Kimono have a set method of construction and are typically made from a long, narrow bolt of cloth known as a tanmono, though Western-style fabric bolts are also sometimes used.

There are different types of kimono for men, women and children, varying based on the occasion, the season, the wearer’s age, and - less commonly in the modern day - the wearer’s marital status. Despite perception of the kimono as a formal and difficult to wear garment, there are types of kimono suitable for every formality, including informal occasions. The way a person wears their kimono is known as kitsuke.

In the present day, the kimono is not typically worn as everyday dress, and has steadily fallen out of fashion as the most common garment for a Japanese person to own and wear. Kimono are now most frequently seen at summer festivals, where people frequently wear the yukata, the most informal type of kimono; however, more formal types of kimono are also worn to funerals, weddings, graduations, and other formal events. Other people who commonly wear kimono include geisha and maiko, who are required to wear it as part of their profession, and rikishi, or sumo wrestlers, who must wear kimono at all times in public.

Despite the low numbers of people who wear kimono commonly and the garment's reputation as a complicated article of clothing, the kimono has experienced a number of revivals in previous decades, and is still worn today as fashionable clothing within Japan.

A set of colorized photos from Okinawa Soba (Rob) that shows what kimono life in old Japan looked like in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.