[Illustration: THE _KIMONO_, REAR AND FRONT VIEW.] These dresses can be taken to pieces and remade so long as the cloth is not worn out; and as they can be made to fit most persons by judicious tucking in or letting out, they are often washed and remade for others than the original wearer. As the maximum length of the body pieces is about ten feet, a cloth of the usual length would be too short for those who measure more than four feet ten or eleven inches from the nape of the neck to the ankles. A spare person, five feet eight inches in height, might just manage to make himself a dress out of a cloth of the usual length; but a man of a greater stature or of the same height with more flesh would have to get a cloth specially woven for him or buy a double length. Moreover, if a cloth is too short for the height, it would also be in all probability too narrow for the sleeves, which would then require a strip to be sewn on to cover the arms. The unlined dress of coarse bleached cotton, known as _yukata_ or bath-dress, is the simplest and most comfortable for summer wear. It is worn immediately next to the skin without underwear of any kind, and is washed whole every few days in midsummer. It is commonly white or blue with stripes, spots, or other simple designs. If the dress is of silk, hemp, or of a better kind of cotton, an underwear of bleached cotton is put on. This resembles the _kimono_ in form, only that it is much shorter, coming down only to the thighs, and has open sleeves and no gores. The unlined _kimono_ is worn when one goes out in summer; the _yukata_ is mostly for home wear or put on for a walk in the evening. The unlined clothes are worn through midsummer from the middle of June until the latter half of September. The lined _kimono_ differs from the unlined in having a lining, which is usually of dark-blue silk or cotton. The lining is first made separately from the covering, and its pieces, which are similar to those of the other with a slight shrinkage in the measurement to allow for its being the inner side, are stitched together, except at the edges of the sleeves, skirt, gores, and the inner border of the body pieces, which are sewn on to the corresponding parts of the outer cloth. The band of the latter covers both cloths; and at the opening of the sleeves a stiff piece of cloth trims the edges as that part is apt to be rapidly worn out from the movement of the wrist. The underwear is the same as in the case of the unlined _kimono_. The lined _kimono_ is worn for a shorter time than the unlined, in fact, for about a month at the transition from the unlined _kimono_ to the wadded and _vice-versa_. The lined _kimono_ was not recognised by the old-time etiquette which did not sanction any intermediate dress between the unlined and the wadded; but of its comfort as a _demi-saison_ costume there can be no question.