Tabanenoshi Motif

I bought this beautiful fukuro obi from a used Japanese gifts sale.

Judging by the pink and white colours, I thought that this was specifically for a wedding furisode (but I bought it anyways cause its perrrdyy). I had also seen the tied paper motif on a wedding uchikake listed on Ichiroya a couple days earlier.

To find out if it was specifically a wedding obi, I looked up the motif. It's called tabane noshi.

 束ね熨斗

(tabanenoshi, lit=" bundle of strips")

ImmortalGeisha.com writes:

Tabane noshi were originally bundles of abalone used as religious offerings. Nowadays, paper representations of them are used as decorations during festivals or attached to gifts. Due to these associations tabane noshi is an auspicious motif.

Noshi also sounds like the Japanese word for '"expand" or "progress"... [and so] came to be an auspicious symbol of the continuation of the family line.'[1] Tabane noshi are a common motif in semori, "back protectors," charms embroidered onto the back of children's garments that lack a center seam to repel evil influences. [2]

Tabane noshi has no season in of itself. The strips of noshi usually contain other motifs, both geometric and floral. The motifs used are often also auspicious motifs like kiku or tsuru.

Although it doesn't say if it's specifically for weddings, a quick search on Ichiroya shows the motif on mostly wedding related items, like kurotomesode, metallic fukuro obis and bridal furisode kimonos, such as the one shown below.

 

 

 

Below shows a furisode with tabanenoshi dating back to the Edo Period (18th Century). This is from the Kyoto National Museum.

 

 

 

 

A tabane noshi kamon (Source).

 

 

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I'll probably wear my obi to a wedding if I'm invited to one, but I think I'll be too self-conscious to wear it to anything else.