Category: shopping

paris, shopping

Purchases – Paris!

christinahopgood
In Paris I bought a jumper, two dresses, a little pan and a lot of tights!
This jumper is from UniQlo!  I needed a jumper, and this one is super nice!  Cashmere!

This dress is ALSO from UniQlo.  It’s a collaboration between them and the Japanese brand Milk, which I love.  It’s a bit of a weird shaped dress, very Japanese.  No shape at all in the bodice, long sleeves, and short skirt.  Cute!
This dress I bought at a little shop as I was passing by.  It’s blue lace over a blue slip.  The only problem is that the slip ends quite a bit higher than the lace!  So it’s a bit revealing on the legs.  Might have to alter that.

This little pot I bought at Muji.  It’s really small!  We bought it for warming Glogg (low alcohol Christmas wine served warm)

And lots of tights!  I love the lacy cream ones – they’ll go well with all those dresses!
blouse, clothing, dress, shopping, skirt, victorian maiden

What I Like vs. What I Wear

christinahopgood
I admit that I get obsessed with clothes sometimes. When there is a super wonderful item of clothing on the wubs that is in my power to buy, I go a bit crazy. I ask everyone I know, Will this look good on me? What do you think of this? I even ask the Internets.

If I do cave in and buy the item, it’s true love for a few days, but after that… sometimes that wonderful dress/blouse/skirt doesn’t look all that great on me.

Remember when I went to the Victorian Maiden Press Room? It was so much fun. I bought a lovely blouse and a lovely skirt:


Lovely right? And they go together well. I tried them on at the shop, and I wore them out on the town. I felt frigging beautiful. But then I got back home, into the sweltering heat, and I couldn’t wear them any more. Too hot. When Autumn came around, I had trouble coordinating them. It looked too dark. Now I sometimes wear the skirt with a different top, but rarely wear my blouse. Which is a shame because I love it so much. The fabri c is so nice, it fits so well, but it just looks overdone. I need a cream coloured blazer to go with it, I think. I’ve been looking! I want this one from Mary Magdalene, but it’s super out of stock.


This is an R-Series blouse that I bought from Qutieland a couple of years ago. Quite nice, right? I thought so too, for a few months. The fabric is an interesting texture which I like, ribbon and lace collar is cute, the buttons are nice, and it’s a good fit. However! It’s really short! Observe how the shirt curves up over the hips of the mannequin. This means that you can only really wear this with a high-waisted skirt. I like wearing jeans sometimes, and this looks really good with jeans, except you have to wear another top to cover the gap between top of jeans and bottom of blouse. The other problem is that it looks kind of schoolgirl-ish. I’m 23, and I don’t want to look like a schoolgirl. Changing the ribbon might help.


We all know about this blouse – pretending to be off white in this photo! It’s a Mary Magdalene replica. It’s really good quality, and not short on me. But! IT’S TOO FRILLY FOR ME. I can’t handle it. The cuffs are SO frilly – they really puff out and make it hard to wear a cardigan. And maybe because I’m quite fair – it’s hard for me to pull off having a white high neck blouse.
Next there are two items I bought from FanPlusFriend. On the mannequins, they look so lovely! I think I was going through a pirate kick when I bought these.
This blouse is made of satiny clingy fabric that would probably melt if I ironed it, and the creases won’t fall out. It has corset lacing so it does fit well, but the arms are really long. And who wears a jabot?


This skirt was one of my obsessions for a while. I was amazed at the drop pleats! They are pretty cool. But when it arrived, I noticed that it was GIANT. It is TOO LONG for me. I can’t walk in it without tripping. It’s just very voluminous. But pretty rad still. The fabric is super soft and lovely. I plan on selling my two F+F items soon, if at all possible.

Time for some success stories! Yes, I have some! I’m just going to share my three favourite pieces.
Firstly, my gorgeous Adele Bustier Dress. I think I can safely say that this is my favourite dress ever. It is so choice. I highly recommend picking one up.
It cost me a LOT to get this. I used a shipping service, Gosurori Order, who bought the dress for me in Japan and mailed it out. That cost me a fee, and the AUD wasn’t so good at the time either. It was super expensive. But since I adore this dress so much, it was totally worth it. I wear it all the time, usually with the next piece I’ll show you.


This is another R-Series blouse I bought from Qutieland. This blouse is practically perfect in every way, plus it was a lot cheaper than brand. The fabric is a light polyester (I guess) that feels gorgeous against my skin. The blouse has corset lacing so I always fit well. I adore the buttons – little faux pearls – and the details. I’m considering buying myself another one while they are still for sale. Mine has been loved almost to death! The buttonholes are fraying and the pearl paint is coming off the buttons. It’s getting a little pilly. But it’s still so beautiful. I wear this with the above dress and it’s lovely.

Lastly, my most recent purchase. I got this high-waisted skirt off the sales comm about a month ago. It’s VM, it was cheap, I thought why not. It had a little damage. Since it arrived, I’ve probably worn it more than ten times. It is nice enough that I can wear it to somewhere posh, but I can also dress it down to wear to uni. It’s A-line, which makes it easier to wear casually. Not a great photo I know, but this is a super lovely skirt! Top marks! I do plan to take photos of myself wearing all this stuff, but who knows when that will happen.

SO NICE.
Well that’s the end of my rant, for today. I omitted some of my other clothes, because they’re Summer clothes and I haven’t worn them in ages! Who knows whether I still like them or not?
Is there a lesson to be learned from this? I think the lessons are: Don’t Buy Dumb Colours, You Look Silly In White Blouses, Don’t Buy Something You Have Nothing To Wear With, Don’t Buy Extreme Things, and It Helps To Try It On.
I’d welcome advice about what to wear with my neglected clothes. I’d love to wear my old VM skirt and blouse more often…
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.
japan, shopping, victorian maiden

Trip to Japan!

christinahopgood

Next Thursday, Charles and I are going to be flying out to Japan for our second ever trip! We’ll be visiting Tokyo, Nagasaki, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and some mystery places north of Tokyo. We’ve got some great activities lined up too.

I have two things planned that I’m really super excited about. Firstly, I’m getting a hair cut. Let me explain.
Last year, I had my hair cut in Japan at my friend’s favourite hairdresser. This hairdresser was a super-stylish handsome man who also worked part time at a Host Club. He cut my hair really well. You know how in most hairdressers, they wash your hair and then give your head a “massage”? And the massage is more like they’re trying to break your skull? He was really gentle. I felt like a pretty princess. And then, when I came back to Australia, I got a haircut at a local place. The woman was telling me all about how she’s trained in New York and Paris and everything… and she cut my fringe too short. I nearly died. Since then I’ve cut my own hair, and it’s worked out really well. It’s not so hard. So now I can say… “I only get my hair cut my by my stylist in Japan”.
The second thing I’m super excited about… is visiting Victorian Maiden in Osaka. Victorian Maiden is my favourite brand in the whole world ever. Baby Schmaby (not that I’ve ever tried on either a VM or a Baby dress). What makes this visit so special is that they only have one actual shop. It’s called the “Victorian Maiden Press Room”. You have to send them an email to book a time to come, and boys are not allowed in the shop alone. I think I should be ok bringing Charles, though, because he’ll be with me, and because I’m a gaijin. Victorian Maiden is notoriously expensive (more than the other brands, even), and I’ve been saving up all year. I even know what I’ll buy – that is, if the stuff I want is in stock. I’ll make another post about that another day. Anyone interested?
I’ve also been looking at some other shops to visit in Tokyo, like the Marui One Shinjuku department store, and of course Laforet Harajuku. I went there last time but had no idea about anything at the time. This time I’ll appreciate it more. I’d like to go to more Lolita shops, such as Innocent World and Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. I never got to one last time! In Osaka I’m going to go to the Aranzi Aronzo shop again – I went last time and it was one of my favourite places. We both bought a lot of cute stuff there!
Here are some photos from our last trip, in December 2008:

Five vending machines in a row!

Me at the famous bridge in Akihabara

Harajuku girls at the famous Meiji-dori.

Pretty street at Ginza. I took this while on the pedestrian crossing – and got a telling off from Charles for my foolishness. Worth it.