depending on the order volume.

Shipping & Returns

Below are some common questions about shipping, returns, and exchanges

Until Spring 2026: We are only shipping domestically within the United States. Our Kyoto office is closed until then but we can place in stock items on hold for customers interested in purchasing items for future shipment.

Orders within the U.S. are shipped by USPS Priority Mail or Ground Advantage. Remember to select your preferred shipping method at checkout. Shopify automatically selects Ground Advantage for larger orders.

We can ship to almost every country in the world, but the price and available carrier depends on the country. We have shipped to over 50 countries on six continents.

If you're not able to check out, please contact us and tell us which country you live in so we can make sure that shipping is set up for your country.

In general:
North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania will be on the lower end of the cost of shipping. The Middle East, Northern Africa, and South America will be a bit more expensive. Most of Africa and a few countries here and there across the world will be very expensive to ship to.

USA: All orders are fulfilled via USPS, either with Ground Advantage or Priority Mail. Shipping starts as Priority Mail for heavier packages and Ground Advantage for lighter items (food, obijime, obiage). If your order contains 3+ heavy items (kimono, obi), it will default to Ground Advantage, which is noticeably slower than Priority Mail. Priority Mail costs more but delivers much earlier. Please select this at checkout if you approve of the higher shipping cost and need the items faster.

Europe: Orders using cargo ship usually take 2-3 months for delivery. Orders using Japan Post standard (ePacket Light) are usually delivered within 2-3 weeks. Order 21+ kilograms of items for expedited delivery at a significantly discounted price.

Australia: Orders using cargo ship usually take 2-3 months for delivery. Orders using Japan Post standard (ePacket Light) are usually delivered within 2-3 weeks. Order 21+ kilograms of items for expedited delivery at a significantly discounted price.

Canada: Tracking is unavailable due to Canada Post regulations, but ePacket Light usually take 2-6 weeks for delivery.

Asia: Orders are usually delivered within 1-2 weeks.

Africa & Middle East: Shipping varies greatly by country, so it'll range from 1-8 weeks for standard shipping (Japan Post ePacket Light) and 2-3 months through cargo ship.

Central & South America: Shipping varies greatly by country, so it'll range from 1-8 weeks for standard shipping (Japan Post ePacket Light) and 2-3 months through cargo ship.

Shipping within the United States is $10 or $15. If you order a bunch of items or order lightweight items, your order will ship with USPS Ground Advantage. If you only order one or two heavy items, like a kimono and an obi, then your order will most likely ship through USPS Priority Mail. You can select the shipping option on the checkout page. It will tell you if Priority Mail is being used or and will give that as an option if the shipping method will be Ground Advantage.

We charge the cost of shipping plus a little extra to account for credit card processing fees, currency exchange fees, expenses to abide by a wide variety of import regulations, and to cover changes in currency exchange rates.

The exact rates and methods differ by country, but we use Japan Post's ePacket Light service for international shipments. To save the most, either order a bunch of kimonos (around 9kg) or select cargo ship (2-3 months) at checkout.

Shipping availability and expenses may change suddenly, so please contact us if there are any problems or questions with placing your order.

A single kimono sent to the North America, Oceania, the Middle East, or Europe will usually be $20-30, Asia will usually be $10-20, and Africa and South America will usually be $35+. Individual countries will be more or less expensive than others in the same region and shipping fees may suddenly increase or decrease.

Go to the checkout page to see the different shipping options and prices.

If there are few or no shipping options to your country, please contact us so we can make sure your country has been properly added to the shipping system.

All shipments include tracking.

You will either receive the tracking number and a link to track it directly or will have to go to your order page on this website to see the tracking info. (You can also go to this page by clicking on the ink in your order confirmation e-mail.)

If you made your purchase with your phone number with no e-mail address, the confirmation e-mails will not be sent and texts will be sent instead.

Please contact us if you have difficulty finding your order or tracking information.

We offer returns & exchanges on all of our items, but there may be large fees depending on the reason behind the return or exchange.

Click on this sentence to learn more about our returns & exchange policies.

In general, returns and exchanges are accepted on any non-food item, but payment is required for all returns and exchanges that are not due to our errors.

If an item has significantly more staining than stated in the description (such as being Quality Rank C instead of Rank B) or if the sizing is significantly incorrect (+/- 3cm/1"), then returns and exchanges will be free. We will need to verify the item before providing the return or exchange.

For customers in Europe, we will provide an address in the EU or UK for you to send the product to. For customers in the Americas, please ship the product to our US address. For customers in Asia, please use our Japanese address.

There may be the case where returning the overall cost of shipping will be more expensive than the item itself, so please keep this in mind when you want to return an item. We will try to find the best option for you, but please keep in mind that international shipping may be prohibitively expensive.

We provide tracking information with every order when possible.

Please review your account and e-mails to find the tracking number and link.

Most orders arrive within 1-5 weeks, though there may be times where difficulties prevent them from being delivered in a timely manner.

Feel free to contact us if an item has not yet arrived.

The best way to get a lower cost of shipping is typically to maximize the weight that's allowed in each package.

For domestic U.S. orders, you will receive flat rate Ground Advantage shipping of $15 when you order a bunch of items.

For the rest of the world, the cheapest shipping option is cargo ship. If you order 21kg or more, we can ship directly to you through FedEx at a discounted rate.

Orders

Below are some of are common questions about orders

We're registered with the IOSS system and collect import taxes on orders under €150/£135. We also collect import taxes (GST, VAT) in Norway and Australia.

Click on this sentence to read more about import VAT/GST in various regions.

If you place an order below €150/£135, we will collect and remit VAT, and you will not have to pay any processing fees or import duties when the package arrives.

If you place an order above €150/£135, we will not collect VAT and you will need to pay import duties and VAT when the package arrives.

Because of the high cost of processing fees, paying VAT at time of purchase is cheaper than ordering from a company
that isn't registered with IOSS.

Import Duties

In general, you will not pay import duties on orders where you paid import VAT/GST on our website and you will when pay import duties when you don't pay import VAT/GST on our website.

The exact thresholds differ per country and region, so please check with your local Customs agency to see what fees you may be subject to before placing your order.

We collect taxes (sales tax, GST, VAT) in the EU, Minnesota, Norway, and Australia.

We are working on expanding the coverage of tax collection to ensure the best delivery process for our customers and to follow local tax regulations.

Click on this sentence to learn more about our tax collection.

Customers in many countries must pay additional taxes and fees on packages that don't have taxes prepaid, so it's important to us to collect taxes at time of purchase.

All of these taxes will be reported to the local tax agencies in accordance with local laws.

Marking a commercial package as a gift is a violation of various laws. We try not to break laws, so we are unable to fraudulently mark orders as gifts.

If you place an order above the taxation threshold in your country, you won't pay taxes on our end, but you will be responsible for taxes once the package arrives in your country.

Click on this sentence to learn more about import duties and tax collection.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about our tax collection or what the process will be for you.

We are able to change the shipping address to the billing address for repeat customers, but, for the concern of safety of the cardholder, we need to cancel and refund the order and then have you place it again if the address in all other circumstances.

We're required to put the value of the items on the outside of the package, but the values are not included in the packing slip included in each package.

New international tax collection policies require us to collect and remit taxes to various countries (Norway, Australia, EU countries, UK, etc.) on orders that are lower than certain thresholds. If you purchase a gift above these amounts (or if the country requires a processing fee to be collected on all inbound packages), your friend will have to pay fees in order to receive the package.

Please keep this in mind when ordering a gift for someone else.

We only accept PayPal upon request.

PayPal has recently started to acknowledge the existence of its expensive currency conversion fees, but it still requires currency conversion fees and transaction processing fees to be paid when receiving and when refunding all orders. Almost all other payment processors, such as Square, allow refunds without any extra fees.

We would rather not feed The Beast and instead provide a much better, less expensive, and easier shopping experience for customers.

If PayPal decides to join the rest of the payment processing world, we will use their services again.

Currently, our shop is only set up to receive payment via credit and debit cards, bank transfers, and similar money transfer services (depending on each country).

When a customer in the EU places an order, our credit card processor will charge around 5.5%. PayPal instead charges around 11%. So, if you would like to use PayPal, you need to cover any additional fees that PayPal charges.

Cleaning & Sizing

Most silk kimonos can't be washed through normal methods

...and require professionals to clean them. It's common for kimonos to gradually become stained over the years while continuing to be worn, without ever being washed.

Sometimes silk and/or wool kimonos can be washed (usually only by specialists), but oftentimes the "cleaning"
method is to simply re-dye the entire piece or paint over stains with flowers.

In traditional Japanese culture...

families would keep kimonos for decades, and sometimes for over 100 years. Certain items, like yukatas or jubans, are made with the understanding that they'll become damaged fairly quickly, so these usually don't last as long.

Due to the amount of labor and artistry put into each kimono, discarding a kimono if it becomes stained is seen as
disrespectful to the original creators.

It is sad, though, that many kimonos are left in poor storage conditions for decades, becoming stained or moldy.

While we try to immediately discard any items we find with mold, we hope that pieces that have stains can still find loving homes overseas.

The traditional process of cleaning a kimono

...is to take it completely apart, clean it, and then sew it back together.
This is a very expensive and labor-intensive process, so most people (traditionally and in modern times) wear kimonos that have stains. If it gets to a certain level, the kimonos would be cleaned, wouldn't be worn in public, or would be remade into something else if possible. Other pieces of clothing, toys, accessories, home decor, etc. Japan has a long history of re-using kimono fabric.

On that note, many of our customers upcycle our products into new clothing, accessories, and home
decor. We are working on selling boxes of stained kimonos at a discount so these can be cut apart and made into new items.

We have seen Westerners with no exposure to Japanese culture or history complain about cultural appropriation when upcycling kimonos into new products, but you can search for things like "kimono rimeiku" in Japanese (着物 リメイク) to find inspiration from the multitude of Japanese artisans upcycling kimonos into everything imagineable.

Nowadays, many kimonos, including silk ones, are made with the goal of being able to be hand washed.

The vast majority of our products cannot be hand washed, but ones made in the 1990s or later have a higher chance of being able to be washed. Some older kimonos can be hand washed, but fabric protectant and other additives and dyes will likely wash off, leaving the kimono looking dull.

We suggest to only hand wash kimonos if you know what you're doing.

In this case, feel free to order items from our Lower-Priced Items list to practice cleaning. We would be grateful if you could clean these and offer them a new life.

In general, kimonos and other items must be cleaned by specialists.

Click here to learn more about caring for kimonos.

Most silk kimonos are dry clean only. Most polyester and cotton kimonos can be hand washed in cold water with delicate soap.

Never wash a kimono in a washing machine, as the threading will likely be heavily damaged, the fabric itself may rip apart, and the dye/paint/ink may bleed or be completely destroyed.

We suggest that you hang each item out on a dry day once or twice a year in order to get rid of smells, oils, etc. (Sunlight breaks apart oils and the dry air removes moisture from the kimonos, preventing age staining due to moisture.)

Other Questions

This website is hosted on Shopify, which safely secures your personal information. We do not sell or provide your information to any marketing agencies and do not use your information for anything other than fulfilling your orders and providing product recommendations upon request.

Shopify, however, engages in many unethical practices and its plugin system ("apps") is largely a way for third parties to collect private customer data. As such, we limit the plugins used and have turned off a number of tracking systems that Shopify enacts by default.

Your information will be provided to shipping carriers, and they may reach out via e-mail or phone calls/texts in the delivery process.

Some information may be provided with partners in order to comply with tax collection (sales tax, VAT, GST), though these partners do not use your data for anything other than preparing tax remittance information.

We will remove your information from the site upon request. Please use the Contact page to request an account deletion. (We may not be able to provide customer support on items after your account information as been deleted.)

We do not manufacture any kimonos, obis, etc., as we only sell items that have already been manufactured. Almost all of our items are vintage, and most new items made in Japan are multitudes more expensive than the prices we offer.

If you want a specific style, pattern, color, size, etc., please contact us and we'll see what we can find.

We are looking at selling new items, with a focus on plus sizes, though we currently suggest looking for a specialty shop in Japan that offers plus sized kimonos.

If/when we start offering plus sized items, our selection will likely be much smaller than a company that manufactures them, since our online kimono shop is fairly small, and purchasing new kimonos for resale is currently prohibitively expensive.

Some of our products can be worn formally by plus sized individuals, though it may be difficult to find something that is larger than an XXL in US/EUR size.

Since we sell vintage items, these are usually for shorter and skinnier people, but we hope you can find something that will work for you.

We use plastic zipper bags with the hopes that you will reuse them.
We use biodegradable packaging when possible, but the the plastic zipper bags each product is in ensure that the products are kept safe during the our storage process and when being shipped to you.

We suggest that you reuse these when storing your kimonos or for other means.

If you would like to use them for food, please wash the inside first.

We try to use paper-based mailers and boxes, but around 3-5% of the time we will use plastics to decrease on shipping fees.

In order to prevent damage during shipping, all products are sent within plastic zipper bags, which we suggest that you reuse.

We're registered for VerpackG in Germany. To our customers in Germany: Please recycle these in accordance with local laws.

Please recycle the shipping materials when possible.

Need more help?

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Contact us