Yuki Onna – literally “snow woman” – is a Japanese yokai. Wikipedia: Yuki-onna appears on snowy nights as a tall, beautiful woman with long black hair and red lips. Her inhumanly pale or even transparent skin makes her blend into the snowy landscape. She sometimes wears a white kimono, but other legends describe her as nude, with only her face and hair standing out against the snow. Despite her inhuman beauty, her eyes can strike terror into mortals. She floats across the snow, leaving no footprints (in fact, some tales say she has no feet, a feature of many Japanese ghosts), and she can transform into a cloud of mist or snow if threatened.
I know there’re all sorts of special rules and traditions surrounding kimonos, so for all I know the kimono sleeve style/red sash here is incorrect or inappropriate, but in this case its usefulness as a design element trumps cultural sensitivity, and my need for sleep trumps my usually-compulsive research.
