http://fyeahlolita.blogspot.com/2012/05/building-complete-lolita-wardrobe.html
I fiiiinally finished the world’s longest post @_@. Sorry I’ve been on such a blogging break lately! This huge post has been keeping me from updating for like 3 weeks! I kept saying “NOT UNTIL I FINISH THAT POST!”
An insanely long article that delivers exactly what it promises.
I look like I have two different eye colours here… but nevertheless, I enjoyed wearing this summery outfit to a loli picnic today! It’s Angelic Pretty’s “Dot Chiffon” JSK dress in peach with Angelic Pretty leopard print jewelry, a beige blouse by F.int., a Cambridge Satchel Company shoulder bag, beige jelly heels and a vintage felt hat.
Imi looking flawless as usual.
Bolero: Innocent World, Dress: Victorian Maiden, Shoes: Forever 21, Bag: French Connection
Discovered ojouchan today. Will spend a significant amount of time going through her entire blog. Some of the coolest interpretations of lolita style that I have ever seen — and some other great stuff, too.
LOL SO TRUE. Japanese don’t really wear lolita and stuff…very few of us do.
Well, that’s not really what I was getting at. Whether or not it’s mainstream has very little to do with whether it’s legitimate or not. If anything, the nicheness of styles like this is what makes them especially appealing to foreigners — there’s just something very uniquely Japanese about particularly subversive Harajuku fashion trends. However, even if a show was to be completely populated by subversive styles, it would be nice to see more than two or three.
As someone who goes to Anime North, I’d like to tell you that year by year AN has been getting more and more fashion oriented people at the con. The lolita community has notice a steady increase of better and better Lolita outfit. And personally I have been trying to push fashion oriented things at Anime North, this year Im bringing 4 panels on lolita, 1 on mori girl, a swap meet and helping in the fashion show. I think you should really consider coming to this convention :) It not going to happen overnight off course. My non-lolita panels usually have poor attendance but I really want to see this take off :)
Thanks for your response. With regards to Anime North, I’m not really convinced — I was there last year and while there was certainly a solid lolita presence there was nothing particularly new or interesting. I sat in on a few general Japanese fashion panels and they were abysmal. There was one in particular where people openly talked about experiences while wearing Japanese fashion, but it was largely a bunch of saccharine “be yourself!” stuff. One guy was sharing his experiences about wearing a jester hat in high school. I guess that certainly is subversive, though.
This isn’t to rag on anime or anything like it — I watch a lot of anime and otherwise nerdy Japanese shit — but I just don’t think the atmosphere of an anime convention is generally very interesting to people who are into fashion. There are exceptions, of course. Sakuracon is having shows for h.NAOTO, Chantilly and Atelier Pierrot. But serious fashion people are likely not going to be hanging around furries and hardcore otaku. In the end, I decided that just because these are Japanese culture conventions doesn’t mean they really align with the realities of Japanese fashion. Still, I wish you luck in your events.
The new fashion show coordinator of Otakuthon has sent me a response to this editorial.
Otakuthon is proud to present the Fashion Show! It is a fashion parade that brings together three different categories: Lolita, J-Pop/J-Rock/Visual-Kei and Traditional.
This is the message that is presented when you visit Otakuthon’s — the Montréal anime and manga convention — page about their fashion show. They were also accepting cosplay entries.
———————
Hello,
I’m Lysandra, the new Fashion Show manager. Last year I was the assistant. I would like to tell you that even though you’ve written this editorial a long time ago, it just recently got my attention. I will not take it in consideration though. Why? Not because I think the show is flawless but because you seem to have missed the point of the fashion show and if I recall, you did not even attend the show itself.
I understand the presentation text might have been a little sloppy, it’s being changed this year because it wasn’t very clear. Plus, you have to know we do not refuse any entry due to the structure nature of the show. It isn’t a competition and even though we try to keep the main focus of the show around Japanese/Japanese inspired fashion and the registered participants must follow certain rules, there will always be a section of the show where the audience is invited to come on the stage to experience the feeling of being under the spotlight.
I understand it may not please certain ”fashion otaku” as you call them but we are aiming toward a more general audience.
Thank you,
Lyly
Hi Lyly,
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to respond to our article. I hope you don’t mind that I will be delivering my response publicly — after all, I consider this something of a public interest rather than a private conversation between you and I.
Firstly, no, I did not attend the show. But you know, there are a lot of things in life that I have not personally experienced but have been able to form an opinion on. I have never gone parachuting because I think it seems pretty scary, for example. That said, I did see photos from the show and got opinions from others. I’ve also been to fashion shows at a multitude of other conventions (the original editorial, while inspired by Otakuthon, was a look at convention attitudes towards Japanese fashion in general). Largely, these things strengthened my viewpoint on the matter.
Perhaps you are right, though. Perhaps I did miss the point of the show. You see, I was under the impression that the point of a fashion show was to present styles of clothes for public perusal. In the case of a convention fashion show, I would hope the point would be to expose the incredibly interesting and diverse world of Japanese fashion to an audience who might otherwise never have the chance to experience these garments firsthand. Is that correct?
If it is not correct, then what is the purpose? I’m all for people feeling good about themselves, but just because something is for a general audience doesn’t mean you need to reduce it to pointless circle-jerking. If anything, the fact that it is for a general audience should re-enforce the need to have a laser focus. A general audience might be experience Japanese fashion for the first time. They deserve to be shown more than just lolita and decora and whathaveyou. There is more to Japanese fashion than bright colours and over-accessorizing. In fact, if you actually look at what was shown at Japan Fashion Week, you’ll find very little of that.
That’s not to delegitimize these styles; ultimately they have their well-earned place in the melange of Japanese street fashion. But this is an audience that has paid to go to a convention and used their presumably precious time to sit down and see what this Japanese fashion thing is all about. In my opinion, they deserve more.
If you would like to discuss what can be done to give a more true-to-life presentation of Japanese fashion, I’d be more than happy to do so.
That last anon that said “good fabric and lace doesn’t warrant a $300 price tag” and that “50% goes into the name,” I really have to disagree with that. If you sew at all, you will know that good lace can go for upwards of $20 a yard, and I would say that there’s usually about 4 yards of lace on a generic AP dress; less if there’s a print, more if there isn’t, so that’s $80 or more on it’s own. It’s also custom made lace so it’s more expensive. Custom printed fabric is always more as well; take a look on Spoonflower and you’ll see that it’s about $18 a yard for the cheapest option, and when making lolita clothing, you need a lot of yardage. It will cheapen the price a little to buy wholesale, like brands do, but you still have to take into account that custom printed fabric just isn’t cheap, unless you go the cheap way out for the quality of fabric as well. You have to pay the dress designers which are different from the print designers, pay the manufacturers, pay for marketing and advertisements, etc.
While I don’t disagree that you are paying for the brand name, I definitely wouldn’t say that it’s 50% of the price, which is evident if you ever make your own clothes. I wear Bodyline (I actually really love Bodyline too, and I understand the point that you made in the first ask!) and Taobao and brand, as well as handmake a lot of my clothing, so I’m not saying this from a “brand-whore” point of view, I’m just saying this to maybe clarify a few things. I apologize if this comes off as abrasive in any way, as I do not mean it that way.
Interesting commentary on why good clothes cost what they do. This isn’t just limited to lolita — it’s true for every quality brand.
I miss the old days.
I miss natural beauty.
I miss natural hair, natural eyes, natural make up…
I decided to be a Lolita, because it emphasized “being natural and beautiful”… I fought day after day, to make it clear, to be proud of saying “LOLITA IS NOT A COSPLAY”…
And what happened?? Nowadays, Lolita is a cosplay. un-natual color wigs, un-natural face, un-natural behaviors…
I might sound like an old woman… but I really miss old days…
I love old school lolita for pretty much these reasons XD I have no real problem with current lolita trends, besides the fact that I’m just bored to death of them, but I do sort of resent them for completely pushing every other possible option away.
There is just so much of “That’s a nice outfit and all, but maybe you should wear some printed socks, and a blouse in an accent color, and shoes in a different color as well, and a character/novelty purse would look better, and maybe some more jewelery, and have you seen these wigs? and this gyaru makeup tutorial? and maybe a bow with it would work better, those headdresses are kind of ita.” Despite the different styles, the general details of lolita have become much more homogeneous and there is such a trend for making SURE everything is homogeneous through critique.
Regardless of what style it is, the key to success now seems to be: big print, matching print socks/tights, shoes in contrasting color, blouse or bolero in contrasting color, big wig, gyaru makeup, big hair accessory, novelty purse, as many bold pieces of jewelery you can possibly wear or clip onto yourself and your clothes. While this is as fun as hell and all, I do miss the days where the styles were significantly different from each other. OBVIOUSLY, people are still wearing things in the old school way/wearing things other than what is popular, but, again, those sort of things get pushed aside and unnoticed while the same old thing gets praise for being unique and cool, over and over again. It’s not bad, or ugly, it’s just annoying.
Interesting commentary. Largely, I agree.
There is a lot of hype going around the lolita community right now about Moi-même-Moitié’s latest print series, Sleeping Garden. Personally, while it’s a decent dress, I don’t think the stratospheric level of praise is deserved.
The attempt at overlaying a single image over the entire skirt is not new, but to me this seems like a poorly executed attempt to recreate the sense of drama that Juliette et Justine’s now famous Féerie series was able to capture.
The painted image on Juliette et Justine is beautiful in and of itself, but does not overwhelm the dress — it elegantly fades into the fabric itself. The Moitié dress’s image is, by comparison, slapped on — the image covers the entire skirt with no sense of gradiation.
Furthermore, the Sleeping Garden print is simply too photographic. It looks like a rather badly photoshopped photograph of a cemetery, something more welcome on a gothic community website’s banner than on a $400+ dress.
Generally my feelings on Moitié are mixed — some pieces are stellar whereas others, such as this, fall flat. However, I’m no lolita, and I’d love to hear some girls who love this series explain what they love about it.
Some close ups of my Valentines coord I thought my followers might like.
PLEASE don’t remove sources or links (including that comment)!
Anna Sui Cosmetics Japan announces Special Promotion for Spring 2012!
The warm temperatures are coming and Anna Sui helps us being prepared for them starting March 1st with this special promo; indeed, here’s the 2012 version of the Protective base makeup series!
Lighter than the Moisture Rich series, the Protective series boasts a SPF between 20 and 30 protection, hence its name and making it the summer base makeup par excellence!
- Protective Foundation Primer: 30ml, SPF 30 and PA++. ¥3,150
- Protective Powder Foundation: 12g, SPF 20 and PA++. 5 variations at ¥4,200 each. Refill only is ¥3,150 and case alone is ¥1,050.
- Protective Liquid Foundation: 30ml, SPF 20 and PA++. 5 variations at ¥4,200 each.
- Compact Loose Powder: 3g, SPF 16 and PA++, except for variation #001 which has no SPF or PA. 4 variations at ¥4,725 each. Refill only is ¥3,675 and case with puff is ¥1,050.
Many thanks to smokingmadhatter and vampirefiction from Japanese and alternative fashion board HARAJUJU for their help in translating these!
These products and their beautiful packaging would fit perfectly in the makeup pouches of gyarus and lolitas alike.
brad-t
retromantique
