LBC: Lolita Designer You'd Like to Meet

This week's Lolita Blog Carnival theme once again plays a little bit on our emotions regarding our Lolita life. This week, we're supposed to share which Lolita designer we'd like to meet, for whatever reason, be it wanting to share a cup of tea with someone who seems like fun, or experiencing how Mr. Yan would do on an actual date. 

(Is he even a designer? Or just the big-money creepo who owns the business?)

Me, myself and I have decided that we would like to spend an afternoon in the company of lovely Alice and the Pirates' designer, Mitsuba! This lady of style created the brand who pulled me straight into a pile of frills in the first place, so that is one reason.

Secondly, take a closer look at the picture above. She's the picture of dream-like elegance, with her soft waves and impeccable though unusual eye-makeup. And pardon me, but is that a total of 4-5 piercings in her ear?

I think that whereas Maki and Asuka are absolutely adorable, and Misako Aoki is sweet as a french pastry, Mitsuba has a very interesting edge. Just like Alice and the Pirates, she has got the perfect balance down, between the feather-light beauty of Baby the Stars Shine Bright, and the darker, punk-like elements, that remind me a little bit of Atelier Pierrot.

 The result is the image of a rebellious princess, or Alice, if she found out that she were the long lost daughter of Captain Hook and decided to embrace that. 

If I got to spend an afternoon with her, I'd love to ask her, what dream her style is supposed to bring to life. How does she see herself, and what does she hope to pass on to the girls, who fall for her prints?

How did she fall in love with Lolita?

 Did she have an ITA-phase? After all the designers are some of the ultimate trendsetters in Lolita. Becoming an accomplished Lolita takes hard work and dedication, and sometimes we need to be reminded of that. I would love to see, if the designers started out as newbies in lacemonster dresses, like most of us did!

(Hopefully we could have a good laugh at this. Maybe she would even pull out an old photoalbum covered in stickers? Haha!)

Last but not least, I would like to applaud her on pretty much creating a substyle of her own, within Lolita fashion. "Alice and the Pirates", her hard work, has without a doubt given Pirate Lolita a boost in popularity, at least as a classy "Con-Look", and revolutionized Classic Lolita as a substyle.

Without Alice and the Pirates, I think Classic Lolita would mostly consist of flowers, monochromes and cream colors. I love the image of the young victorian lady as well, but Alice and the Pirates added an element of adventure and vibrancy, without losing the mature look. 

What Mitsuba understood, I think, is what the story of "Alice" that Lolitas love so much, was really about.

Young girls do not just want to sit quietly in a corner and read a book, do embroidery and play the piano. While all of that is fine and dandy, we Lolitas seek the magic and wonder of this world. 

We want to explore and discover! Many of us are a part of Lolita because we dream about something exciting and grand, so we try to become the people this would happen to, through our clothing.

To me, Lolita would definetely not have been the same without Alice and the Pirates. I would probably still have been here, but my style would have been different. 

My entire "Lolita world-view" would probably have been different. 

More "Cinderella", less "Rapunzel", if you know what I'm getting at.

So, thank you, ms. Mitsuba! Thank you, for adding a bit of "curiosity" to our "cute"!

Check out the entries below to see who else deserves a big hug and a fruit basket.

Poppy Noir

Helado de Cereza

The Bloody Tea Party

Hello Batty

52 Weeks: My Favorite Lolita Print

This week's topic in my battle with the "52 Weeks Blogging Challenge" is number 49, my favorite Lolita print! I didn't even have to think about my answer for this one. I think most Lolitas have a dream print, a print or a dress that has a special place in their heart for some reason or another. 

For me, that print is Alice and the Pirate's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Specifically, in the navy colorway. Even more specifically, JSK II. It is not without reason that this JSK, in this colorway, usually go for a couple hundred dollars on the secondhand market. This dress is a dream, and the first dress that I fell head over heels in love with when I first got into Lolita.

It's like the dress is almost glowing. The pale pink of the ribbon compliments the dark, elegant midnight blue, with just the right touch of purple. The color of the dress itself is like a summer night sky, and the damask pattern in the background adds a depth to it, that to me makes it seem almost other-worldly.

The print itself is beautifully detailed. The grey shadowing on the swirly windows is beautifully done, the roses climbing in the windows. Their pink color matches the pink butterflies, whose shiny wings stand out so lifelike against the background and are spaced out just the right amount. 

The ribbon brings out the highlights on their wings too!

I know I sound like a crazy-in-love tween schoolgirl..
But this dress has everything that I need in a garment! This style is the one that I have been falling for over and over again since, and this particular dress was part of what pulled me over the threshold and into Lolita-dom, along with the people who was, and still are, my greatest inspirations.

I love a print that tells a story, has beautiful artwork, and is in bright and romantic, but mature colors. I love the combination of pale and somber colors.

What is your favorite print, and how has it affected your overall Lolita style?

New Release: BTSSB/AATP and Disney Collab!

Picture from baby-aatp.blogspot.com

Recently, Baby the Stars Shine Bright and Alice and the Pirates did a collaboration with none other than Disney and their Alice in Wonderland franchise in celebration of Disney's 110th Birthday! I know it might not exactly be news to everybody anymore, but since I love especially Alice and the Pirate's take on this collaboration, I thought I'd talk a little about it anyway! I would say this series is pretty good for people with slightly larger measurements, but the pieces are still a little on the short side. 

This collab was released exclusively in Japan, but that doesn't prevent you from keeping an eye on Mbok and Yahoo!Japan anyway, or taking contact to a Shopping Service! 

Now, onto the pieces!

Picture from babyssb.co.jp

Baby the Stars Shine Bright has released a jumperskirt, a one piece (Though only for sale at Disneystore Japan) as well as a very simple skirt for this print. The print is available in colorways appropriately named after characters from Alice in Wonderland: March Hare (ivory), Cheshire (pink), Alice (sax), Queen of Hearts (red) and Hatter (black). The little scenes of the borderprints are printed in color so they look a bit like stills from the animated movie. In a sense I think it is very appropriate for a collaboration like this, but I'm not a big fan of the look, as the colors of the print doesn't match well with every colorway, even if they have adjusted the background color a little bit. The greenish background color of the print looks especially out of place in the pink colorway! My favorite colorway is the red one. I think that the brown accents of the print contrasts compliments the deep red color, and the beautiful design of the print on the bodice and upper-skirt part is not as washed out as on the pink one. I love the striped straps on the JSK and the little charm on the satin bow! (It is though a little unfortunate how not-symmetric the waist-bow looks)
I don't have much to say about the OP. I find it to be a very classic Baby the Stars Shine Bright design, though I do love how it looks like you're wearing a blouse under the OP! The Peter Pan collar is adorable and I like the bustle at the back of the skirt-part. It is quite OTT, but in an old-school sort of way.

Picture from babyssb.co.jp

Alice and the Pirates' has released 2 JSK's and a simple skirt for this series. One of the Jumperskirts, however, can only be purchased from Disneystore Japan. Their take on the collaboration looks, though drawn in the same style as the animated movie, a bit more like storybook illustrations as they chose to leave out the colors. The crowns are a very beautiful touch, and impressively detailed, and they seem to me to be classic Alice and the Pirates',which I personally love! I think the icy-blue colorway of the JSK on AATP's own website is very interesting and contrasts well with the use of black corset-lacing and ribbon-detailing on the bottom of the JSK, though the deep navy colorway comes in as a close second. I'm not a big fan of the rounded cut of the bodice, however. I think it looks a bit awkward on some of the photos, though it might look better in person. The little striped bow is a very cute and fitting detail! For the Disneystore JSK I think the bustled skirt is very cute, though I'm not a fan of the lace on the bodice. It is a very elegant cut, though.

Picture from Disneystore.co.jp

While is doesn't look like Baby or AATP released any specifically Lolita accessories for this line, they did collaborate with Disney and a company called Crystal Ball to make a line of pouches, totes and wallets in an Alice in Wonderland style print (also only for sale at Disneystore Japan). Personally, I think they would have looked a lot better without the light-brown Crystal Ball logo and details (but I understand they have to put the logo somewhere), and of course with more frills!

Personally, I like Alice and the Pirate's version of the print better, and will definetely be keeping an eye out to see if I can find it on the second hand market! The crowns kind of sold it to me.

So, what are your thoughts on this collaboration? Are you gonna try and see if you can snatch a piece up somewhere too or is it not worth the trouble? 

AATP New Release: Cock Robin~Mother Goose~

I must admit, that when I saw the name of this series and then took a quick glance at the pieces, something did not seem to match up to me. Alice and the Pirate's new release named "Cock Robin~Mother Goose~" is a very dark series that is inspired by the old nursery rhyme "Who Killed Cock Robin?" or just "Cock Robin", a rhyme apparently attributed to the imaginary author Mother Goose. I had never heard of this rhyme before, but after reading it, I understand the feel of this series much better. The rhyme is surprisingly macabre!
With this release, Alice and the Pirates stay in their niche of making prints inspired by old litterature, though it's the first time I've seen a print inspired by a nursery rhyme!

Reservations started this Friday, October 19th. 

 This series is a collection of goodies for both people who enjoy boystyle and lolitas! Also, I think that according to the sizes, a lot of taller and plus-sized lolitas are gonna be very happy with this series! I might just hunt a piece down myself!

Your choices of colorways are bordeaux, navy and black. 

In this series we've got two JSK's, just named Jumper Skirt I and II, and a corset skirt. Pictured above is JSK I, which is my personal favorite piece of the series because of the nice, corset-like fit (it even has corset-like panels!) and because of the skirt part! I love how the skirt is ruched up a little bit. It is a very elegant detail. Also, I like the glittering chiffon-layers at the bottom (though the material looks a little.. stretchy to me?) I think the layering at the bottom has a bit of a gothic feel to it and matches well with the Lacy Fairytale blouse (see below). JSK II has a more simple skirt, with the chiffon-layering at the bust area instead. To me it looks like the neckline sits a little low and the design is too simple for my taste with the only detail being the layering at the neckline, chiffon trimming at the hem and a ribbon around the waist. Personally, I'd go for JSK I because of the elegant cut!

The series has two blouses, and I find this one in particular to be very unusual and interesting! At first I thought the see-through lace-sleeves looked a bit odd (I think they'd look much better on a person!) but when you remove the cravat you see a very charming sweetheart line on the bust, which I think kind of ties in the lace-parts of the dress and looks very charming! At first I didn't like the blouse much, but it's growing on me! The other blouse is a little odd with the one ruffle running down the front of the blouse, but I think the finished product looks a lot better than the drawing did. It would look pretty good in the boystyle coord!

Now for some goodies for the boystyle lovers! Alice and the Pirates have released a pair of short pants and a printed vest for this series. The pants are the ones pictured above! I think the cuffs of the pants look very cute, though a tad oversized. They have kind of a punky feel to them because of the belt details, which I think gives them a nice edge. I guess they could look very cute in a coord with the awesome vest to make the top-part of the coord match the busyness of the cuffs, because as it is now, it looks a little unbalanced to me. Also, I think it's a little strange that the pants have Alice and the Pirates written on the butt! It reminds me of those sweatpants that have "Sexy words" printed on the back. Is that just me? All in all, I think the boystyle pieces have the potential to make an awesome and flashy kodona-type coord!

The accessories for this series include a cameo-adorned bow, a very pretty headdress (I like the use of feathers to match the rhyme!), a tie (see below) and a simple rosary necklace, but instead of socks, we get printed tights! I think the tights are very unusual in themselves, as we usually see socks and OTK socks in any new series. The print is a simple ribbon running down the back of the tights, and with little crosses up the front. The print is very crisp and incredibly detailed! The tights are available in black and white.

Since close-ups of the print have yet to be released, the tie is what gives us the best indication of what the print looks like up close! It looks like frames or gravestones with verses from the rhyme written on them, and signs above a fairytale or forest-like landscape and a lodge among the trees. The print looks very detailed and gives off the feel of old book illustrations.

I think we have reason to look forward to some very elegant boystyle and Gothic lolita coords with this series! And I look forward to seeing if they continue on this poetry and nursery rhyme inspired route.

What do you guys think of this series? What other poetry or rhymes would you like to see turned into a print?

All pictures in this article belong to Alice and the Pirates/Baby the Stars Shine Bright