Hello dear readers, how are you? Thank you for your lovely birthday messages, I had a nice day picnicking in the country :)
Now it's time for the second installment of Austen and the Abbey!
The beautiful location for this day of the event was Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire, the home of Jane Austen's ancestors.
The West Wing, which is the main facade of the house.
The picturesque gatehouse, which dates back to the 12th and 14th centuries.
The bed in Queen Victoria's bedroom (she stayed here too!)
A wood-panelled room with fancy red velvet chairs.
Lolis taking a tour!
The lady in regency costume who gave us the tour.
Me and my friend Bree!
The saloon, where the fashion show was held. Today's show featured Fairy wish, Atelier Pierrot, Juliette et Justine (I got to wear an amazing Red Riding Hood coordinate!) and Baroque.
The library.
Fairy wish tights! They are amazing and have cockatiels on them!
Books in the library.
Tapestry-work chairs.
Some rather nice tassels.
I feel really lucky to be from a country that has so many wonderful and well-preserved buildings like this. It was a great location for a lolita event and I think it was especially good for the Japanese guests, who got to do a little sightseeing along with their work.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures! See you next time,
I ahve had a tiring weekend, but I'm recovered now. Tomorrow is my birthday! I'm going for a picnic with my family, I'm really looking forward to it.
Well, I must tell you about Austen and the Abbey! I'll split the posts into two days.
This was the location for the first day, the Royal Pump Rooms in Leamington Spa. Leamington is a very pretty Georgian town and of course the pump rooms are to do with the famous baths there.
As I mentioned before, I wore boystyle on this day!
It was a very hot day so I discarded my waiscoat quite quickly....
I did get one picture with it! On the left is my lovely friend Violette Noir, looking perfect as usual. This picture was taken in the tea room. The tea parties with the guests (Alice Kobayashi, Yuko Ashizawa and Coco) took place here and the staff from Tea Prince were serving.
Lizzie's Tasty Teas were providing delicious tea in these amazing antique tea cups.
One of the guests was Coco from lolita unit Die Milch. She has a very friendly, sunny personality and I had a lot of fun chatting with her. I was sad because I had to be backstage getting ready for the fashion show during her live. However I will definitely go to see her and Jasmine perform when I go back to Japan!
Me with Alice Kobayashi of Fairy wish! I'm so happy I could meet her. I loved her street snaps and her brand for a long time, and now I know she is even cuter and even kinder than I could have imagined. I hope to meet her again soon!
After chatting with lots of people and checking out the stalls, it was time to get ready for the fashion shows. It was pretty hectic!
I was in two shows- the Mori Girl show and the Fairy wish show. I was supposed to model for Victorian Maiden too but the outfits got stuck in customs.... It was disappointing but what can you do?
Anyway, I really enjoyed both shows! My friend Shani asked me to fill in for one girl who could no longer model winter mori. I was very happy to oblige, and so Shani decked me out in her clothes and got togther this really cute outfit for me!
I really liked the fuzzy beret and the woolly shawl!
Two of the other mori models. I loved their outfits too!
Next up was the Fairy wish show! Lyci and Chelsea were modelling too- they look so cute! Everyone got really nice outfits and the tights were adorable- I'll show you some close-up photos in the next post.
This was my outfit for Fairy wish- a broiderie anglaise blouse and matching katyusha and a black pleated skirt with a white lace trim, along with the wonderful tights! I didn't want to take it off to be honest, haha. I got to wear it again for the show and photoshoot the following day though!
Although it was rather tiring and stressful with things running late and going wrong, I really did enjoy myself that day. I went alone which was a bit daunting but it was also good because I spent a lot of time talking to different people and getting to know them better, instead of sticking mostly with one friend. I think it was the fellow attendees and the wonderful guests that made it an especially good day for me. Some of what was planned was a bit ambitious considering that there was such a small team of organisers, but I think they all did their very best and worked very hard. I have to say thank you to them and everyone who I met there for making it such a nice and memorable occasion!
I hope you enjoyed this post and please look out for the next one, coming soon.
Hello dear readers! Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been busy, but I will try to catch up from now on! I have lots of nice posts I want to write :)
This post about Harajuku Fashion Walk is very belated, because I wanted to time it with the broadcast of Cool Japan, who were filming it. It turns out that they didn't feature the walk very much in the program though, but there is apparently a glimpse of my friends so I will watch it later.
Here are members of the Tokyo International Lolitas that attended the walk (photo wickedly stolen from Tokyo Fashion)
We all tried to go for a vampiric theme in honour of Ni (the beautiful gothic lady in the centre) as it was her last Fashion Walk before leaving Japan to continue her studies. I miss her!
I don't have much gothic in my wardrobe, so I tried a sort of retro/aristocratic look instead.
I did something slightly different with my make-up too. I usually do a 'cute' look but this time I tried to make my face look sharp. I angled my brows a little upwards and drew thick winged eyeliner without any shading on the lower lid, to focus attention upwards. I also put blusher only on the outer part of my face to look a bit paler, and used red lipgloss for a vampiric look.
Well, I have to admit I don't particularly look like a vampire, but I quite liked this outfit!
Hat, stole, gloves: Vintage
Earrings: Vivienne Westwood
Onepiece: Handmade
Others: Offbrand
Here we are all walking down Omotesando:
And near the station, which is the first meeting point:
Top hats!
Amazing ladies! I want to frame this picture to always remember how wonderful Lolita can be <3
The camera crew filming:
After the walk a couple of us got crepes. This was the first time I had eaten a crepe in Harajuku, can you believe it?
It was Ni's farewell party at the Vampire Cafe that evening. It was too dark for my camera to take good pictures, but I have to say it wasn't the most fantastic place I have ever been. Apparently we weren't in the best room, but I don't know that it would have been a great deal better. Also the waitress almost set me on fire by creeping up behind me with a flaming desert that ended up tasting of lighter fluid or something....
The menu was a bit unimaginative too (they just added 'vampire' to the name of the dish, or set it on fire it seemed), but at least my pasta was yummy! It had a tortilla bat on it. You can also see the coffin-shaped drink menu in this photo.
It was a very nice day, even if the restaurant wasn't quite up to scratch and even if we are not famous tv stars now! I hope you enjoyed reading about it.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I was making the most of my time at home. I'm back in Tokyo now!
Today I have pictures from an event I went to just before I went home. I've wanted to go to one of Misako's tea parties for some time, and my friend invited me along to this one which was held in a restaurant in Shinjuku.
There are a few Alice themed cafes/restaurants in Shinjuku these days, but this was the first time I'd been to one! The name of this particular restaurant is Ehon no Kuni no Arisu (Alice of Picture Book Land) and it is usually only open in the evening, but they opened it specially for Misako's party.
Ok, according to the coaster it's Alice in Fantasy Book but I prefer my translation.
Here's my outfit!
Ribbon: Ange (Japanese indies brand)
Blouse: Vintage
Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute
Tights: tutuanna
Of course, the theme was Alice. I tried to give it a new twist by adding red to the usual blue (British Alice?). It's hard to see, but my tights have hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds on them!
I think this coord needs a bit more work still, so I'll try another version some time.
Here's a glimpse of the inside of the restaurant. There was a great chandelier (which I had to duck under) and huge Tenniel illustrations on the walls, lot of mirrors and some perspex walls, which gave it a wonderland feeling.
There were some talk shows, and two of my friends from GLP no Kai (a lolita circle) were part of it! Kawaii Girl Japan were covering the event too.
The food was really nice, and much more plentiful than at the Triple Fortune party. There was a savoury course and a sweet course, buffet style, and enough for seconds!
There were tomato and salmon roses (the one pictured is a tomato one) and the potato waffles were so yummy! I do miss potatoes being here. I ate ever so many at home to make up for it!
The desserts were very pretty, there were chocolate ones and starwberry ones and choux pastry as well as these nice green tea roll cakes.
There was another talk show with Hanae, a very sweet girl who is a musician. She seemed so shy and gentle, I want to be her friend! After I post this I will look up her music. She gave us some reccomendations about eyeliner and books, including a book detailing cafes and so on suitable for a maidenly lifestyle. She had a lovely Innocent World onepiece with a high collar, and tights from Grimoire!
Misako seemed very animated during the party, more than usual maybe, and happy to have so many guests come to see her. I really enjoyed the talk shows (especially with my nice friend to translate the difficult bits for me!) and I think it would be good if we did something more like that at events like Hyper Japan. Fashion shows are fun, but a bit impersonal perhaps. The talk shows were not wildly exciting, but just nice chats about clothes and hair and make up and books and cafes, so cosy and pleasant! All in all it was a very nice day, and quite relaxing in fact.
We all took a photo with Misako at the end, and I will post it as it's a happy memory, even though I look like Godzilla next to her:
Just look at Misako please, not me!
Oh yes, we did a jan-ken-pon taikai (rock paper scissors tournament) with Misako and Hanae, and I was one of the winners! Misako had bought Alice prizes at Disneyland and I got this adorable box of tea.
The hearts are apple tea, and the clubs are ceylon. I love the art deco style illustration!
Thank you for reading, and perhaps you'd like to finish by watching this video of the tea party made by Kawaii Girl Japan:
There are English subtitles, and Hanae-chan is in it! I'm in it too at the end saying "Kawaii Girl Japan", right at the back with my red ribbon!
