Category: gothic and lolita

gothic and lolita, photo, shopping, victorian maiden

Stock photo found!!

christinahopgood

A bit less than a year ago I bought a Victorian Maiden skirt off the sales community.  I couldn’t find a stock photo of it anywhere and neither could the seller.  I just found one – in the weirdest place!

I found it on Gothicplus.com – it’s apparently selling this skirt.  Except, when I read the description, it seems they’re selling a cheap Chinese-made replica.  It says that it comes with corset lacing at the back – which mine doesn’t have.  I guess the makers only saw this one stock photo of the front of the skirt.  Who knows if it has corset lacing?  It’s called a “Black and White Retro Lolita Dress”.
Weird.  You can tell it’s the true VM stock photo because a) it’s my VM skirt, b) it’s a VM blouse, and c) the backdrop is the same they always use.
So if you’re planning to buy from Gothic Plus, I’d stay away from the clothes as all the photos are real brand stock photos, and they clearly have no idea what the back of the dress looks like.  The shoes they sell look like they’re legit as they say what brand they are.  I like some of the Demonia steampunk boots!

I love this skirt.  It’s totally wearable without a petticoat for a more casual look and it’s still beautiful.  It’s just the right length.  This is probably my most-worn piece of brand, and I haven’t had it that long!

blouse, gothic and lolita, kidsyoyo

Tea-dyeing a blouse!

christinahopgood
As you know from my review a few months ago, I recently bought a lovely blouse from Kids YoYo through Qutieland. Here’s a stock picture – as you can see, it’s a lovely off-white colour.

Unfortunately, when I received it, I found that it was actually a pure white colour – blindingly white. I know that pure white is a staple of the traditional Gothic Lolita wardrobe, but a Traditionalist I Am Not. After a lot of consideration and trepidation, I decided to tea-dye it.
I got my inspiration from this post I found on EGL. She dyed a white bodyline jumperskirt and it looked so much nicer afterwards.
I have tried tea-dyeing lace in the past with mixed results. I dyed a cotton lace and an elastic lace. The cotton one came out orange, and the elastic one came out pink. With my blouse, I used a much weaker tea so that it would be a better colour.
Here it is beforehand… whitey white.
Here it is during the process. I made a pot of really strong tea and then diluted it in a bucket of hot water. I added white vinegar as per the instructions, which is the setting agent. It smelled DELICIOUS (not).
Drying on the line. As you can see, it is a pretty nice antique-y colour, but I wouldn’t call it off-white.
After it dried, I noticed that there were drip marks on the sleeves. I was so upset! Immediately I tried washing them out, but that sort of made the sleeves lighter than the rest. I put the whole thing in the washing machine, which I should’ve done before drying. It turned out much nicer.
After the whole process. Pretty good result! Now it’s been through the wash maybe once more and it’s an even nicer faded colour now. I’m happy because it’s much more wearable than it was before.

blouse, bodyline, gothic and lolita

Bodyline blouse alteration!

christinahopgood

SO.

The first time I went to Japan and had no idea about Gothic Lolita fashion, I bought this blouse from Bodyline.
This photo is of me in Japan having just put on my first ever Lolita blouse and skirt. I thought I was the cutest. Turns out I wasn’t cute at all, because the frigging collar was too big.

I usually wear the first button undone, so the collar looks a whole lot wider than on the bodyline model. Seriously this blouse collar is gigantic! What’s going on there?!
So I took my needle and thread and turned the lace under the collar. I also did the sleeves. How many more percentage points of wearableness do I gain? Like a billion! I’m so happy with how this turned out, that I might actually wear this again! It was slightly clowny before.

Now the only problem is that it’s really short, but I don’t know how I’ll go about altering that one. Suggestions?
dear celine, dress, gothic and lolita, victorian maiden

Predictability lol

christinahopgood

So about 5 weeks ago I ordered a dress from Dear Celine – a black/grey classical high-waisted affair. It’s been 5 weeks, so stuff is bound to happen in that time. I look at dresses online every day.

I’ve also been obsessing over a particular Victorian Maiden dress – which happens to be on sale right now. I keep telling myself that the reason I love it is because of the print – flamingoes! I just love flamingoes. And pelicans. But they don’t have a pelican print.
Tonight I was just thinking about stuff I like. I thought about these two dresses, amongst others. I looked at the pictures. Then I thought… wait a second. Flip the Dear Celine dress. Enhance… Enhance.


SAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAMESAME

Does anyone else agree with me that these are pretty much the same?

I can be so predictable.
I’ll be receiving the Dear Celine dress in the mail probably this week, so I’m going to write up a review. I’m quite excited.
(I still want the Victorian Maiden dress, too.)
gothic and lolita, japan, lolita, shopping

Lolita shops in Osaka

christinahopgood

There are so many Lolita shops in Osaka! Victorian Maiden I’ve already written about, but I also visited Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, Bodyline, Innocent World, Atelier Pierrot, Marble, and a Kera Arena shop. I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones that are around the Namba area which is the cool part of Osaka.

Please Note: I did not buy ANY DRESSES at ANY of these shops. This is not because I hated all the stuff, but because I’m a poor student. Pity me.

Baby, The Stars Shine Bright was quite a large store with lots of stock. My problem here was that I don’t really like Baby’s style much. I bypassed all the dresses save an Alice And The Pirates one, and ended up buying some earrings which were on sale. I do love looking around Baby, and probably would have tried on a dress if I wasn’t so nervous. Seriously, there were four shop assistants! I don’t really like how they bow and scrape and don’t let you look for yourself. I guess I’m just not used to it, and it makes me worried I’ll say the wrong thing when they tell me stuff. I sometimes wished I could say…
“WILL YOU LEAVE ME ALONE? I’M SICK AND TIRED OF BEING HOUNDED BY SALESPEOPLE IN SHOPS TRYING TO GET ME TO BUY SOMETHING. I’M BROWSING, ALL RIGHT? BROWSING. AT THE END OF IT, I MIGHT BUY SOMETHING, I MIGHT NOT, BUT YOU WILL NOT INFLUENCE ME ONE IOTA, NOT ONE JOT! NOW I HAVE FINISHED WITH YOU, YOU MAY GO!“
I really like the Alice And The Pirates pointy boots. They look like something a real pirate would wear.
Next, Bodyline! As far as I can tell, there are two Bodyline shops in Osaka – but I can’t be sure. One I visited in 2008, and the other in 2010, so they might just have moved. Anyhow, the one I went to this year was HUGE! Giant! Two floors! I was so thoroughly impressed with their range of stock. I think they had everything off their webshop, unlike Bodyline in Harajuku! I didn’t buy anything, probably because I was carrying my Victorian Maiden bag and felt smug and posh. But still, it was really good fun looking at that shop. The thing with Bodyline is that you aren’t allowed to try the clothes on before you buy, so there’s no knowing if it will fit or not. Luckily they have more than one size though.
Innocent World… does anyone else read their logo as Innocent Blorgh? The W looks like a Bl in that frilly font. Anyhow, this shop is nice. It’s right next to a Village Vanguard (the exciting bookstore) so if you get sick of Mozart you can pop next door for an action-packed shopping experience! Innocent World has nice socks and shoes, but I find some of their prints a bit twee. I’m not that fond of rabbits-in-waistcoats-having-a-picnic (not an actual IW print… I think?). They’re very pretty and cute, but I’d choose florals any day. The dress styles are very nice though.
Innocent Blorgh was right across the road from…
Atelier Pierrot. I LOVE this shop. It stocks several brands, such as Victorian Maiden, Mary Magdalene, Moi-Meme-Moitie, and Juliette et Justine, as well as their own brand. This shop focusses on Classic lolita and Gothic lolita, which is really my thing. Deep reds and blues and nice laces, and no stupid prints. Plus the shop girl didn’t hound me. The weird thing about this shop was that it had Victorian Maiden pieces that even the VM press room didn’t have! That was impressive, but I was a bit cut that I hadn’t had the full selection at VM.
Marble. Does anyone buy stuff from this brand? It seems kind of nice. This shop was upstairs in some weird building (like most shops in Japan, I find). These clothes seemed to be tending towards Gothicy – Victorian period rather than particularly Lolita. Certainly not sweet. Here’s the thing. There were mannequins that had really cool outfits on. But when I looked in the shelves, I couldn’t find any of the items! The shelves were packed SO TIGHTLY with stuff that you could hardly separate the clothes. It’s like they don’t sell anything but keep getting more stock. They also sold some beautiful accessories, jewelery and gloves and the like.
Kera Arena shop was located in a mall, which was really close to the America Mura Triangle park. This store wasn’t as cool as I was hoping, because they mostly stocked punk-loli and Maxicimam. I don’t love Maxicimam. Too much race! They did have some nice Mary Magdalene dresses which I almost bought. They were adorable! But even if it was made of pure gold threads of awesome, I doubt I could afford a Y60,000 coat. Mary Magdalene! Why do you taunt me so!?
The end! Yaaaaay! Sorry it wasn’t more comprehensive, but I’ll answer any questions as best I can. Remember, I had a boyfriend in tow so it wasn’t easy to visit all these girly shops! I had to trade off with a day or two in Akihabara electric town, and many Bic Camera shops.