Victorian-Inspired Romantic Mourning OP Photos

Finally, I've got some finished photographs so that I can put this dress in my portfolio! It's taken a while, but I've finally got round to it, inspired by the purchase of my headdress from Pina Sweetcollection and platform shoes (from Montreal) on the EGL UK Sales. I was really going for an Old School look here, to match the old school look that I love so much and designed with the dress. I really miss those early Gothic Lolita Bible trends, so I wanted to express that with the dress and styling. You can see it in my portfolio here.

The graveyard has always fascinated and inspired me, it's such a magical place with abandoned, bricked-up Victorian buildings, overgrown tombstones and brilliant architecture with angels and crosses. 

Alice in Wonderland Frames JSK

It's been a while! I have been busy with finishing off college work, ill health, lack of motivation, and just generally lacking in energy to do sewing. However, among all that wallowing in self-pity, I have been slowly plodding on with this dress with my grandmother - mainly because I set myself a deadline.

I bought the fabric a while ago in London, yet I've only just started using it for an ensemble planned for a Lolita cinema trip meetup, to see Alice and the Looking Glass. I've made an Alice bow - naturally :) - from the same material, to go with the dress. The lace comes from an adorable haberdashery in York that I came across, so this dress contains holiday memories as well as my love for Alice in Wonderland!

The pattern for this came from Otome no Sewing book 2, the "Frames" JSK, which I adapted to fit myself using the slicing method of making a pattern bigger. I traced the pattern pieces to the largest size, working out how I should multiply the measurements to get my size - luckily enough, I only had to separate each strip of pattern piece by a centimeter each time - and put the bodice pieces together by laying them out on the paper and tracing around them to make one bodice piece. I measured the inch for each strip and drew a line upwards with a ruler, and cut the pattern piece into strips. I then cut around the enlarged pattern, adding a centimeter at the bottom of the pattern also.
This is very hard to explain, and I suppose a photograph would do better at explaining it, however I was too excited to take photos at this stage and forgot.

As it was in Japanese I had to do some translating to find out what the miscellaneous, non-obvious pieces were. This made things slightly more difficult, but I battled on. After all, the illustrations in Otome no Sewing were very clear and concise, so I could pretty much guess what the Japanese said when it came to making the thing.

The actual making of the thing was quite straightforward, though in some places we had to improvise where the instructions (or my lack of Japanese) were limited, such as with the shirring in the back and pleating instead of gathering the skirt; I find that pleats look better on me, and I always manage to mess up the gathering somehow anyway in the first go. :)

I'm pleased with the results despite how long it took to piece together.

Valentine's Day Meetup with the Lolitas

I'm not usually a big fan of Valentine's day things because I'm a bitter spinster, but this was a fun little meetup after Valentine's day, so it wasn't bad at all. I actually really enjoyed it, and it's probably the first time this year that I've been out to Manchester!
I was a little late for meeting up at Koffee Pot, but I still managed to get a seat and order my lunch, thanks to the girls. The raspberry ripple milkshakes at Koffee Pot look and taste amazing, though I didn't manage to get any photos of it or of the meetup at all! I was a bit short on time and space, even though everyone looked amazing and cute in their Valentine's day themed, red and white coordinates.
We exchanged Valentine's day message cards anonymously, where I got a very sweet message but I don't know whom it's from! It says that I'm elegant, polite, friendly and sweet, which was so lovely and really made my day. There was also a CLAM quiz that we played in order to win a prize, including questions about famous Lolita YouTubers, Misako Aoki, Mana-sama, Kamikaze Girls, and the group itself; I got eleven out of sixteen, and I fell down on the question about the "yen trick" for Bodyline, which I had no idea even existed! Now I know...

After that we had a brief walk in Manchester's Northern quarters to get to another cafe where we just hanged out, called Cafe Nexus. There we played another game, where we wrote down random words, put them into a pile, and drew three cards to make a new print name for a brand to release. I laughed so hard, as on my first draw I got "anxious lemon tea-time" - the image that popped into my head was just too funny! Maybe the lemon is afraid of being used in somebody's tea? Who knows? It's on the top of my list for some brand to release - Metamorphose temps de fille, probably would be the best bet, haha.

We also had a photographer with us, who came all the way from London to photograph us for a magazine article! It was strangely enjoyable being photographed - usually I'm not a photogenic person and hate having my photo taken - maybe because I didn't have to smile? Fingers crossed that we get into the magazine! I may post the photos to my blog if I get permission from the photographer.

For this meet I didn't have anything remotely Valentine's day themed, so I just wore a Sweet Lolita coordinate that my partner from the EGL Dress-Me-Up challenge put together for me, which was a lot of fun wearing all together.

Headbow: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Blouse: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

JSK: Lovely Sweet Room - Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Bag: Angelic Pretty

Socks: Secret Shop

Shoes: Hush Puppies

After all, although it was a little uneventful and quiet because of the process of photography, it was a very fun meetup and it was nice to see everybody and just hang out. There were some new members to the comm too, which I thought was really nice. 

I had a great time, except for the parts where I nearly broke my ankles wearing those heels on the blasted uneven ground in Manchester - if it weren't for a nearby pole and Mo, I would probably have humiliated myself by face-planting the ground in full Lolita fashion, haha! Petticoats and bloomers would have been displayed for everyone to see! Just imagining it makes me laugh. Thankfully some divine force stopped me from making a spectacle of myself. :)

Vintage Shoujo Manga at the Atkinson

This Saturday our local comm had a meetup in my town, where we visited the Atkinson art gallery and put on a fashion show as a part of the exhibition. I had such fun, and I never would have thought I'd take place in a fashion show, but I did! It was an amazing experience and I enjoyed it so much.

First of all we checked out the vintage shoujo manga exhibition at the gallery, and I was inspired by the art despite not drawing in manga style anymore. It was a dream come true to finally see a Macoto Takahashi illustration in a gallery, which you can see below! I also took photos of some of my favourite pieces, which are contain vintage clothing and big, dewy eyes and roses - extremely cute!

Mo in front of Macoto's work

Then we had a wander around the actual gallery, where we saw some stunning classical pieces and some of the history of Southport, including these historical garments. They were gorgeous, and I really loved the clothing and details in this painting.

For lunch we went to a little cafe called Cranberries, and the rest of the day was spent on the fashion show and preparation. It was so exciting!

Our comm leader, Nadina, brought along some upbeat waltz music for us to walk down the stairs to in a graceful, elegant manner, where we would stop at the bottom of the staircase and pose three times for photographs. There was a gathering of people at the bottom, who also took photos and asked questions about the fashion. I felt like a debutante walking down those stairs in waltz time - incredibly serene and princess-like, which makes a change to my usual shy, awkward demeanor! Somebody also said that I looked like an oil painting, which really boosted my confidence, as I love oil paintings and wish I looked like one of its subjects!
Everyone was fabulous and looked amazing, even changing their wigs for the second outfit change - that was a lot of effort, I just changed my JSK from Baby's Shirring Princess to Innocent World's Antique Cherub Candlestick. We got a loud round of applause at the end, which was also lovely, and some sweet little girls went about hugging the comm members and calling us princesses - so sweet!

A photo that the gallery took of me - please excuse my derp face!

 Here's my first outfit that I wore, with a few changes. I scrapped the headbow based on my hairstyle, and exchanged it for a simple diamante headband, and I changed the shoes to black Mary Janes for more of a frumpy, old school look.

 
Edit: Look at this adorable video that Georgia made of our meetup!

Queen of Hearts Tea and the Lady Lever Museum

Recently I've been feeling rather alone and down, but thanks to Facebook some good friends - old and new - have cheered me up by asking to see me! Usually I don't do things with friends because I'm rather introverted and as an Aspie I find it hard to deal with social situations, but I've had a lot of fun over the past two days and would like to do it again, and become more outgoing. 

On Friday I went to the Mad Hatter's Tea Pot with an old friend from high school, whom I haven't really communicated with in a long time due to different colleges and courses. It was really nice to meet up again, and even just hearing her laugh makes me laugh and smile. This time I had the Queen of Hearts tea platter, which came with a lovely tuna sandwich and a selection of cakes. I love this cafe and would enjoy going again and again!

Here's what I wore:

Blouse: offbrand
Skirt: handmade
Pearls: 40s vintage
Shoes: offbrand
Socks (not pictured here): Baby the Stars Shine Bright

And the next day I went to the Lady Lever museum in Liverpool/the Wirral with lovely Mo, from my local Lolita group.
Here's what I wore for this casual meet-up:

Blouse: offbrand
JSK: Lovely Sweet Room - Baby the Stars Shine Bright
Headbow: Baby the Stars Shine Bright
Shoes: Hush Puppies
Socks: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Mo was wearing a sax old school Baby coordinate, which was adorable and very Momoko-esque. I loved it!

We took some photos, listened to a live classical music concert (a lot of my favourite songs were played, and it has sparked my desire to learn to play the piano even more) and had a walk around the local area, which was so peaceful and old fashioned that I wanted to live there! After that we sat in a quaint little cafe to have rose tea and hot chocolate and chat. I had so much fun, thank you Mo for the lovely time!

Some photos of the Putting on the Glitz 1930s fashion exhibition, as well as some from the general gallery. Sorry for the blurry photos - I really need a new camera, as mine is quite old, and not in a fun, vintage way. :)

 

Romantic Mourning One-Piece Dress

I've had the Simplicity Alice and Wonderland pattern for about five/six years now and never really used it until recently, to make my Romantic Mourning Lolita OP. Funnily enough, I ended up cutting out the pattern wrong as the labels were a bit off with some mistakes, but in the end it was in my favour. I tried to make view B but the bodice turned out more like view A, for the Queen of Hearts, which I found I liked better after all.

Please excuse the bad photos; it's hard to get good light in my house, especially when photographing black on black.

  

   

Details of the lace, which I bought at a local market.

When wearing it I feel like a mourning Victorian child and a long lost member of Malice Mizer at the same time, haha!
The leg of mutton sleeves could make it look like any period really, from Baroque, the Romantic Victorian period (1830s), to the 1890s and early Edwardian era. 

  In the end, it took just less than a week on and off to make, and I found it relatively easy, with almost no mistakes made! I'm very pleased with it, and the leg of mutton sleeves are fun to wear.

Haul Post: Innocent World and Closet Child

This afternoon I finally received my parcel from Japan! I've been so excited ever since ordering, and when I heard the doorbell ring just today I literally squealed and ran downstairs to answer and sign for it! 
I'm happy to say that its contents did not disappoint me, as everything is perfect and everything fits well. The only thing that disappointed me was the customs fee I gained, which totaled at eighty pounds - almost as much as the items themselves - it was completely unexpected, as I was under the misapprehension that the shopping service I used (From Japan) would do its best to lessen the blow at customs by marking it down. Never mind though; we live and learn, and I'm completely in love with my items!

 I ordered Innocent World's "Cherub Angel Candlestick Bow Ribbon" JSK in navy as an early Christmas present to myself, as I cracked under how gorgeous it was and figured that seeing as the past few weeks have been tough, I might as well treat myself in an attempt to cheer myself up. I love it! It looks like a sister dress to my Three Archangels OP, as both feature angels as a part of their prints. This print also has candlesticks and stars on it, and for some reason that I can't fathom, it reminds me of A Christmas Carol (my favourite book), perhaps because of the Victorian styled candlesticks and religious imagery. It would make the perfect Christmas coordinate, though I'll wear it all year of course!
 

As well as that, I saw my dream print since my early days of Lolita on Closet Child - Star Chiffon skirt from Alice and the Pirates - and just had to have it, as I knew it would fit and it was going for a really cheap price (24 pounds!). Needless to say, the shipping and customs made it much more expensive than that, but I don't mind because it's so cute.
I hope the injection of navy blue in my wardrobe will make good on my promise for the New Year's Lolita goals! 

Here's a coordinate that I quickly put together for my meetup this Saturday, using my new dress.

Blouse: Baby the Stars Shine Bright
JSK: Innocent World
Everything else: Offbrand