Chess Print JSK and craft exchange

I recently purchased the Emily Temple Cute 'Chess Pieces' print jumperskirt in blue, this is the first brand new dress I have bought from ETC. I totally fell in love with the print and style of the jumperskirt. The material is a lovely light cotton that shows up the detail of the print fantastically. The dress is fully lined and features a ruffled chiffon hem on the lining. I really love the dark brown velveteen straps which give me licence to co-ordinate it with autumnal dark browns.

Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute
Blouse: Oasis
Jacket: Monsoon
Bag: Loris (Taobao shop)
Boots: Jane Norman

 I looked everywhere for the perfect tweed jacket (thats not too old fashioned and more brown than grey) I even considered buying the same Topman jacket that I bought my brother but thankfully it didn't fit. I know that would have been a serious mistake since the silhouette of men's jackets is completely different to women's and it would not have worked with any of my lolita dresses. Luckily I managed to find a nice tweed jacket in Monsoon, although I wasn't to keen on the elbow patches but I think they are growing on me ^_^. It was quite a pricey jacket and a couple of days later I found an equally nice (possibly more so) tweed jacket in Bershka >_> so it really pays to look around before you buy!

Close up of print and blouse detail

I really love how well the blouse works with the ribbon detail of the print, it was completely by accident and I almost returned the blouse because I didn't have anything to go with it so this was quite lucky.I wanted to wear this outfit to the Alice in Wonderland exhibit meet-up but unfortunately I was working that day so couldn't go, hopefully I will get to see the exhibit soon!

Also in August I participated in a lolita craft-exchange with fellow UK loli's, I got paired up with the wonderful and imensley talented Wai-yi. I asked if she could paint me picture of a lolita wearing Alice and the Pirates 'Midsummer Nights Dream' in Navy which is possibly my favourite print. Lets just say my jaw dropped when I saw the finished painting, it was beyond words!

I was absolutely astounded by the detail of the painting,  it's absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't have been more happier with my craft-exchange ^_^ In return I made Wai-yi a headress to match her Baby, the Stars Shine Bright 'Mother Goose' jumperskirt, as well as few deco sweet accessories. I really hoped she liked them, you can see more pictures of my craft exchange items at Wai-yi's blog. All-in-all I thoroughly enjoyed my craft exchange experience and I hope to take part in another one if I have time ;-)

Meta Lucky Pack

I recently received my Meta lucky pack but since EGL has been inundated with various lucky pack posts I thought I'd just post mine to my blog. I am aware that a few posts back I said I may be a bit hesitant to order any more lucky packs since it was a big gamble and I'm quite picky. Well ordering the Meta lucky pack was an extremely big gamble for me as I do not own anything from the brand nor have I seen any items up close.

Also, I should point out that I am quite new to this lucky pack thing so I stupidly assumed that I would be getting either one of the packs pictured as an example (refer to previous post) clearly this was not the case and hardly anyone who posted the contents of their LP to egl got what the examples showed. Although when I opened my pack I was pleasantly surprised but I think over time I may decide to sell some of it, as I did with my Innocent world LP (I only kept the headbow from that). Here's what I got:

I got the black bag which I was really happy about!

Cream cutsew, which I preferred over the short sleeve blouse

A selection of bloomers, which I'm not too keen on :(

A little flannel, cute Fruit Punch socks in pink and a plastic bow necklace

The cream and gold 'Old Rose' skirt went well with the cutsew

Although I got some odd items, i.e. the socks. I think they managed to match the set quite well, the cream, red and gold go quite well together. I think I might be selling some of these items since I don't wear fully shirred skirts (I prefer to tuck my blouses/cutsews in so it would look quite messy). I'm quite busy at the moment so I'll probably bring a few things to the lolita bring and buy sale to be held at Hyper Japan later this month.

Speaking of Hyper Japan, my friend Nazia (Kawaii Kandee) got into the final, taking place on Sunday. I'm so happy for her ^_^ she's got a great performance planed for Sunday so I can't wait to see it. Please take a minute to vote for if you can here.

Recently Chaudie, writer for a predominantly gyaru based magazine called Tokyo Catwalk asked me to contribute lolita related articles to their magazine. I believe the magazine is branching out to incorporate other Japanese fashion styles and sub-cultures so I'm really excited to be a part of it. Hopefully I can think of some interesting topics that lolitas and non-lolitas will be interested in reading.

Otome and Fairy-kei

Now I really love wearing lolita but it's not really practical for everyday wear, I'll get more than my fair share of stares on the train wearing classic lolita (and that's without a headbow and petticoat). This is quite uncomfortable for me as I don't even like making eye contact with people on the train :D but I really love wearing loli so I decided to focus on some more casual (Otome) styles as well as fairy-kei today.

I know these styles are also quite bright and eye-catching but they seem to be styles that are also reflected in current fashion trends today. For instance the colourful trainers (sneakers) you can find in many shoe shops, it's a big trend in Japan currently (according to this weeks episode of Tokyo Fashion Express). I recently purchased some colourful trainers from Swimmer, a kind of novelty Japanese shop that sells cute things such as home ware and clothing.

 

These trainers are quite bright and colourful but you can also find similar styles in western shops such as Pastry and even customise your own colours at Nike. I've seen lolitas co-ordinate these sneakers with jumperskirts and skirts, mainly sweet lolita prints such as Milky Planet and Milky Berry. It seems to work really well especially with OTT sweet lolita and I guess they are more comfortable to wear than tea-parties ;-)


I think the sneakers also works well with Otome style because it's quite casual. I  purchased the strawberry pair to wear with my Emily Temple Cute Tea Party jumperskirt and I think the colours work really well with the print. I also co-ordinated the jsk with a kitsch cherry print blouse, I don't know if this is too much print overall :S I'd appreciate any ideas ;-)

Headbow: Angelic Pretty
Blouse: Henry Holland @ Debenhams
Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute
Trainers: SWIMMER

I love the peter pan collar blouse, it's quite retro and a trend also very popular in lolita. The print of the jumperskirt also features cherries but you have to look very closely to see them. I haven't worn the full co-ordinate out yet but I'm planning to soon, minus the headbow because I feel it might be a fruity overload and the white is too bright to match the jsk. I might have to sell it in that case since I don't own any other AP Sheep Garden items (I really wish I did though >_<). I also hope to team the outfit with a cute bag, I can't afford any brand right now so I ordered a teapot style bag from Loris, a Taobao shop. I think the teapot shape is quite quirky and cute.

 

Also I want to mention Fairy-kei, alot of elements have been incorporated into lolita recently, such as the new Angelic Pretty print - Dream Sky. A lot of lolitas have mixed feelings about this combination, personally I find it quite refreshing. It's very colourful and similar to OTT sweet but allows room for more variation. I had a look at a fairy-kei store called Nile Perch, they have some nice cutsew style tops that would work well with sweet lolita. Also pretty baby doll dresses that would go well with colourful sneakers.

A few new things

I haven't been up to much lately aside from work so I haven't had much time to follow recent lolita goings on but I decided to check egl this morning and noticed that the Meta Lucky Packs were up, now I'm not really fond of many meta prints (apart from Blooming Garden which I really love^^) but the skirt lucky pack looks quite lovely so I decided to take the plunge and order one. Fingers crossed I get something similar to the pack below, I love the scallop detail on the Princess Crown Bouquet skirt so I would be quite happy to get it, the other print featured is the skirt pack is Fairy Playing Cards which is quite nice too.

Fairy Playing Card skirt

Another nice thing about the Meta lucky pack is that is quite affordable compared to others, 10,000 yen for the skirt and 15,000 yen for the jumperskirt lp which is not bad considering you get undergarments, a blouse or t-shirt, socks, a bag and some other little accessories as well as the jsk or skirt.

Right now Im really looking forward to Hyper Japan, it's in just under a month so I cant wait^^ My friend Kandee has decided to enter the Kawaii Star of the Year competition. It's a competition organised by HJ to find the new cute ambassador for the UK and the final will take place at this years Hyper Japan event. My friend has to send in some photos as well as a 60 second video about why she would like to be the kawaii ambassador for the UK. I helped her to do a little photoshoot and Im gonna say I was thoroughly impressed! She looked so beautiful like a real life doll! Making the video clip was a little more tricky, I think she became a little camera shy hahaa but we eventually got enough material to make a little video *hopefully*

The full coord, minus the boots

Here's a run down of the co-ord:
Blouse: Etsy

Jumperskirt: Innocent World Lauretta Rose - Misty pink
Tights: New look
Boots: Jane Norman (not featured on the shoot)

Hat: H&M, added pearls and corsage

Close up of the lace

Hopefully she will make it into the final, I know that would be a great experience for her and even more amazing if she won it! I hope people will find her classic style really cute and vote for her ^_^

A look back...

This years Hyper Japan event is going to be held at an earlier time of July 22nd-24th, I had been hoping to win some tickets from their Friday "like" post (I only end up winning a bar of wasabi flavoured kitkat...lol hooray for novelty snacks!) but yesterday it was announced that Kanon Wakeshima would be appearing at this years HJ event, here. ^_^ I just had to book my tickets there and then! Now I cannot wait heehee. I will be going to the Friday event as I work on weekends but hopefully if I have time I can pop down on the Saturday.

 Last year, I hardly knew anything about lolita fashion. I mean I was more of an admirer, I never thought that I would actually wear any of the outfits but ever since HJ I've started buying a few pieces and actively wearing them. I look back at the HJ photos of myself from last year (which are still on the website >_<) and start scrutinizing my  outfit, "the skirts too short", "blouse ribbon is too shiny" or "the petticoats showing" *gasp!* but I think I've come a long way from that in quite a short space of time. The only problem is where I would hand make all my clothes and accessories, it seems now I'm more inclined to buy from brands and stick to a single style/theme/brand and not experiment as much which is quite sad since I really enjoy making things. Where as before I would be quite economical, spending about £10 to make a skirt, I probably wouldn't hesitate to by a brand one for £100+ if it was a print I liked.

Which moves me swiftly to my next topic of when a love of lolita fashion becomes an obsession. Now I have my fair share of "dream prints" and over the past couple of months I have been very lucky to find two of these prints in the mbok auction site for reasonable prices. I guess the prints I wanted were not that highly sort after but there is one print that's making the rounds on the auction sites right now going for lets say...quite astronomical prices. That is of course the Angelic Pretty's Sugary Carnival special set.

Now let me just say that I'm not really a fan of sweet lolita but as of late the madness of SC has infected me ever so slightly and even I have be in awe of this dress! I think it was up for sale on the AP english site yesterday and sold out within seconds (causing many people to have to be refunded because lack of supply), now this dress has a sale price of 27,090Y which is quite expensive in itself but since it's a limited edition colour the demand was very high. The lucky few who managed to get one have either found their ultimate dream dress or great way to make some serious money! Cue SC special set auction madness! As of today I found a couple of special sets up for sale on mbok,  the highest price I've seen is a bid of 43,000Y with 2 days left to bid. I'm no economist but even I can say that's a great return! A profit of about £120, nearly $200 so far. I will be curious to see the end price of this auction, I'd estimate it to get into the early 50's before it's over.

Innocent World Lucky Pack

 After nearly 2 weeks of my LP arriving in the UK, I have finally received it (thanks customs >_>). A lot of people have already posted their LP's on egl and so far only 3 different varieties have been seen in the jsk pack. The print that has cropped up most is the Classical Chair with matching cape in the pink/blue and black colourway, then after that the Little Lady print was quite popular. This made me a little nervous as I wasn't very keen on either print (although I do like the jsk+cape combo). A few people also got plain colour jumperskirts, mostly those who ordered the black LP.

Thankfully when I opened my pack I was overjoyed to see I received the plain black jsk which I had been hoping for, a bolero (which I wasn't too keen on since I wanted a black blouse..in fact it's the main reason I wanted to get the LP), and a black headbow instead of socks.

The jsk is beautiful quality, I couldn't find a single fault or loose thread unlike my Baby jsk which has loose threads everywhere and untidy buttonholes. The lining has a soft/silky feeling and it fits really well. The only thing I'm not really happy about is the neckline, it's a bit too high up and not very flattering. Also it's the long length version, which comes down a bit below my knees. I really love this length so I think any future IW jsk's I order will definitely be long length ones.

The straps have a popper button to attach them to one another and can be detached at the back, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose is for these detachable straps???

I was really hoping for a black blouse but got a bolero instead, it has 3/4 length sleeves and nice lace detail around the collar. I'm not sure of the material but it feels like acrylic which is surprising considering how nice the jsk material is.

The headbow is a simple back one with not much detail, it's really cute and not so overbearing. I'm glad I received this instead of the socks since I really don't wear knee socks.

All in all I'm quite happy with my lucky pack, I'm glad I chose to buy one since the jsk alone is about 25,000Y and I bought the whole pack for 15,750Y (+ customs charges of course >_<) so it's quite a good deal and 5% did go to the earthquake relief appeal. I probably wouldn't be getting another one though, unless it is an outlet lucky pack (I remember seeing some really great items there). It was really easy to order one and they sent a nice little thank you note with the pack, very sweet  of them ^_^ so I look forward to any future luck pack buying ;-)

A different take..

Recently I said I have purchased the Alice and the Pirates Operetta Bouquet jsk, I did so through mbok auction site and luckily got it for a much lower price (well not really that much lower after you factor shopping service charge and shipping). This is the first lolita item that I am really happy with, possibly since I've been oogling it up since it was released. I even wore it to work and to the farm (not a good idea!) but I've seen that BABY have re-released the print, at first I was a bit disheartened but I'm deffinately not fond of this new style jsk.

As much as i love the green fabric and the print, the dress looks a lot more cluttered than the original design. The bodice looks more corseted and 'pointy' at the bottom whereas the first release was quite loose at the bodice (I can say the bodice is quite big! it's really loose on me) So the fitted look of this jsk probably suits it better and will give a nice definition. The part absolutely hate is the underskirt lining, it could be white or beige you can't really say from the photos but I really dislike it. It cheapens the overall look and makes it look a bit messy, although I do like how they omitted the satin ribbon along the skirt. That would be the one part of the original design I was no too keen on as well as the white lace since the collar is a beige fabric. I'm curious to know whether the lace on the shoulder straps is white or beige. All in all I don't think this was much of an improvement but I'm glad Baby are experimenting with different colours and fabrics.

I most definitely cannot afford anything new now but if the opportunity arises I would definitely like to get hold of the matching green hairbows although I know they would never stay in my hair. I'm not entirely sure how these should be worn.

 Finally, I gotta say I've been extremely bored at home, hence making this blog but whatever keeps me occupied and literate I suppose.