Ah, let me tell you about the story my grandmother would share—one that sent a shiver up my spine as a girl and still lingers in my memory to this day. It was in a small Filipino barangay, the sort of place where everyone knows each other, where the nights are deep and the air is thick with mystery.

One night, under a heavy, clouded sky, the village lay quiet except for the neighborhood watch on their nightly patrol. These were steady men, their senses sharp, eyes on every corner, and they knew every sound and shadow of our little world. As they turned down a narrow alleyway, they spotted a large stray dog drifting through the shadows. It had thick, matted fur and strange, glinting eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dark. There was something in the way it moved that made the men shiver a little, a sense that it didn’t quite belong.

Thinking it might be a danger, they decided to capture it. So, quietly, they moved in, and with one swift, decisive motion, they caged the creature. The clink of metal against metal echoed through the silence.

But when dawn finally broke and the watchmen gathered around the cage, ready to see their capture in daylight, the dog was gone. Vanished. And in its place sat an old woman, her face serene, her eyes wise and knowing, like she’d seen the world from all its sides. She didn’t speak, didn’t offer any explanation. She simply sat there, calm as anything. It left the men stunned, their minds buzzing with what they’d witnessed. Was it a trick, magic, a spirit watching over us? Who knows?

This story stayed with me, like a little secret my grandmother had shared only with me. And it wasn’t just the story—I even purchased an image of that dog, set up on a sweater, which I’d found years later, with the same kind of mysterious, wise look in its eyes. I saved it, tucked away, waiting for the right time to use it. When I started designing kimonos for Yugto, I knew just what to do. I took that old sweater and carefully upcycled it, placing it on the back of a kimono—a quiet tribute to those secrets hidden in the shadows of our lives. That dog on the back is more than an image; it’s a reminder that there’s magic in the things we don’t fully understand, mysteries that can’t be explained away.