Lolita Week in Review #4

This week it was rainy and miserable outside, so I didn't go out in lolita much. However, I used my time inside to finish a new dress!

Presenting: The Mermaid-kei Lolita Dress!


Much ado has been made recently about "Fairy-kei" ("kei" is Japanese for "style"), which had been made popular by the brand Spank. Inspired by 1980s and 1990s cartoons and bright neon colours, Fairy-kei is a fashion made of layers or seemingly random clothes with a fairy-tale twist. For pictures of the style worn, check out this video on YouTube: Spank Fairy-kei Fashion Brand

Some people are saying that this style is beginning to cross over into lolita with pastel and neon colours becoming popular. But even if the influence is the same, the outcome is still different. Fairy-kei is closer to Decora style in it's mixing of layers and random accessories, whereas Lolita will always have the same kind of dresses or skirts and blouses to keep the basic silhouette.



So in reaction to the Fairy-kei movement, I made my own Mermaid-kei dress!



It combines the basic lolita silhouette with sparkly fabrics which are never really seen in lolita to create a new concept. Of course I don't expect this to take off and be the next big thing, but I thought it was an interesting experiment!

In other lolita fashion news, this week saw the start of Summer Sales and Fukuburos in Japan. A fukubukuro is a kind of lucky-dip bag that lolita brands sell with a random selection of clothes inside for around $100. The clothes inside are usually worth $500, but you don't get to choose what's inside. This can lead to either great savings or great disappointment if you get something you don't like or doesn't fit you. Most brands fill the fukubukuros, or "Lucky Packs" with clothes that didn't sell, but some also make special clothes just for the packs.

Lucky Packs are sold at least twice a year- once in Summer and once at New Years. These are also the times that brands have their sales. Webshops also sell these packs and have sales online, so even if you can't get to Japan, you can still get a bargain!

Lolita Week in Review #3

A little bit of a quiet week this time, but it started off with a Lolita meet-up on Monday!
We went to the Modern Art Gallery in Brisbane, and I wore an Emily Temple Cute outfit!



All the pictures from this day are posted here on EGL.

Now, this outfit I was wearing may not look like a traditional lolita outfit, so let me explain why:

Emily Temple Cute is considered widely in Japan to be a lolita brand, but kind of separate from the other types of lolita. (For a while people were calling it "Otome-kei", but I've never seen it classified as such on a Japanese website.) There are three main brands- Emily Temple Cute, Milk and Jane Marple who fit into the "Lolita- but not always" category. For example, they also produce dresses more suited to gyaru fashion, decora fashion or even older ladies fashion. However, because they also produce lolita clothes, they are still considered lolita brands.

For example, these are lolita pieces by each brand:


And these are non-lolita pieces by each brand:


So as you can see, not all lolita brands only make lolita clothes! However, if you like that brand and their style, it's fun to wear their other clothes when you don't want to or can't dress in full lolita style fashion^_^

Lolita Week in Review #2

This week was another jam-packed week in lolita!

Early in the week I got a new wig from Japanese brand Prisila. I tried it out with a one-piece from Angelic Pretty, to do a "Hime Lolita" co-ordinate.



More pics are on my website here: Odekake Chocola-chan

In different news, there was a big fuss in the lolita communities over Lady Gaga appearing in lolita in Japan. In her first TV appearance, she wore a white Angelic Pretty dress, but with mismatching ganguro make-up. In her second appearance she wore a red Angelic Pretty dress with normal make-up, and looked much more the part!

Video 1:


Video 2:


Personally I was very happy to see a big US celebrity doing lolita so well! It's always been my dream to see a day when Lolita Fashion is as accepted in Western countries as it is in Japan. When I lived in Japan and wore lolita, people would come up to me on the street with positive things to say, but in Australia I get a mixture of questions and accusations, as well as some praise. Hopefully as the fashion continues to spread, people won't be so confused by it any more!

Finally, on the weekend I went to my friend's lolita party! It was lots of fun, and although I didn't get any pictures of our outfits, I got a shoe shot at the end of the night:

Xelyna's Lolita Week in Review #1

Well, it's been a busy week for me! I finished re-making my website and went live with it on Thursday. You can see it here: Xelyna the Gothic Lolita

I also made a MySpace page, so you can add me there too: http://www.myspace.com/xelyna_gothic_lolita

On Saturday it was International Lolita Day, so I dressed up and went out for dinner with some lolita friends^_^

This is what I wore:

That's all I have to say for now!