Kimono Rental Rikawafuku Gion Store — Local services in Kyoto

I reserved a slot online through their website and took up a couple plan, which was ¥13,000. It was pricier than usual as it was a public holiday when we rented. If it's normal days, it'll be ¥10,000/couple. I also added an additional ¥500 each for tulle decoration and obi decoration.

Shop is small and not the most spacious, but they have a good selection of female kimonos/yukata. After choosing your kimono, you'll be asked to proceed to another female-only room to get dressed and get your hair done. Do wear a petticoat if you're uncomfortable changing around strangers as there's no separate changing room available. The staff dressing me up was professional and will also check with me whether the outfit adjustment was alright or too tight. There's also a lot of obi decoration for you to choose from. Once done with Kimono, you'll be moved to another station where you pick the desired hairstyle and 3 accessories. Last was to choose your own geta before you leave the place.

Overall, the price is reasonable. My partner and I are both happy and satisfied with our chosen kimono/yukata. The gion outlet we visited was walkable distance from gion-shijo Station. The only thing that wasn't smooth was trying to communicate and understand the staff as they were unable to speak english so it could get rather frustrating. We used Google translate to get our message across.

Value added service: they have luggage rental available in the store at ¥500/person which...

Staff is polite and the selection is wide. They have a lot of outfits. But in the morning there was a clear lack of organization (not completely due to the staff. Between people arriving late, girls that take half a year to chose between 2 colors of mask and the The room that is very small, you really get yourself into a huge mess of people going everywhere and few space to move.

I guess it's better to take reservation early in the morning or outside of 10am... Anyway, you will have to wait quite some time if you are in the same situation.

A part from that, I also take a star away because my gf found a used mask inside her kimono. It was probably washed in the rush in the washing machine with all the other kimono, so it's not that terrible,but a little check inside the clothes would not be useless :).

Anyway, since a lot of review are 5 stars I guess it was just a bad day...

We had overall a very poor experience here at the Gion store. Would NOT recommend.

Key low-lights were: It was difficult to choose a kimono, as the selection was very poor with no standout designs. The ambience of the place was extremely lacking and felt like a warehouse, and a factory production line. The pricing is not transparent, with many hidden extras. The lift was tiny with dangerous doors which nearly crushed my children. Some staff were unfriendly. We felt that they were very rigid and officious and didn’t have much compassion. We were travelling with small children in the rain and were hit with a surprise hefty fine of 6,000 yen when we arrived 10 minutes late to return our kimonos. We felt that we should have been warned about this.

In conclusion, we were very disappointed with our kimono day with Rikawafuku Gion. It left a very negative...