I never cared much about fancy gis, as I’ve always preferred a plain and basic look, but part of that was because I’d think about how my belts sometimes didn’t match some gi designs.

Recently, a friend congratulated me on my black belt promotion. Then she said, “Now your belt goes with every gi.” She was the first to ever say something like that to me.

No more clashing. My gis are 90%+ white, but some have patches or embroidery that just don’t look good with blue, purple, or brown. Gi designers may already consider that belts can sometimes mess up the look but I think they mostly design for white and black belts. Or maybe they don’t really think about it much.