καιρός remembered

The nape of her neck

Why does the women’s kimono hold such an irresistible fascination for me? The secret lies in the collar.

At the back, the kimono features an elegant cut-out with a vertical, stand-up collar. As the rest of the female figure remains hidden from view, the cut-out, the collar and the hair – always ingeniously pinned up – draw all our attention to the nape of the neck. And so this becomes a charming, erotic spot of moving feminine beauty.

In his novel Spring Snow, Yukio Mishima describes on several occasions how an admirer of a beautiful woman in a kimono is entranced by the sight of her neck:

“Her body was turned sideways, so that the nape of her neck shone white like a small lake that one sometimes comes upon in the mountains.”

“The snowy peaks before his eyes today were the very image of the white that had dazzled him that day – the pure color of the nape of her neck under the lustrous black of her hair. That had been the moment in his life when a divine female beauty had first moved him into adoration.”

Photo of the week: Higashiyama, Kyoto, Japan 2008