Here are pictures of 3 different washable reversible han-haba (half-width) obi I bought in Sou’s New Year’s Sale. They were $25 each (including EMS shipping).
I wanted to show you a kind of ‘lazy’ kimono shopping & coordination trick I use. It is partially based on a Japanese rule of kimono coordination known as “1 kimono 3 obi” . It is also partly a way to take advantage of clearance sales on newer kimono items (this would be hard to do with vintage items over the internet but it’s a very ‘safe’ thing to do with newer kimono items, especially in everyday kimono wearing).
Note that the 3 obi all have the same colors in them...they’re all blues and oranges. They’re also likely made by the same manufacturer (note the identical pink label on each hanhaba obi). So I’m guessing but Sou/Shinei bought out someone’s overstock hanhaba obi and is reselling them to their customers at a discount.
Here’s a pretty simple navy blue & white striped cotton kimono I bought a few months ago (a detail shot anyway)
Notice how the blue & orange color palette works fine for this kimono. The first obi might be the weakest in terms of the patterns being a bit too matchy-matchy (in this case if the obi manufacturer had made the stripes in the obi HORIZONTAL rather than VERTICAL the obi would contrast better to this kimono, but luckily the irregular vertical stripes on the first obi are irregularly placed and broken up by the light blue cats in the design so it’s not too bad).
The other 2 patterns are different enough that they contrast very nicely with the same kimono, especially the rounded curved floral design of the second obi.
Anyway this gives me 3 looks for one kimono without a lot of hard thinking. If I needed to pack light for a trip, I could find another kimono that also goes with 2 or 3 of these obi (an iromuji (solid color kimono) would work as would a denim kimono in one color or a fine patterned Edo-komon and I could get 4-6 everyday looks out of just 2 kimono and 3 obi. I may also be able to get buy with one or two pairs of kimono appropriate shoes (zori (sandals) if I want to go more formal, geta (wood clogs) if I’m going more casual. And with hanhaba obi casual kimono there are a lot of accessories I don’t have to use (though I could if I felt like it)