Lolita 52 Challenge: My favourite brand.

My favourite brand--this is such a hard question for me to answer. I know a couple of years back I would have automatically rattled off "Alice and the Pirates or H.Naoto!" But considering I still haven't been able to dish out money for some H.Naoto of my own and I haven't been drooling over Alice and the Pirates as much as I used to, I really have no idea what my favourite brand is. It doesn't help that not as many strictly lolita pieces have been tickling my fancy anymore, my taste has been drifting to Cult Party and Mori mostly.

Buuut if I had to sit down and pick a favourite brand, I'm going to have to say Angelic Pretty right now. I'm surprising myself saying this, but I have so many different pieces from them throughout the years (my oldest piece is probably from 2001/2002), and they always are willing to play with different aesthetics rather than get stuck doing one thing. You can get something beautiful and otome-like like Chocolate Rosette or something absolutely sugary sweet like Jewelry Jelly, or even a beautiful retro in-between like Fantastic Dolly!

After the release of Misty Sky especially, I have been absolutely taken aback by how beautiful some of Angelic Pretty's pieces are, and how they don't necessarily scream "LOLITA" all the time too, which I'm okay with honestly. I have about 10 of their pieces in my wardrobe, not including my socks and headbows, and I couldn't be happier with them. Even though a large portion of my "Dream Wardrobe" consists of things from Alice and the Pirates, in the past two or three years, nothing they have been releasing has really been screaming "BUY ME" right now, and I realise I just end up adding more Angelic Pretty as time goes on--even though I am largely graduating from super-sweet lolita.

A close second for my favourite brand is Metamorphose Temps de Fille. They rock some really strange ideas, and I like that! After that is Milky Ange, which I feel is largely unappreciated. Their clothes are so versatile and have so many pieces to them! I feel like they haven't been introducing many new designs though, I hope they become more active again. =)

Just for fun, I photographed some close-ups of my two favourite Angelic Pretty pieces I have at the moment--Magical Etoile and Misty Sky.

For the next week, I will be going on a cruise, so I have some entries queued up to post while I'm away, so forgive me for not answering my comments immediately! I hope everyone is doing well, and thank you for reading!

Lolita 52 Challenge: How I first found out about lolita.

By the time this posts on my blog, I'll probably be half-way through my three-day drive across the country back home. My blog will definitely be more active once I have some time to sit down in my apartment, but I feel like until March my life is just going to be way too busy. Just to keep my blog active, here comes the next entry in my 52 Week Lolita Challenge!

10. How I first found out about Lolita.

A lot of the details surrounding what happened when I first got into Lolita fashion 5-6 years ago is already fuzzy, and it doesn’t help that I found out about the fashion a good three years before I actually took the plunge and started purchasing pieces for my wardrobe. All I remember is that when I was 13 years old, and a freshman in high school, I had met a close friend of mine who introduced me to Japanese street fashions in general. Both of us had met at an anime convention (you could bet I was in my full-fledged fangirl phase—it’s a little embarrassing thinking back on it), and I wasn’t too big on dressing myself well or really just caring about my appearance in general.

My friend used to dress in Visual-kei type fashion back in the day (she’s graduated to largely 80’s grunge), but when she showed me some photos of her favourite bands, members wearing big cupcake-dresses with lots of frills and lace immediately caught my attention. I grew up watching Cardcaptor Sakura, and pretty much every aspect of my life was directly influenced by the show, and I always wanted to wear Sakura’s beautiful dresses that Tomoyo lovingly made for her, but could never find anything like it in the store. I even designed a couple of my own dresses that I had seamstresses make for me when I was in middle school which were really quite nice too! I only had a few select dresses handmade by some aunties that fit the aesthetic, and I literally wore them to pieces. I started to do more research, a friend later showed me Fan+Friend, and the rest was history!

I think my initial influence from Cardcaptor Sakura is a big reason why I'm so big into "anime-kei" now and always love to mix in some Magical Girl influences into most (if not all) my outfits.

Of course I had a pretty terrible ita failure somewhere in between, but I was dead set on wearing shiro Lolita, since to this day I’m not a huge fan of how pink looks on me (at least the straight pastel pink normally used), never liked any shade of blue, and wanted to control my spending by only buying things in my two favourite colours; white and lavender. Back then lavender wasn’t a very popular colour in the fashion (that has, of course, changed), so I settled on just straight shiro.

Since then my style has fluctuated and changed and I'm still trying to put together that perfect coordinate that really embraces all the things I love about fashion into one big ball! I love pastels, but I also love Cult Party kind of silhouettes and fabrics, but not straight sweet lolita... Who knows what I like.

These two coordinates are probably the closest I've gotten to that perfect sweet spot!

What are your stories about coming into the fashion? Was Lolita the first Japanese fashion you were interested in, or were you introduced through another fashion?

Previous entries:

14. Lolitas I would love to meet.
20. How satisfied I am with my current wardrobe.
26. How I get out of a wardrobe slump.

Lolita 52 Challenge: Getting out of a slump.

(Photo credit: Colodio)

This week I selected #26, how I get out of a wardrobe slump! I kind of cheated this time because I technically picked #38 before, but I thought it would be nice to do an accompanying hair tutorial with that topic, and realised I don't have the means to do that where I am currently, so I'll save it for another time.

These are a few of my favourite things.

I feel horrible, I haven't really been doing blog posts off the top of my head lately and instead scheduling a bunch of Challenge posts instead. ;A; Life got really busy, I recently found out that a member of my family was hospitalised and I had to fly across the country to be with her in her time of need. A lot of my plans and exciting news had to be put off as a result of all that, so I hope you bear with me!

Here's the outfit leading into the adventure for today~

Lolita Blog Carnival #16: 1 Piece, 4 Seasons.

Considering I live in one of the hottest places in the U.S. (when I recently left home to come to California on some family business, it was a whopping 28°C and winter had pretty much come and gone), I may not be the best choice for this Lolita Blog Carnival topic, but I couldn't resist doing another similar piece after the last wardrobe challenge.

This time I took another favourite Metamorphose jumperskirt of mine, my Candy Star Rabbit JSK. I asked my boyfriend to photograph it for me on his iPhone since I was out of town this week, so it won't be done quite the same way as my last wardrobe challenge, to my dismay. ;A; All the items I'll be using I own or look very similar to something I own, since a lot of photos are going to be the stock images. I wasn't able to find one for this Jumperskirt surprisingly, so that's why I had to call in a favour. ;D

Generally prints make it so easy to make multiple coordinates out of, just because there are a wide variety of colours that can be picked out of the print. Metamorphose always goes crazy with their colours too, which just makes it more fun!

Lolita 52 Challenge: Lolitas I would love to meet.

Today's Lolita 52 challenge is pretty straight forward. It's about lolitas I would love to meet! Judging by how there is another criteria for "lolitas I have met already," I can't sit around lovelorn saying I miss some of my friends who I have met before, haha. And believe me, that was very tempting to do since I haven't been back in my own apartment for some time now.

Please check out the previous Lolita 52 challenge I have completed!

14. Lolitas I would love to meet.
20. How satisfied I am with my current wardrobe.

Noor (sugarnoor)

I've been a huge supporter of her wearing hijabi in fashion since she first posted a couple of her outfits on daily_lolita and received a lot of criticism for it. She is really a sweet girl, who has improved so much over the years, and her smile is absolutely radiant! She's all the way in the UK though, one day we will be able to meet, I'm sure of it. ;A; We talk relatively often, and we plan on putting together some fun matching outfits someday!

Ruth (Princess Peachie)

Another girl who's style I have watched grow and fluctuate, she is one of the few lolitas who post on Tumblr who really let her personality shine through what they post. I've only spoken to her a couple of times, and she has always treated me kindly. Not to mention we have similar taste, and we can probably talk for hours about the things we love.

Caro (F*** Yeah Lolita)

When I recently joined the Lolita Blog Carnival, I was able to speak to her every now and then, and she seems mature, intelligent, and really knowledgeable about the fashion. I have always been in awe of how in-depth F*** Yeah Lolita has been, and she seems to know so many things. I really had no idea who was behind F*** Yeah Lolita since I only sporadically read it before going ahead and using my abandoned Blogspot account. Now that I have more insight into the type of person she is through Facebook, I really want to meet her!

Zeruda (Zeruda's Wonderland)

Zeruda doesn't dress in lolita fashion anymore, but I thought I'd include her in this list anyways since we've known each other since before she decided to leave the fashion. When I asked if we could be penpals, she happily obliged! ;A; She has inspired me for years, and we always chatted a little bit on the side, but not as closely as we do now. Next time I'm in Sweden I need to see her, distance is nothing when you have some stamps and paper!

Lolita Blog Carnival #15: Favourite Indie Brands

Hello everyone! I'm still not quite in my apartment just yet, so my DisneyWorld update won't be up until a few days from now when I'm back home from visiting family. =) To fill in the gaps, I wanted to do another Lolita Blog Carnival topic: my favourite indie brands (and I have many)!

As someone who has always loved the creativity and the dedication that goes into smaller companies sitting down and making beautiful designs for lolita fashion, a good portion of my wardrobe is packed full with indie brands. There are just some designs that are either ahead of the trends or impossible to find anywhere else, and I'm happy to share the ones I like the most!

Lolita 52 Challenge: Satisfaction with my current wardrobe.

Happy new year everyone! Hope you were able to spend it with your loved ones, if not, I wish you and your loved ones a prosperous new year. =)

With the new year, I wanted to try something new for this blog besides the Lolita Blog Carnival topics I normally write about. As if she read my mind, lovely Caro (the person behind F-yeah Lolita!) came up with this great challenge! She has the full list for the year on her blog here, check it out!