More on Kimonos

My antipathy to the phrase "open the kimono" can be traced back to when I first heard it, about 10 years ago. I had recently moved to an in-house legal position and I was meeting with Lucent - recently spun out of AT&T - to try and resolve a commercial dispute that was teetering toward litigation. I don't even recall the particulars, but I vividly remember the counsel for Lucent, a humorless, pinched-face fellow in his mid-50's, saying he was "going to open the kimono." Yes, he was referring to Lucent's confidential data, but the mental image it created was most unpleasant.