Hunting with Cash, for Beauty and Dreams

Finding a title for this post was very difficult. Almost as difficult as adequately describing that hardcore mission that is "Lolita Shopping" on the internet. I can only speak for the internet, as I've yet to actually try going for a shopping spree in a real Lolita shop, and I imagine that the experiences are of course entirely different. In real life, you have the posibility of falling in love with a piece because of how it looks at you when you're trying it on. On the internet, you have to use your imagination.
This post will be about a Lolita-related epiphany I had as late as yesterday.

Recently I received a rather neat paycheck, which I decided was big enough for me to spoil myself by purchasing a Lolita dress. The secondhand market is huge, and I knew that I would be able to hunt down at least one of the dresses I've been pilling up on my wishlist, or as I like to call it, "the prediction of my future wardrobe". And true enough, stalking Mbok, Yahoo JP, the egl-comm-sales and Facebook groups brought me across multiple dresses from my wishlist, from Day Dream Carnival, to the Cameo Print JSK, the Secret Between Alice and the Clocktower.. Even Cinderella Jewelry, which I've been wanting in that specific colorway for half a decade!

However, I was surprised to find myself in doubt. None of the dresses that I've been pining for in years and years really made me want to press "Buy". I knew I should want them (a silly thought, because who're really telling me I have to?) but I didn't feel any real excitement or glee at the prospect of owning and wearing these pieces. I scrutinized the exquisite details, the lush fabrics, the flattering designs, and even if I really, truly appreciated it all, I felt nothing. And I was so confused. 

I have a tendency towards being a bit of a Scrooge, but it's not like I didn't have the money, or was falling out of love with Lolita all together. I just wasn't passionately in love.

I browsed the internet a little more, and went back and forth between the auctions and sales posts I had bookmarked with each of the dresses I had found that were also on my wishlist, or knew dresses I found that I kind of liked. However, none of them spoke to me, even if I stared at them for long, long period of time.

And suddenly, late at night, as I was digging my way through Mbok after a long day of work and studies, I felt a sudden pang in my chest, and I was in love. I was in love with a dress that I'd never thought I was ever gonna like.

I had seen the dress with the silly name "Fall in Love with the Sweet Magic of Scent" for sale before, multiple times. I'd looked it over time and time again on Closet Child's website, and every time I'd shrugged and closed the tab again. But I was completely and utterly lost, all of a sudden. This was it. The ivory colorway just displayed the details of the print so perfectly well. It complimented the delicate pastels of the print. The lace and gold details were a sprinkle of magic and richness to an otherwise simple garment.
I could see myself wearing this thing, twirling around my bedroom, shimmering and glittering like a princess! 

And suddenly it struck me, that this was what Lolita is all about. This is what one is supposed to feel when choosing a dream dress, in my opinion. An appreciation of beauty that makes you smile, makes your heart beat a little quicker, and before everything else, a piece that you can see yourself wearing and feeling beautiful in.

 The dress in itself is nothing special, in that it's not particularly rare or expensive.

It's a bit like when I purchased my "Alice's Doll House" piece. For some reasons, I see these dresses for sale all the time, except I'd only ever seen "Magic of Scent" in the blue and pink colorways. The other dresses on my wishlist are beautiful, lush and perfect in design and detail, and that's why I keep them there. I know I'd enjoy them, but they're not my dream pieces. My dream dresses seem pop up all of a sudden when surfing the internet. 

They grab a hold of me when I least expect it, and won't let me go. 

They fill me with that same passion that I felt when I found the first dream dress that secured my long lasting love for Lolita life.

What's my point?
Happiness in Lolita is not necessarily about saving up and hunting down a rare and expensive Lolita piece. That feeling is not something that you can bring about by sheer force of will. 

To some Lolitas it can, and will, come jumping out of nowhere in even the smallest of packages. 

LBC: What's Next On Your Lolita Wishlist?

Ooh~ I love dream topics! This week in the Lolita Blog Carnival tent we all get to fantasize a little bit about what we would like to buy next, if we had the cold cash 

(or the will to keep our wallet in our pockets until we'd saved up and hunted down that perfect piece)

I'm currently sitting in the dark of that antiquated little cabin that is my home, budgetting with trembling fingers on an online calculator, to figure out if I can afford to purchase this beautiful piece by Baby, The Stars Shine Bright!

The print is called "Memories of my First Soirée", and is jawdroppingly, deliciously gorgeous! I can almost hear the piano playing in the background and smell the overwhelming flowerscented perfume! (Even if I wouldn't wanna live in the Victorian era, a girl can always wear her dreams? That's one of the perks of Lolita for ya')

I love the unusual color combination. The pink and green is a lot more pronounced than you usually see when they're played up together. I think the clearly yellowish ivory might be a little difficult to coordinate, but I'll do my very best to make it work! Everything for a new dream piece, right?

If I don't succeed in acquiring this dress before it's gone, though, I'm the type that just jump on whatever I fall in love with. I think about it a lot first, but I don't hunt down a specific piece. My wishlist is long, and in Lolita, opportunities are gone quicker than a jumpy rabbit!

Now I'm curious. Do you guys tend to hunt down a specific piece, are you more of an impulse buyer, or are you more like me, somewhere in between?

Want to know what else is popular on the Lolita market right now? Check out the blogs below!

Toothless Tigers

Lolita Glamour

Buttcape

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Sweet and Simple

McDuff's Auditorium

Sidhe Banshee

Whimsical Adventures of Me

Armure de Rose

Alpine Heidi

Alice in Lolitaland

The Beautiful and Damned
Sleeping Sweets

Oh Velveteena
Lace Teapot
ImaPrincess
The Electric Carousel
Go, Go, Gorey

Spoon and Fork

Very Impressed Closet Child Review!

So this last Friday I decided to treat myself to a really good deal off of Closet Child's online shop. I haven't bought anything of Closet Child before, just because I haven't really loved anything they put up on their site before (I'm pretty picky with my purchases), but for some reason I just fell instantly in love with this specific print, Alice's Doll House, when I was browsing their website. Do you know that feeling where you can just immediately imagine yourself wearing a dress? This was it for me!
I had to have it!

I know that it is generally recognized that Closet Child is a decent secondhand seller, but I think it is important that people keep coming out with reviews now and then so the information is up to date, but I also wanted to share this experience, just because I was genuinely impressed with them!

As usual, I'm gonna give one total rating, based off individual ratings, which in this case will be in these categories! My rating is a number out of 5.

Communication
Shipping
Ordering Procedure
Website

Product

And then a total rating.
As the dress is not actually a Closet Child product, I'm not gonna do a review of my dress as such, but I will let you know what I think of the state of the dress, compared to how Closet Child rated it. The dress was cheap, but also got a rating of 2/5 on their website. I've heard that Closet Child tends to be very nitpicky, and the tiniest of spots on the lace will be enough to pull down the rating a lot. 

I guess I'll have to see for myself!

So, here we go!

7th of March
I made my purchase at some time before noon, danish time, and received an automatic confirmation email, with plenty of information in easily understandable english. It told me that they'd check up on whether or not my item was actually still in stock, and then they'd get back to me. As Closet Child has many physical storefronts, it is understandable that they need to check if the item has already been sold in a physical store. As the 7th of March was a Friday, I didn't expect them to get back to me before some time next week. 

9th of March
I noticed that I used the wrong email address when ordering from them. I didn't use my paypal email, which I was sure could cause some trouble. Oops! I sent them an email letting them know I made the mistake, and put in plenty of information for them so that they could identify my order, including item, order number etc. 

11th of March

Closet Child gets back to me really early in the morning, letting me know that my order was in stock, and they've already invoiced me (on the wrong email!), but in the email it tells me that if I want to pay from a different email, I can do that. The information about how to proceed is easily understandable. I pay for my dress, including the information they ask for.
Right after that, I leave, as I have to get to my lecture of the day. Around an hour or so passes, and I open my computer before my lecture starts, and wow! An email tells me that Closet Child has received my payment, it is confirmed, they apologize for not getting to my email sooner and.. hold on.. my package has been shipped, and I can easily track it with my tracking number! All of this within a few hours after them telling me that my dress was still available!

12th of March

My dress is in Denmark already! It's going so fast that it's unreal!

So, all in all, I'm ecstatic when it comes to Closet Child's service.

Communication: ♠♠♠♠

Not perfect grammar or anything, but very easily understandable! No issues at all!

Shipping: ♠♠♠♠♠

Fast and easy. I didn't have to lift a finger. They use EMS!

Ordering Procedure: ♠♠♠

If you have a guide to help you through, it's an easy to use, standard shopping cart system. It's in japanese, though. 

Remember to check your email if you use paypal, and follow the instructions!

Website: ♠♠♠♠♠

No problems what so ever. Easy to navigate. Everything has a category and is in place. It seems to update very quickly when people purchase something. I couldn't find my dress as soon as I'd purchased it, at least!

So far, so good! 

From here and on, it was up to the danish postal service, and this is where things slowed down a little bit, but not a lot, actually. It arrived at my post office on Friday, and I picked it up today!

The dress in clear plastic, straight out of the box.

The dress came in a nice, big cardboard box. No dents or anything. The dress in itself was put in a clear plastic envelope, and had apparently been tapped to the bottom of the cardboard box.
The tape had let go, however. Or else it was the customs people who had taken the dress out of the box to examine it.
As soon as I opened the box and laid eyes upon the dress, neatly folded in it's plastic bag, I knew this could not go wrong.

Even if the dress looked very, very sad and wrinkly on their website, I thought a good iron and a little love could fix it right back up. It turned out even better than that, as I hope you can see from my photo!
Straight out of the bag, the dress was ready to wear. No wrinkles. Nothing. The dress is perfect! Whatever made them give it a 2/5 rating, I have not been able to find.
I wish I'd saved the Closet Child stockphoto so that I could show you the vast difference between that and what I actually received.

My rating:

Product: ♠♠♠♠♠
Obviously better than the website showed, and great for the price!

Closet Child's Total Rating: 4,5 out of 5 spades!

This was the most pleasant experience I've ever had while shopping for Lolita clothes, and I'd recommend it to anybody! I hope they make a separate english order form. That's the only thing I could reasonably ask for them to improve on. I'd never expect them to get fluent in english.

I hope you found my review to be useful!
(And now I'm off to stare some more on that new dress of mine!)

LBC: 1 Piece, 4 Seasons

This week's Lolita Blog Carnival was a great practice session if one was a little bit stuck in the co-ord department. Also, it gave me a chance to play around with Polyvore, which is always fun!

For my 1 piece, I chose a dress which has no seasonal "vibe" to it as such, but I wanted something that was not plain and easy to work with, either. Therefore, I went with Baby the Stars Shine Bright's "Kitty Kitty Rhapsody" print! 

(I'm a sucker for cats... I need that print in my wardrobe at some point!)

Fall Coordinate

For the fall coordinate, I wanted to play up the cream aspects of the print, with just a little bit of the pale pink thrown in there as accent colors. With that in mind, and also kitty cats, I chose the fawn fur, which again gave me the chance to add in some darker fall colors. I think the fawn fur nudged me in a more outdoor-sy direction, so I went for a pair of comfy looking victorian boots and a hat that resembles a victorian riding hat. Perfect for a walk in the forest! All in all, I think it turned out very classy and very different from how I usually see this dress coordinated. 

Spring Coordinate

For spring, I thought it would be most appropriate to play up the gentle pink color! And what goes better with gentle pink than chiffon and princess themes? Instead of white, I decided to go with cream, as it suits the print more. The sheer tights with little polka dots and the sheer collar of the blouse adds a princess-like feel to the coordinate. I went with a bonnet and flowers because of the romance. The cat ear headbands could be used along with the flower clips, if bonnets are not really your thing.

Summer Coordinate

For summer, I really wanted to make the hot pink details of the print pop! And when I found the hat, I just had to go in kind of a sailor-ish direction. What I had in mind for this coord, was a nice walk along the harbor, eating icecream, eating lunch out of a picnic basket and enjoying the sun and smell of the ocean. Very much the danish summer for you! 

I should have added in a pair of cat-eye sunglasses, now that I think about it.

Winter Coordinate

For winter, it is all about fluffy snowball kittens. I wanted to make this coordinate as fluffy and snowy as possible, without resorting to cat-paw mittens. I chose a soft cutsew instead of a blouse, because I wanted a cozy coordinate as opposed to "formal". For extra warmt, I added in the bolero. We're still in the princess-like department, as you can see from the ribbons, pearls and lace. I wouldn't recommend walking on slippery surfaces in those boots. They're purely for decorative purposes.
Oh, and the snowflake is a pendant! How cute is that!?


This week's theme was a lot of fun! It was very interesting, making a single print that might seem a bit "closed off", work in a bunch of different coordinates with very different themes, color schemes and "weather conditions".

Still stuck on how to make "that dress" work for the upcoming spring? Check out these blogs for inspiration!

Elegant Poupée

Breidholt

Vanilla's Traumfabrik
Whimsical Adventures
Wearable Magic
Poppy Noir
Helado de Cereza
New Vogue Children
Electric Carousel
Pretty Little Habits
The Bloody Tea Party

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?