Kimono Mom on becoming a geisha, divorce and depression, and women’s empowerment (2024)

Unsurprisingly, her mum categorically refused, saying that at 16 years old Moe had no financial pressure that could justify her dropping out of secondary school and start working. It didn’t deter the teenager, however, whose already strong temperament led her to build a whole presentation to persuade her parents. “I think it’s in my character,” she says, laughing. “I know exactly what I want and I’ll do everything to get it.”

Evidently, that persistence paid off and Moe was able to swap her studies for training to become a geisha.

From 16 to 22, Moe lived in an okiya (tea house) under the supervision of an okasan (mother) who trained her in the traditions and art of their craft. “What I loved about the Okiya was being surrounded by women,” Moe says. “They were independent, powerful, beautiful—they were real business women, and they taught me everything I needed to [know to] take care of myself.”

But life wasn’t always easy for the teenager. Between training in the many traditional arts geishas are required to master—such as dancing, singing, playing instruments—preparing her outfits, learning to apply her make-up, and meeting with clients, she often slept less than five hours a night.

On difficult days, her mum would sneak in some homemade curry for her, which she would eat in silence—crying. Moe didn’t realise it at the time, but this core memory would become one of the main inspirations behind her YouTube channel. Feeling how much comfort Japanese homemade cuisine was able to give stuck with her, she says.

Besides a heavy workload and hectic schedule, Moe was growing older and craving more personal growth and room to be authentically herself. “Being a geisha means you are performing all the time,” she explains. “I wasn’t even Moe there, I was ‘Mameharu’ [her geisha name].”

“I didn’t get to be my true self,” she added. “And it was particularly difficult as a young adult [who was] trying to find out who I was. So, I knew I had to leave.”

Moe left the geisha world at 22, when she married her first husband. They moved together to Tokyo, which was a cultural shock for Moe who only knew of life in Kyoto and her geisha house.

While she loved discovering the world through her ex-husband’s business trips, she quickly felt “like a bird in a cage”.

“We were not on the same page,” she says. “He thought it was embarrassing for women to work and I was young and inexperienced, so I thought my only option was to follow him around. Cooking Japanese food for him would cheer me up, [but other than that] I was very lonely.”

After a few years, she pushed for divorce, rented a small room in the Japanese capital and tried to find employment—a complicated mission since she didn’t graduate from secondary school. “I had to learn everything, including how to use a computer,” she recalls. “I reached a point where I couldn’t even pay rent and had to live at different friends’ places.”

Her experience also influenced her perspective on love and marriage. In fact, in one of her Q&A videos, she even said that she “hated and got tired of serving men”, and that she thought she’d never marry again.

Above Moe, also known as Kimono Mom (Photo: courtesy of Kimono Mom)

Still, when her ex-husband died unexpectedly from cancer, it was a sledgehammer blow to her: “I was so defeated, I decided to go back to Kyoto” and food once again served as a safe haven.

“People in Kyoto were quite judgmental about my divorce, and I was a mess. I didn’t live up to my own expectations, but my mum gave me the space to heal: she cooked for me, stayed with me silently at the table, and waited for me to open up.”

Led by her mother’s guidance and delicious food, Moe’s healing continued in the kitchen. For the young adult, cooking quickly became intrinsically linked to respect, communication, sharing, self-reflection and most of all: self-love.

“I’ve never rejected anything I’ve been through,” Moe says. “I embrace every single one of my failures. Everything I’ve done allowed me to be where I’m at today.”

Where she is today includes finding love in her second husband, Moto, who she says showed her what it “truly meant to be supported”. And in February 2020, armed with just an iPhone and laptop, Moe posted her very first video on her newly created YouTube channel.

In her debut, she taught her audience how to make deep fried lotus root sandwiches, and she was assisted by her daughter and soon-to-be partner in crime, Sutan. What wasn’t obvious on camera was how her channel was born of struggle as well as empowerment.

“I had a very difficult pregnancy, and even after giving birth, my recovery was long,” Moe says. “I bled a lot and I couldn’t do anything difficult physically. I wanted to go back to work but it was just physically impossible for me. So I stayed at home by myself with my Sutan. That’s when my postpartum depression hit. So I started my YouTube channel to reconnect with the world and share my passion for Japanese cuisine.”

Fast-forward a few years later, and Moe’s healing journey cannot be denied. With 1.6M subscribers on YouTube and 1.4M on Instagram, the Geisha turned YouTuber proved once and for all that rising above and staying true to yourself can be rewarding.

Becoming Kimono Mom allowed Moe to reconnect with more than the world, it also allowed her to reconnect with herself and her values. Today, with her loving husband and daughter, Moe is exactly where she’s always wanted to be since she was 16: oscillate between tradition, cuisine, creativity and empowerment.

Always looking at the future, Moe teased us with the upcoming launch of her “Kimono Mom cooking sauce”, a vegan, gluten-free and alcohol-free sauce which can be used ‘to make any kind of Japanese food that people of any religion or food restrictions can eat”, which will be available worldwide soon. It is part of her ambition to make Japanese cooking accessible to all, she says.

Meanwhile, she will continue to make inspiring videos with her daughter, who is the embodiment and strongest testimony of her philosophy: to keep trying and stay authentically yourself. Indeed, raised by a self-confident mother and a loving father, the toddler has been described as “loud, fun and cheeky”.

“I didn’t want to teach Sutan how to be a good girl,” she says. “[Instead,] I’m teaching her how to be happy, free and strong. That’s all that matters”.

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Kimono Mom Japanese cuisine Women empowerment YouTube Geisha