°˖✧✝ Slight Visual Kei Haul ✝✧˖°

Look at what I just bought! It's a bunch of old school visual kei cassette tapes.

Besides being an Old School Gothic Lolita, I'm also an old school visual kei fan, specifically of bands from the '90s to the early '00s. I hardly ever get a chance to buy any music or merch from the old bands I like, though, because all of my extra money goes toward my Lolita lifestyle (wardrobe and meetups) and a lot of older visual kei stuff can rack up a hefty price due to exclusiveness. But I saw this bundle of cassette tapes being sold for only $10 and jumped on it!

I only know about half of the bands in this bundle. Those that I do know are really cool, and I trust the seller on that alone. The others have to be good, too (I hope)! The one tape that practically sold me on buying these tapes was the Aliene Ma'riage one. I've loved this band since I was in high school, but never got the chance to actually own anything by the band. So getting this tape means a lot to me. Owning something tangible from what the band produced makes me feel a connection to the band and apart of the time period.

Aliene Ma'riage was such a kooky and strange visual kei band in the already flamboyant visual scene, and I just love them. I like how during this time in visual kei, there were bands pushing boundaries to their visuals and weren't just creating looks that were necessarily pretty, but striking, with a new level of weirdness that was overall compelling.

If anyone is interested, here's the PV that solidified me forever as an Aliene Ma'riage fan. However, be warned, I guess it can be said that Aliene Ma'riage is only for those with eclectic tastes. Everything, from the music, vocals and video itself is bizarre. 

Now I have to try and find an actual cassette player, because I don't own one anymore, hehehe~. I really wish I would've cared to stop my mom from throwing out all of our old gadgets, since I did have a portable tape player when I was younger. But I'm thinking about getting this new casstte tape to MP3 music player from Amazon. Until then, though, I have don't have anything to play these tapes when they finally arrive. I have to figure out what I'm going to do soon, because I don't want to miss out on listening to some potentially good music any longer that I have to!

This is way too high tech than what I actually need, but for some reason, it's hard finding regular, reasonablely priced tape players. But if I can get the MP3 converter feature to work on this one, that means I'll be able to share the music with others, which would be great for other old school visual kei fans.

°˖✧ 'Till next time

°˖✧✝ Summer ILD 2016 ✝✧˖°

I just wrote about my previous International Lolita Day (ILD) last year in a post before this, so now lets skip half a year to the most current one, summer ILD 2016.  

For this outing, one of my friends suggested going to a karaoke place in New York City. (We were originally going to do something else, but changed our minds at the last moment.) I've never officially went to a karaoke place where you can rent a private room, so, naturally, I was excited when the opportunity arrived. I'm not too familiar with karaoke places in New York City, I only know of one, but apparently, there are a lot of them. So I  was glad we left he task of choosing which one to go to up to our friend, who organized the event. She ended up picking Karaoke DUET 48.

So my friend reserved a room for four hours, from 2 o'clock to 4 o'clock, which surprised me. Four hours doing karaoke just seemed a little too much for me. And even though my friend ensured that the time would fly by quickly, I decided to come midway, at 4 o'clock.  But of course, life seemed to have other plans for me, and I ended up doing things other than planed. 

On the day of ILD, I go up so early and was even two hours ahead of schedule, which is really rare for me! I though about just going to the karaoke place at 2 o'clock, but stuck with original plan at arriving two hours later. So I just ended up wasting time at home and decided to do some light grocery shopping (there was so much time to waste!!!). The good thing was that I at least had plenty of time to get to my train. The bad thing was that once I got to the city, the subway train I had to get on wasn't on line that day and  I ended up getting on the wrong train! It was an innocent mistake, but, in the end, it caused me to walk twelve New York City blocks (they're much longer than regular blocks)! But it was still nice out, so I enjoyed taking in some of the sights.       

Is it a bear? Or is it a frog?
I can't tell.     

After the lengthy walk, I finally was able to arrive at the karaoke room, but at 5 o'clock and not 4 o'clock liked I had planed! I only wanted to be at the karaoke place for about two hours, but it looked like I was only going to be there for an hour. Luckily though, the karaoke place had a special were costumers would be able to rent a room up to 7 o'clock for only $14! So I ended up getting my two hours in the end. And my friend was right. The times does go by fast. I was there for only two hours, but it only felt like one hour. I was having so much fun singing with my friends that I hardly noticed the time. 

One of the most memeorable was when one of my friends played The GazzettE's song, "Inside Beast." It was so unexpected. Well, not for her, since she loves The GazettE. But it was a real shock when the instrumental started playing after a ballad.  

After we were done with the karaoke we decided to head out to a restaurant to eat. It started raining while we were walking and didn't show any signs of letting up. And that's when someone remembered that we hadn't taken outfit shots yet. Even though it was raining, we tried our best to get clear shots.

Turtleneck: Moi meme Moitie
Skirt: Moi meme Moitie
Boots: Demonia
Headdress: BABY, the Stars Shine Bright

The white band around my wrist is from
the karaoke place.

Because of the rain, we stopped at a closer restaurant than we had planed, and stopped at a place called Wild Ginger. The restaurant had a lot of different Eastern Asian dishes, and was a bit fancy, which taken me aback at first. I've had my share of "fancy" dishes, and they just don't hold up in my opinion. But the dish I had was very good. I would definitely go back a second time.    

Crispy duck with fried rice.
The plate also comes with baby bak choy and hoisin sauce.

°˖✧ 'Till next time

  

°˖✧✝ Winter ILD 2015 ✝✧˖°

(I know, this post is so late! I have so many old meetups that I haven't blogged about yet, so I'm going to be mixing older and current event posts for awhile.) 

Even if I don't get a chance to participate in any of the regular meetups created by the Lolita communities I'm in, I do at least try to do something special for International Lolita Day (ILD). And on the last one in December, my Lolita friends decided to celebrate another one of our friend's birthday on the same day, which was great, because she's a Lolita too. I didn't have a problem with it and thought having both at the same time would be cute. Doubling ILD as a birthday celebration for a friend just made the day even more special and enjoyable.

Because of the special day, Sabrina wanted us to go all out and experience having tea at fancy hotel. We knew it was going to be expensive, but we wanted to be a little adventurous and spurge for at least a day. So, we ended up dinning in the Pembroke Room at the Lowell Hotel in New York City.

The hotel was very elegant and because it was December, the lobby was decorated with a warm, yet sophisticated, Christmas feel. There was even complementary hot apple cider!

We had to wait awhile for everyone to arrive, but once we were all there, we were quickly ushered upstairs to our reserved table. From what I saw, the Pembroke Room is pretty small, no bigger than an average living room. This feature made the atmosphere a bit homey, but all the while still being deluxe. There were even love seats at the ends of our table! I decided to sit on the end with my friend Ashley. Because we were so close together on the love seat, all of the pictures of us made it look like we were on a date!

I don't think our date is going too well, hahaha~
It looks like Ashley is ready for the check.

After getting settled and picking out our teas, the staff eventually brought out our trays of finger sandwiches and savory options. There were about six different options for this selection- cucumber and watercress, chicken curry salad, lobster roll, dill egg and cornichon salad, Scottish smoked salmon, and caviar blinis.

Sabrina had a fancy-schmancy camera,
so all of her pictures came out looking beautiful. 

Next, came our desserts and scones with lemon curd and cream. I believe the type of scones varies on the day, so I don't quite remember which one I had. But, for desserts, we had petit fours, assorted fruit tarts, macaroons, and other French pastries, like eclairs. I love sweets, so I was glad to see a variety of desserts larger than what other tearooms provide.  

Here you can see what a Lolita actually does during a meetup- take pictures!

The tarts were so cute!

But no amount of sweets could soften the blow of what came next- the check! Everyone got the  $55 Classic Pembroke Tea, which was what everyone was expected to pay. But, apparently, with taxes and tip, everyone ended up paying $80 each (and it was eleven of us)! That price through us in such a spiral. It was so much, and, compared to other tearooms, it wasn't worth it. We could have gotten a better selection, including the teas, for less than half the price than what we got at the hotel. But that's what we get for trying to be fancy. 

Look at all of those twenty dollar bills!

This is the money Lolita.
Reblog in the next thirty seconds and you'll get
$100 toward your dream dress.

After paying, we wanted to leave as fast as we could so we could take outfit shots outside in better light. 

Birthday girl, Sabrina, in the middle.

While we were taking pictures, I started to look around the area and notice how gorgeous the neighborhood was (But we were in Manhattan, the frou-frou part of New York, so I guess that's to be expected). Right next door to the hotel, there was a nice building with a glorious stone structure on the outside and and a beautiful, black iron gate. I decided I wanted my picture taken there, instead of one at the front of the hotel. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the building was an apartment building!  

  

I edited the picture to give us that Mana glow, hahaha~

OP: Angelic Pretty
Socks: Metamorphose temps de fille
Accessories: Handmade or Thrifted 

Some of my other friends wanted to loiter with me and
take pictures in front of the building too.

And lastly, here is our group shot! I think it came out very nicely. Blogger wouldn't let me upload the video, but if you can, please take a look at on of my friend's vlog of this day here.

Look at our Sweet to Gothic rainbow!

°˖✧ 'Till next time

°˖✧✝ My First Ever Taobao Purchase ✝✧˖°

Really, this is a milestone for me. The first time I heard about Taobao was during the heydays of EGL on Live Journal, but anyone involved in the EGL community during that time could tell you how challenging it was to order something from Taobao. The idea of making spreadsheets still gives me a mini panic attack to this day because of all of the requirements and steps involved with ordering from Taobao in the past. But this is the future. And now it's so much easier to purchase items listed on Taobao!

There have been many things I've wanted to buy from Taobao over the years, but because I was so afraid of how inexperienced I was with ordering, I missed out on a lot of amazing items. I guess this time I got feed up with not being able to obtain all of the interesting accessories I would always see and gave into the idea of trying a Taobao shopping service one more time. However, this time, I went with the website SpreeNow. I didn't know very much about the website at the time, but one of my friends swore by it, saying that it was the easiest website for shopping on Taobao he has ever used. So, with some initial guidance from him, like how long I should wait for a response after I put my order in and how and when I was expected to pay, I decided that SpreeNow was reliable and easy enough for me to navigate through.

But before I went about picking which shopping service to use, I decided to get through the easy part first, which was knowing what I wanted to get! So what kind of item made me want to confront my fears and take another shot at using a Taobao shopping service? Well, because I'm such a loser Goth, what caught my eye may hardly comes as a surprise. It was a lovely coffin purse.  

Please excuse my ugly curtains in the background.

I only paid about $30 for this purse!

Unfortunately, the shop doesn't sell it anymore (which is why if you see something on Taobao, you shouldn't wait too long to get it), and since the listing is gone, I couldn't post some of the original product photos here on this blog post. But believe me, it's very well made and sturdy. It was sold as a purse, but its structure is more of a case or trunk. I have every intention of using this purse as a bag, but I do wish I would've had a chance to buy one or two more as carrying cases for my dolls. It's just that nice.

The cool thing about this purse is that I can wear it two ways. There's an adjustable shoulder strap that's detachable, so I can choose to wear it as a shoulder or hand purse. Oh, and the purse itself is so HUGE! It easily takes up the length of my thigh! 

Hey, look! A picture of me in "normal" clothes.

I ended up picking the cross feature for the front of the purse, but I kinda wish I hadn't. Besides the fact that I don't really like the color red or wear the color often, how the cross was applied makes the purse look a bit cheap. And, up close, you can see areas where the application is a little splotchy. But those are nitpicks, at best. I can always just turn the purse around to its backside where there isn't a cross.

After choosing to buy the coffin purse, I decided to see what else the seller had to offer, which led me to my second item, a beautiful black turtleneck with a heart cutout and spiderweb mesh panel. This item is still listed in the seller's store, and can be purchased here.

There's only one size, but the material of the turtleneck is stretchy and would be able to accommodate some larger sizes, to a degree. I only ended up paying about $10 for this turtleneck, but it's construction is very nice. Although stretchy, the material is soft and the turtleneck's assembly isn't shoddy. All of the seams are serged, there are no holes, and the position of the cutout is centered where it ought to be.

Too cute, right!

I purchased both of these items at the end of January, and they came just in time for me to wear my heart cutout turtleneck for Valentine's Day! (I know you're like, "Wow, you had this since February? What took you so long to write a blog post on this?" *sigh* I know, I know.)

Well, these were my first Taobao purchases. Hopefully, I will be able to find some more great items for me to buy. Though, I doubt that would be a hard task, hahaha~

°˖✧ 'Till next time

°˖✧✝ I'm a Gothic Pokemon ✝✧˖°

Someone posted a link to an article listing Lolitas from animes in a Lolita humor group and one of the "Lolitas" listed was the Pokemon Gothitella. 

Gothitella

Between the name and design, it's obvious that the Pokemon was developed after Gothic Lolitas, specifically ones who dress in an Old School style. That alone would make me want to identify with it, but there was something about the design that didn't really resonate with me. I then remembered that Gothitella was an evolution of the Pokemon Gothorita. 

Gothorita

If anything, I feel as though Gothitella's design is more mature and comes off as being more Aristocrat than Lolita. However, Gothorita's look is cuter and embodies the youthfulness that Lolita fashion tends to create. So I asked my friends which one I looked like more, Gothorita or Gothitella? Unanimously, they said Gothorita. One of the main reasons being because of the "Mana hair."

I'm I Mana now?

My friends and I have an indside joke about me having "Mana hair."

After helping me decide which Pokemon I looked like, some of my friends went on to pick a Pokemon that looked like them too.

The resemblance is uncanny.

But it wasn't until one of my friends put an Alice and the Pirates tricon hat on a Pokemon to look like her, did I think to add things to Gothorita to make it look more like me. 

Ouji Espurr

Though, there wasn't much I needed to change or add to make Gothorita look more like me, since it's body was literally made to look like a black OP with white bows on it. So instead, I went with adding some of my signature aspects. If I could reduce myself to two things, it would definitely be black lipstick and crosses. 

I want to get a lot of Gothorita stuff now since we're obviously twins. 

°˖✧ 'Till next time

°˖✧✝ Lolita Blog Carnival: What's Your Number One Goal Item Right Now ✝✧˖°

With me being a Lolita with more of an Old School taste, there are a lot of items that I covet, mostly because of their rarity due to how long ago they were released. So, my wishlist is a long one. But the item I will always place on top of my list is any sort of bag from Patchy. 

If you've been through my blog before, you may remember me finally getting one of these bags last year and talking about it in this post here. But getting that bag didn't satisfy me. And ultimately, purchasing it lead me down the path of obsessively trying to get even more Patchy bags. Sadly, I wasn't able to get another one since my first. That is, until now. Yes, after about a year, I was able to find and purchase another bag from Patchy. The best part is that it was one that I thought I would never end up owning.

Look at this beauty. It makes me want to cry every time I look at it.

And here are some details.

The detachable wings make me think this is one of Patchy's recent bags.
From pictures, it looks like their older ones don't have detachable wings.

This three-way (handbag, shoulder bag and backpack) Patchy bag popped up on Yahoo! Japan auction a few weeks ago with a staggering opening price of 1600 yen. With the price set so high, I thought it would be best to forgo it, especially when I could get a number of different items for that amount of money. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of owning the bag and how good it would feel knowing I owned such a piece. In the end, I caved and bought it. And thankfully, I was the only one who put a bid on it, probably because no one else in their right mind would pay that much for this bag. With the fees included, I ended up paying $150.

If someone would have told me that in the future I would have purchased a $150 bag I would have laughed in their face. And yet, here I am- $150 gone form my bank account and nothing but a bat bag to show for it. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret buying it, but it does shed some light on my spending habits. And because of it, I'm restricting myself from anymore impulsive buying for awhile. I'm trying not to let it get me down, though. Every time regret tries to creep up on me, I just think about how much my coolness will increase whenever I wear it!

So I guess I got my number one goal item in the end. This week's topic for Lolita Blog Carnival turned out being really convenient for me!

Make sure to check out Lolita Blog Carnival!

Lolita Blog Carnival is an online Lolita community of Lolita bloggers who come together to blog about certain topics each week to stimulate further ideas for great blog posts!

If you want to see what kind of items other's have been hunting for, take a look at these other Lolita blogs:

The Bloody Tea Party

*BONUS*

Along with this three-way Patchy bag, I also was able to get a Patchy change purse for about $5. It's very safe to say that I'm obsessed with this brand's bags and accessories.

What I got.

I don't know if the change purse the same one in this advertisement, just without the ring at the opening, but I'm sure that it's supposed to be worn the same way.

I really like Patchy's bat items, but in the future, I hope to get at least one of their pieces with their angel design, like the one hooked on the suite case in the picture above. 

°˖✧ 'Till next time

°˖✧✝ Lolita Conspiracy Theory #1- Visual Kei- the Go-To Place for Ero Lolita Fashion ✝✧˖°

Last year, I had a bit of fun talking about Lolita conspiracies theories with my friends. But then... some of them... no matter how bizarre, started to make sense. *dramatic music playing in the background* This lead me to the idea of making a Lolita conspiracies theories series for my main blog. The first one up for discussion is where Ero Lolita got some of its looks from.

DISCLAIMER: This is solely for fun. And although there will be examples and some sources provided, this is still just a speculative hypothesis.

So, where did I this get this absurd idea from? Well, it all began with a crown I'm customizing for an upcoming Ero coordinate I planning. And if you didn't know, crowns, specifically mini crowns (or tiaras), were a trend in Ero Lolita (and in Hime Lolita too, but that's something completely different). 

Over the years, we just kinda accepted it without really understanding why. I mean, really, what does a crown have to do with Ero Lolita? It's not all that erotic or necessarily Lolita. It's more princess-y than anything. So what gives? Why was this a trend?  Well, I'll tell you why it was a trend. I think it was all because of... this guy right here: 

Dir en grey's bassist, Toshiya.

I bet you're like, "What? What does this guy have to do with any of this?" Well, here's why:

Is... is that a crown.

And if you haven't put the two together
or read the the bottom of the second picture, the person in the middle is Toshiya.
Yes, the same guy from the first picture.

The year was 1999, and a certain visual kei band started making waves in the music industry with their major debut album, Gauze. This band was Dir en grey, and with all of this new found attention came a hefty amount of music videos being released, even for songs that weren't singles. One of those songs to garner enough attention for its own music video was "Rasion Detre." This video would go on to produce some of the band  members' most iconic looks, with Toshiya's "Ero" look being one of them. 

To give some insight on the themes used to produce this stage costume for Toshiya, here is Dir en grey's music video for "Rasion Detre" (Blogger wouldn't let me link the video directly on this post for what ever reason). But before that, some WARNINGS!! This material is NSFW and potentially triggering. There's nudity, bondage, and self-harm (eye gouging) presented in this video. If that's too much for you, skip it (don't put yourself through that). If you just want to listen to the song's audio, you can listen here. 

If none of those options interest you,
you can just stay on this page and look at another picture of Toshiya's stage costume.

Now, I bet you're like, "Um, okay. This guy had a crown on his head, so what?" Well, this is huge because Gauze came out on July 28, 1999, but Dir en grey were already releasing singles as early as January of 1999 (source). "Raison Detre" wasn't a single, so it's harder to get documentation on what day the video was released, but, based on other information, the video had to have been released anywhere from mid 1999 to the time of the first single of their second studio album, which was Myaku in February 2000 (source).

But what does this all mean? *dramatic pause* This means that the first time anyone incorporated crowns with Ero may have been done as early as 1999 and done by a visual kei artist no less! I mean, think about it. Were there any Lolita brands, or Gothic brands for that matter, doing Ero at the time, and were they sticking crowns on their heads if there were? Moi-meme-Moitie also came out in 1999 (does any one know the exact date), and provided some pieces suitable for Ero Lolita, but have you ever seen one of their official brand coordinates styled with a crown? No, right? 

I had always came to think of the crown trend being completely "street" driven, meaning that it was something that formed from street fashion and not much from a fashion designer for a major fashion brand. And with mini crowns mainly only being seen in street snaps at this time, this seems to be true. But why is that so important? I think knowing that the crown incorporation with Ero being a trend picked up from street fashion is key to understanding how this combination was created. And the key lies with this next picture.

This picture may only be relevant to Lolitas who
have been in the fashion for 7+ years, but I'm still going to explain.

Do you remember a time when you would look up Ero Lolita and this was one of the first pictures to pop up? For those who didn't know, they probably would just nod and say "Yup, that's Ero," but for us visual kei and Dir en grey fans, we all knew that this was a cosplay of Toshiya's costume in "Raison Detere." Also, take in consideration where the picture was taken. It's location is none other than Harajuku bridge.

Harajuku bridge has seen a lot fashions and trends come its way.

Again, unless you were in this fashions for awhile, the Harajuku bridge may mean nothing to you. But the Harajuku bridge was a mecca for people in unique fashions and cosplayers (especially ones for visual kei) alike. It was the best spot to dress up in your best outfit, hangout with friends and wait for your picture to be taken. But above all, it was a place where Japanese youth could feel comfortable with their individuality and have a safe space to express their creativity through fashion. And with this platform, fashions and trends were not only able to evolve, but also mix with each other. Therefore, to say that there may have been an overlap between visual kei and Lolita because of their fans being so close to each other wouldn't be a far stretch. Don't forget about the Lolitas who were also visual kei fans too!

But why crowns? Why are they so special? Well, they aren't. Like I said at the beginning of this, there's nothing specifically Ero or Lolita about them. This is why I think this had to have came from a visual kei artist, because it's just a frivolous addition! I think the stylist who styled Toshiya just put the crown on his head because it looked cute, nothing more. Having "characters" was popular among visual kei bands at the time, and Toshiya's "character" was one that was more playful, youthful and feminine. What's a better way to make a man look youthful and feminine than to put his hair up into a ringlet ponytail, put him a outfit that gives him the apperance of having breast and tossing a crown on him?

Side note: I may have also just inadvertently described Hizaki.

May God have mercy on us all.

So, you read through all of this and I bet you're like "Well, okay. Crowns, sure. But what about that other stuff in Ero Lolita?" Well, lets look at some elements that lends itself to Ero Lolita's look. When I think of Ero Lolita, I usually think of:

• Leather/PVC material
• Corsets/Corset lacing
• Sheer material/A peak of skin showing (though, not always)
• Chokers 
• Garters/ Lace  

Basically, things that may have an erotic connotation to them. This sounds about right? Well, what if I told you that visual kei bands were already dressing like this well into the '90s? Visual kei bands were already on that bondage and fetish gear train and was riding it all the way into the 2000s. Seeing that there's proof of fans wanting to recreate these types of outfits from numerous pictures of visual kei cosplays at Hararjuku bridge, I think it's fair to assume that with visual kei's growth in popularity in pop culture, that fashion brands began to emulate these trends too. Since I've already dedicated most of this post to Toshiya, lets just stick with Dir en grey for the next example.   

Costumes for Dir en Grey's music video for "Garden." (1997)

You can watch the video here.
WARNING: There are glimpses of one of the guitarists wearing a Nazi armband in the  video.
I want to go on record and say that this is not cool or okay in any way.
Not a good look Dir en grey, not a good look.

You're looking at this and I bet you're like "What the heck is this mess? None of this is remotely Lolita or visually appealing." Well, keep your eyes on Toshiya (he's the one on the left). What is he wearing? It looks like a dress with a PVC bodice with buckles (or maybe corset lacing) going down the front with a tulle skirt or something. And is that a collar? I'll admit, this is a bit messy and no one should be labeling this outfit as Lolita. But do you think it has the proper elements to make a good Ero Lolita outfit? Still, no? 

Well, look at what we have here.

Is... is that a Meta JSK?
Is... is that a leather bodice... with buckles?!
Sheer material for the bottom half AND a collar?!

Say it isn't so!!

Right about now I can imagine you thinking "Well... that's Metamorphose. I mean, they always make weird things. Am I right? *forced laugh* Just because Metamorphose makes something doesn't mean it's for Lolitas. Remember that mechanic jumper? Yeah, remember that?!" Your right. Metamorphose has made some strange choices with the things they put out. But look at the JSK again. This time... *dramatic music playing in the background*... with a blouse underneath and a headdress!

It'd be pretty hard to say that this outfit isn't Lolita,
or isn't a good example of Ero Lolita for that matter.

Too much of a coincidence, don't you think?

°˖✧ 'Till next time