This one was actually pretty difficult, seeing as we're in Bristol right now away from most of our lolita wardrobe! We did bring a few pieces with us, so I'll share some details from those; Haz's favourite JSK (Toy Parade!) is still at home in Hull, and I absolutely cannot choose from all of our beauties!
I love this adorable custom fork and spoon lace on AP's Tea Time a la Carte!
Haz's favourite part of the dress are the little bunny shaped biscuits!
AP's Dolly Cat Special Set might be one of my favourite dresses we own; the cats have such beautiful faces! I tried to take a picture of the sweet little name plates the cats have beneath them and the cat wearing wristcuffs, but unfortunately they didn't come out too well! Still, this cat wearing a bonnet is very beautiful and elegant!
Innocent World's Night Bear is one of my favourite prints; look at the little mouse helping the bear read! It's so adorable, it kills me.
As you all know, we love cats. We also love Metamorphose and its bizarre and strange ideas for prints; this is from the Brass Band Cat skirt! I love how Meta always manage to put their name into the print without it being overly obvious that they've done it!
This has definitely been one of my favourite posts to write so far! I love staring at a new dress the first time I get it and finding all the tiny details that I never noticed when I was looking at it online. What are all of your favourite little details about your dresses?
One of the things that we often get sidetracked by is the fact that we are a "lolita couple"; we wear lolita together, we go to meets together, we get asked to hang out together. We share a wardrobe! We buy things that we think will fit both of us and both of us borrow each other's . . . well, everything, to be honest.
So it makes sense that we know exactly what each other wants, that we link each other to items we've been looking for when we're in separate places looking up, when we search things out specifically . . . we have pretty similar taste, but we don't have exactly the same taste.
Probably most of you recognize this dress; it's AP's Toy Parade JSK in mint! Here's the thing; Haz loves elephants. She collects them, she loves them, she squeals over them daily. So it makes sense that she would have a desperate need to own an AP dress with toy elephants all over it! She's also been adding a lot more mint to her wardrobe, so having it in mint would be perfect for her . . . and also, it fitting well would be a bonus! So during my *cough cough* weekly* wunderwelt searchings, when i came across this dress for under £100, it was as if all of the lolita Gods had conspired to make Haz's day a good one.
We umm-ed and ahh-ed about buying it for a while (as someone does when they're going to drop a lot of money at once!) but eventually bit the bullet - and it was so exciting when it got here! Plus, she looks adorable in it, and that's what's important, right?
In the same order, I also found Classic Melody, which is one of my dream dresses - violins and music notes? Yes please! It doesn't quite fit the theme because Haz didn't find it for me, but she did pay for it, and that is just as important in the grand scheme of keeping your wardrobe full of desired dresses!
As well as each other, we keep an eye out for things for our friends too (at least, when we remember!). A couple of things we're always on the look out for are music themed prints - especially chocolate and music themed prints together! - and a couple of other specific dresses that we've heard people mention!
Another thing we do is remember who sometimes comments on a post after it's already been sold, and if we see it being sold again try and let them know! It's so nice to help someone get their dream items and then see them enjoying it!
You may remember one of our goals for 2015 was both to attend more meetups and try and wear lolita more often! Well, our local community's lolita meet was this Saturday and both of us managed to be free and be feeling up to it! Our community has only really grown in size in the past six months or so, so having an active lolita calendar is a relative novelty! We all planned on meeting up and having afternoon tea at the cutest little tea shop and our lovely host planned a quiz with some prizes for the winning team!
Haz outfit rundown!
JSK - Lyrical Dot by Angelic Pretty
Bolero & Tights - ASDA (forever the classiest place for lolitas to shop!)
Shoes, Blouse, Wristcuffs - Bodyline
Bag - Claire's Accessories
Bow - Home Bargains (it cost 20p and is cute and really, what more can you ask for?)
Wig - Geisha Wigs
(Slightly less classy location!)
Skirt - Metamorphose
Blouse & Shoes - Bodyline
Cardigan - Charity shop
Beret - Accessorize
Glasses & Ankle Socks - eBay
Accessories - Handmade, charity shops, and a very very classy golden crown ring that we took off the top of a Gregg's cupcake!
The tea rooms we went to were adorable! All of the furniture was very shabby chic and vintage and our actual tea was all served in various charmingly mismatched teapots and teacups! Haz and I both has peppermint tea; we're not really very big tea people but because of how generous the "tea for two" offer is we were both able to get about three cups each! We also had a delicious slice of cake each, and they had gluten free cake available for some of the comm members with specific dietary needs!
We then had a lolita quiz devised by our host! The general knowledge questions I think both Haz and I struggled on, but the other questions (name a print with rabbits on! etc.) were both a lot easier, so there was definitely something for everyone! We even had some special rounds such as acting out a brand new VenusAngelic video (both of which are now preserved on video forever!). Around this time, the tearoom needed to shut down (although the lovely workers did extend their hours another half hour for us, which was super nice of them!) and we moved over to finish our quiz at Wetherspoons!
(Wetherspoons bathroom pictures!)
We finished the quiz with a game involving designing lolita coords based on specific themes (including ballet and olives!) and a team game of lolita Cards Against Humanity! Both of the teams ended up tying, but Haz and I brought a little something to contribute to the prizes as well as the prizes that our quizmaster brought, so all of us were able to walk away with little gifts! Haz and I got two cute scented candles (cinnamon stick and lavender!) that smelled divine!
Everyone looked adorable and it was so nice to catch up with each other after the busy festive period! Next month's meet is going to be a Valentine's event, but I'm not sure if either of us will be able to make it, but hopefully we won't have to wait too long before we can get together and get frilly again! I leave you with the video that one of the other comm members made of the day!
We recently made an order with Closet Child for our first ever brand dress! The dress in question: an adorable fluffy ruffly Angelic Pretty JSK named "Lyrical Dot"! When we looked for information on this JSK online (like official measurements, worn pictures, etc.) everything we could find was for the OP, so we thought we'd make a post about both our experience ordering from Closet Child and our opinions on the dress! ◕ ◡ ◕
Here's our alpaca, Jehan Prouvaire, and Marie the tsum tsum preparing to open the package! We ordered on the 30th of June at about eleven o clock at night! Closet Child then pretty much automatically sent us an email telling us that they would check their stock to see if our item was still available; you're able to pay at this point if you want to and if you do pay and your item is not in stock, it's refunded! That's what we did, just to be safe. (●´∀｀●）On the 1st of July, we got a message saying it was still in stock and would be shipped out! The next email we got had a tracking number, and with that we were able to track our dress' progress to us in the UK!
'Ooh, it's so pretty and well-packaged...' whispered Jehan to Marie.
The dress comes securely in a box, wrapped with plastic, folded prettily and neatly! It survived transit super well and arrived to us within two weeks! Unfortunately, we were hit with a very nasty almost £25 customs fee. (•﹏•) This was especially annoying, as £12.50 of the fee went just to Parcel Force's handling charge! We received a letter from Parcel Force on Thursday 10th July, paid online the charge on Friday 11th, and had it delivered today on Monday 14th.
Here's a video showing you just how well packaged it was! c:
Out of the bag, the dress was so pretty Jehan fell over on it! ヽ( ﾟヮ・)ノ.･ﾟ*｡･+☆
Cute cute cute little heart buttons on the detachable waist ties! I'm terrified that we're going to lose a waist tie. ( '3' )
Instead of plain corset lacing over the shirring, there's a series of little ties that can be put into bows, all of which came tied super adorably! ❤ω❤
Detailing from the front!
This lace was so pretty and soft! ヽ( ﾟヮ・)ノ
Both detachable waist ties and a detachable halterneck! I don't really like halterneck style JSKs very much, so I took it off, but I'm sure with the right co-ord it would look really cute! I'm quite fond of the ruffly little straps it left, though . . . ◔ ◡ ◔
More lace close up! Teeny tiny little hearts in the lace (that remind me a bit of pawprints!) ( ⌒‿⌒)
A worn picture featuring an ugly just-thrown-on blouse, which is becoming my specialty. . . hmmm . . . Still, cute cute dress!
Our closet is staring to get super cute! Featuring: Cinderella Bunny, a maid costume, a seifuku, more dresses than one person probably needs . . . hehe! (⊃ ´ω`)⊃♥⊂(´ω` ⊂)
Our customs charges! oAo
Altogether, our dress and shipping cost 6,200 yen - that's about £36! Even with customs charges factored in, this dress cost about £60, which is really really reasonable for an AP piece! Overall, even though we're both really sad about the handling fees and import VATs that are beginning to seem a bit ridiculous, our experience ordering from Closet Child was super positive and we both hope to be ordering from there again soon!
Alright, so perhaps this isn't the most original idea for a blog post! (◕‿-) But everybody needs to start somewhere, and I think dream dresses are a good start to introducing a new category to Petticats! (´ω｀) After much soul-searching and thinking (mostly on Nat's part!) we decided to file our lolita posts under the heading "Frillytime"! (◕‿◕✿)
Our first "Frillytime" post is about dream dresses! Dream dresses in lolita refer to dresses you would do absolutely anything to get your hands on, whether that be through murder or any other means! ♥ (Okay, usually lolitas do not resort to murder in order to acquire their dream dresses. But I'm sure a lot of them have thought about it! (≧ω≦) ) Lots of lolitas manage to get their hands on their dream dresses! But a lot of them also don't, for many reasons: some simply cannot afford it, some dream dresses are incredibly rare, and some just haven't been seen in absolute ages! (╥_╥)
(｡◕‿◕｡)Dress #1 - Krad Lanrete's Phantom of the Opera OP in White!(｡◕‿◕｡)
As we've mentioned a few times before, both of us are musical theatre students! In the last post, I mentioned it being the first time we'd ever been to London without a clear objective like seeing a show! Haz desperately wants to wear this OP to see Phantom! I asked Haz to summarize why she wanted this print and she said: "Musicals! Cute! . . . It reminds me of Christine's wedding dress, like a fairytale princess dress . . . Y'know?" Thank you, Haz. Very concise. (∩▂∩)
(｡◕‿◕｡)Dress #2 - Angelic Pretty's Cat's Tea Party JSK!(｡◕‿◕｡)
Ah yes, the quintessential "Dream Dress". (◕‿◕✿) Chances are, if you've been involved with lolita fashion for any period of time, you've seen this dress: Cat's Tea Party by Angelic Pretty. This is a dream dress for both of us - unfortunately, it goes for absolutely ridiculously high prices whenever up for sale and is rare to boot! Both of us love cats and cute pink things so it makes perfect sense that this would be a dress we would both murder for. (✿◠‿◠)
(｡◕‿◕｡)Dress #3 - Baby The Stars Shine Bright's "The Secret Garden - The Rose Has A Secret Scent" Elise JSK!(｡◕‿◕｡)
This is another of Haz's dream dresses - The Secret Garden is one of her favourite books and one of her favourite things to do is dress in things that remind her of her favourite literary works and heroines. I asked her summarize her interest in this dress and she made a series of unintelligible noises that ended with "It's just so PRETTY!" (︶ω︶)
(｡◕‿◕｡)Dress #4 - Baby The Stars Shine Bright's Marie Antoinette OP (In Blue)!(｡◕‿◕｡)
This is Nat's dream dress! (｡♥‿♥｡) This was one of the first ever dresses I saw worn by a lolita, and I thought that it was so elegant and beautiful! I loved the sleeves so much, and the colour and the layers of ruffles and basically everything about it! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ I am determined I'm going to own it one day!
There are still so many dresses both of us would love to own, but I'm going to stop there before I turn into a gushing mess! (=゜ω゜=)
