Photoshoot: Memory of a Broken Dollhouse

The other afternoon my photographer once again pulled me out of the pleasantly cool confinements of my house to do a photoshoot with me. In full Lolita. During the hottest danish summer I can remember.

Of course I went for it, threw on layer upon layer, grabbed my parasol and my fan and went for it.

The funny thing is, I actually felt pleasantly cool under my handheld shade and selfmade breeze! He was the melty one!

I picked out my absolute favorite pictures of the batch to show you guys. These are the result of a fun afternoon in an abandoned warehouse. I'm very happy with how they turned out, and I hope you guys will like them almost as much!

Coordinate:

Dress: BtSSB
Bonnet: BtSSB
Shoes: Bodyline
Everything else is offbrand!

LBC: Things I Could Never See Myself Wearing in Lolita

I'm back on the Lolita Blog Carnival carousel with this week's topic, which is all about things in Lolita fashion that I could never, ever see myself wearing. I'm into a lot of strange Lolita trends, and some of it is stuff that's grown on me as time has gone on, but there are still a couple of things that're just not my thing, and probably never will be.

1. Baby Toy Prints

Rocking horses, building blocks, rattles. The list goes on, and I'm saying "Thank you, but no thank you!"
I like dollhouse inspired prints, and stuffed bears are cute, but these are also collectors items and not just childrens' toys. I honestly do not think that AP made their "Dreamy Baby Room" print with ageplay in mind, as some people obviously do find baby stuff cute in a very innocent way, but I'm just not really feeling it. I'm not really fond of babies, either, so that may have something to do with it.

2. Juliette et Justine's Portrait Prints

This is at the completely opposite end of the spectrum compared to the "Too Much!" AP baby prints, I know. But I've just never been a fan, and this is coming from someone who adores classical art, have and want several to adorn my own walls! And I would love these dresses so, so much if the dresses themselves matched the oppulence of the gorgeous artwork! Too often I find that painting dresses, especially Juliette et Justine's dresses, make the entire design all about the painting, and forgets everything else. There are no excuisite details, no pretty sleeves, barely any lace.. Not even an interesting cut! The painting stands completely alone. It's too simple and frankly lazy for my taste.

3. Animal Ear Headbands (No, not even Brand!)

With this, I mean the actual headbands, or clips, or other "stand alone" fluffy animal ear and tail accessories. It's a complicated category, as I do like certain animal ear themed things, like the pearl cat ears that were popular at one point. But it wasn't made to look like costume ears! I think hoodies with animal ears are cute, but in that context, they're more of a "design detail" than costume-y. I think they're sort of cute in themed easter coords, but I couldn't wear them myself. It may be because I were "brought up" as a Lolita with animal ears as a big "no-no!", and part of an ingrained embarrasment from my otaku "Nyan~nyan!" days. I wore cat ears on a daily basis. Oh, the memories..
By the way, adding bunny ears to something doesn't automatically make it cute! Just throwing it out there.

Apart from the ones above, I'm hard pressed to find something that I couldn't see myself wearing. I was thinking about simple Classic Lolita pieces, and Gothic Lolita, but I do find those to be aesthetically pleasing, and who knows where Lolita is gonna take me in the future? I was also considering plastic jewellery, but while I may not wear it with Lolita, I do want a bunch of it for my everyday wardrobe!

What could you never see yourself wearing in Lolita? Do you have any boundaries, or do you just love it all, from parfait rings to gleaming silver crosses?

Want to see what other Lolitas stay far away from? Check out the links below!

What the Fluff
Under the Parasol
The Literary Lolita
New Vogue Children

Review: Clobbaonline and Krad Lanrete's "Marie Antoinette"!

Back when I first started out in Lolita (4 or so years ago) I made some of my first purchases from Taobao, through Clobbaonline. I immediately liked this reseller, as the communication was extremely personal, the service was excellent and Martin was always incredibly helpful. He always went that extra mile to make sure that my measurements for my custom made garments had been taken correctly, and let me know if something looked off to him (I really had no idea what I was doing..)

However, that was many years ago. How's the service today? Here´s my experience!

I made my order for the Krad Lanrete "Le Portrait de Marie" JSK (Clobbaonline still has a couple in stock) with a matching bonnet on the 14th of June, through their order form system, and my order was confirmed on the 16th. I received an apology for the late response, due to "replies on weekends being slow". That's fine, imo. I received the price for shipping and was invoiced, and I paid right away and asked if everything was already in stock, or if the bonnet was made-to-order.
The next day I received an email from Martin, letting me know that we would have to wait for my (pre-made) bonnet to arrive from Krad Lanrete. However, my JSK was ready to be shipped out.
And so I waited.

It took 10 days (including weekends) for my bonnet to arrive, but as soon as it arrived, the order was dispatched. I sent an email or two along the way, checking to see how everything was coming along, and Martin always responded within 24 hours. Today, it finally arrived! Talk about slow shipping and customs! But that is of course not Martin's fault.

Clobbaonline ratings:

Communication: 5/5 ♤'s.
The communication is easily understandable, personal, and Martin still goes that extra mile to make sure that everything is completely clear. 

Ordering System/Site Navigation: 04/05 ♤'s.

The order form is fine and easy to fill out. However, I always prefer a shopping cart system. It's just quicker than having to fill out size, quantity etc. Especially when you're making a bigger order than mine.

Packaging: 5/5 ♤'s.

My dress was wrapped up in a cardboard box, which was wrapped in bubblewrap, and all of that was wrapped in plastic. No issues what so ever! The most sturdy packaging I've ever tried!

All in all, Clobbaonline's service is as always excellent. From me, they get a 5 out of 5 in the end. Being a reseller, they are of course a little more expensive than purchasing through a Taobao SS (which is also possible from Krad Lanrete. You can find my list of SS's at the bottom of the page here) but it's worth the price.

Here we've got the bonnet and the dress out of the bag. Let's start with the dress!

This is the dress straight out of the plastic. The fabric is nice and smooth, and the color is true to the photos.

The quality of the lace all around the dress is alright, but not at all brand quality. I'd give it a "meh". Not bad, but not that good either. 

The bows are nice enough. Soft. Not the same kind of grosgrain that BtSSB uses. These are more smooth and silky in texture. One of them looks crooked in the photo, but that was easily corrected.

I LOVE the print. It's pretty crisp, the colors are more vibrant than in my photos, and the attention to detail is exquisite. They used 4 paintings, which are lined up on the front, and in the same way on the back of the dress. The portraits are of course a little more grainy than the rest, but that is to be expected. Paintings are not HQ photographs!

I love the fan. It really shows how intricate the details of this print are. I might be drooling a little.. a little.

This is the inside of the dress. As you can see, it's pretty much fully lined. The craftmanship is great! I found no loose threads at all, so thumbs up for that.

According to the label, it's even machine washable, as long as you're careful. Good to know that the print doesn't run!

That's it for the dress!

As you can see, the inside of the bonnet is lined with a very soft type of chiffon, which also make up the bows and the ribbons that you tie beneath your chin. The bows are well made and even. I like the design of the bonnet, where the lining extends like a stretchy cap on the back of the head. It looks good when worn, and helps keep the bonnet in place a little.

The lace quality is about the same as on the dress. Pretty enough, but not something to write home about. It serves it's purpose and looks very good!

All in all, this is my ratings for the Krad Lanrete dress and bonnet!

Quality: 4/5 ♤'s

As lace is pretty important in Lolita, it's enough to drag my ratings down a spade. However, everything else is just fine! The fabric is gorgeous.

Craftmanship: 5/5 ♤'s.

No issues. Everything is tidy and even. 

Print: 4/5 ♤'s.

A little crookedly drawn in places, but not that noticeable. It's very crisp, detailed and overall gorgeous! 

All in All: 4,5 ♤'s!

I'm very, very satisfied, and I wouldn't hesitate to purchase something from Krad Lanrete again. It's just as good as what I've owned from Infanta or Rose Melody, in my opinion.

Finally, I couldn't wait and I had to make a coordinate right away! This was my outfit today.

What do you guys think? 

I hope you're enjoying your summer, or your winter, as much as I am! Until next time~

Review: Cool2Day Wig

And I added another wig to my collection. Of course I did! I fell so in love with the first one, and this one was just sitting there, begging to me with that cheap price. I decided to try my luck. Even if the general notion in Lolita is that "You get what you pay for" (which is for the most part true! I learned that the hard way!) I have heard enough good stories about Taobao wigs from asia. I was not dissapointed!

This particular wig is a Cool2Day wig, which I got for around 10$ from the ebay store "Makeyourdreamcometrue", which has 98% positive reviews. I bought the wig around 2 weeks ago and it was shipped out almost immediately. It was estimated to arrive, with free shipping, 2 weeks from now!

I believe that particular ebay store is Cool2Days own, as they were addressed as such on the letter that came with the wig. However, you can't be a 100% sure, I suppose, as they have a pretty small selection of wigs compared to the official Cool2Day website. The wig arrived pretty much unprotected in a grey plastic envelope, but nothing had happened to it during transport. I got a free wigcap, which I suppose is pretty standard, but a welcome gesture in my book.

As soon as I took the wig out of the bag, I was in love! The price was a third of my Bodyline wig, but the quality is so much better! It's positively silky! The listing said that the wig was supposed to be made out of 100% japanese kanekalon, and I could believe that! It's that good! The wig, however, has about the same amount of shine to it as my Bodyline wig. Which is not that much in my book. It's thicker than my Bodyline wig at the top.

In certain light settings, the color is pretty close to the original photo.

This is the netting. It's very close, and it's very easy to adjust the wig size. My only complaint would be that there are a lot of loose threads to snip. 

This is me wearing the wig. Once again, excuse my no-make up face! I'm not that pretty on my days off.
Back to the wig. It has the natural wavyness of the photo, and is also a decent length, even if I'm a billion times bigger than the average asian woman. The wig is a little tight, and definetely not as stretchy as the Bodyline one. I had to pull a bit to make it cover my wig cap. I think that might also be the reason that the wig is a lot thinner on me. There's a larger area that it needs to cover, headwise. It's definetely wearable, though! 

This is the wig in direct sunlight! To me, it looks just fine! There's a shinyness to it, but that's to be expected with false hair.

All in all, I'm very satisfied! I'd go as far as to give it a 4 spades out of 5!

♤♤♤♤

Part of me kind of wants to bump it up to a 5, but I can't. Not for me in particular. On me, the wig could have been thicker and more stretchy, and there were still loose threads. But that's just me being picky. The wig was more than worth the price, and I wouldn't hesitate to get many more Cool2Day wigs!

A Danish Lolita Oasis: WONDERWHO

A while ago, a girl in my local community shared some unbelievable photos with the rest of us. She had found a small shop, with lace, bags shaped like books and hats pilling up everywhere, and petticoats literally hanging from the ceiling like fluffy clouds, among princess-like birdcages. It seemed like the most perfect fairytale shop, and the entire community was ecstatic. Everybody agreed that we'd have to make it the main attraction for our next meet-up!

And so we did! And we got (or, spend) more than we had went in for!

Everybody else were busy with vacations or work, so the turn-up was only the two lovely ladies in the picture, and myself. We started out by getting tea and lunch at a cute little café. We talked and took questions from other curious visitors, before taking to the streets. We had to walk a mile or so to get to WONDERWHO, but we had fun along the way, and looked into various other cute shops. We had looked forward to visiting Lisbeth Dahl's shop in Aarhus, but sadly it closed a short while ago.

Our spirits were lifted as soon as we arrived in the shop.

We were met with a pink rack of adorable 50's and pin-up inspired dresses, with a couple of interesting cardigans inbetween, and the most gorgeous Classic lolita dress hidden among them.

The petticoats hung from the ceiling all over the shop! They were all so soft and fluffy! They reminded me a lot of my Victoriangirldress petticoat, but of slightly better quality. 

 They had this really pretty "Grimm's Fairy Tales" bag. If I had more red in my wardrobe, I might just have gotten it for myself. Also, that vintage bikini. Cute!

There were so much chiffon and lace everywhere I could barely see straight. They also had plenty of loose hanging, earthy colored dresses with uneven hems, perfectly fit for mori-girl, and in the back of the store, a dark and elegant section of gothic finery made my heart flutter and almost want to go gothic again! I think it actually managed to hijack one of the other girls to the dark side. I, myself, fell in love with a pair of winged eyelashes for just a moment. I may have to go back and buy them.

We spend about an hour in the store, chatting with the owner. She's a really cool lady, who was very excited to see Lolitas in her store! She knew about the fashion, and told us how she wanted to expand her selection of Lolita clothes. The only problem was, that nobody but Lolitas were really interested in buying them. She showed us a couple of different dresses, personal favorites of hers, that she thought we would like, and we tried on dress after dress. We told her about how our local community had fallen head over heels in love with her boutique. She was so happy, and ensured us that if we sent her a message in advance of our next visit, she would make sure to be prepared with plenty of Lolita goods for us to dive into.

We were all smiles when we left, shopping bags in hand. Two of us purchased very pretty JSK's, and one of us left with a frilly Lisbeth Dahl parasol.

This was the piece I bought!

It's a JSK of the brand "Red Queen's Black Legion", a Lolita brand from China. The dress is made of a deliciously soft type of fabric. It's very detailed and ruffly, and the lace is of great quality. I've had to snip a couple of loose threads and it's very short, so I will have to add a couple more ruffles at the bottom or wear an underskirt, but apart from that, I really like it! I got it at half price off too.

I added the gold buttons at the front myself, because I thought it was missing something, and I had them left over from another project.

All in all, I'm just so excited that we have a place that cater to Lolita tastes here in Denmark, and with such brilliant customer service too! If you're curious, you can check them out here. They also have a Facebook page!

I may be going back soon for a cotton candy pink 50's dress I tried on. And probably a lot more.

(Oh, and I wish I'd taken a proper outfit photo! One might be coming up later, as we had a nice lady take a photo of us all, that she promised to send us in an email later! Until then you'll just have to live with the top photo. It's me in the pink oldschool coordinate.)

LBC: A Coord Inspired by your Favorite Movie

This week's Lolita Blog Carnival post is another one that encourages to think out of the box. Not every movie is exactly Lolita material! Mine isn't for instant.

I had to think long and hard about what my favorite movie is, since my taste in movies is so broad. I enjoy a lot of different movies, from historical ones, to creepy ones, to action movies and comedy. I settled on two very different movies, but one was a lot more difficult to do than the other. How would I do a "The Fault in our Stars" coordinate?
So, I settled for "The Avengers" and "Iron Man" instead. For these it was a tie, but they have a lot in common. Especially the brilliant Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.

"It is I! The king of New York!"

I would have done a coordinate with red and yellow armor if I could. That would have been epic! But I decided to celebrate the character of Tony Stark instead of Iron Man. It was a lot of fun mixing and matching the little details of Tony Stark's very polished but practical wardrobe, to find what could be succesfully Loli-fied. I wanted to keep the practical, raw vibe.

I chose Victorian Maiden's Box Pleated JSK as the center piece because of it's polished simplicity. It's a very fitted JSK, which resembles the sleeveless t-shirts that Tony favors. The box pleated skirt is elegant, but practical, and balances the badassness of the simple leather jacket. In his everyday wear Tony's outfits are very understated. To get a little sparke in there, I played up the arc reactor elements. The tights were chosen as a hint to the Arc Reactor energy, for instance. The boots are practical, as close as I could get to sneakers, and also bring an air of power to the ensemble. You could totally kick some ass in these!

Do I even have to explain the "Dora" watch? If I do, what are you waiting for?! "Iron Man 3" came out a billion years ago!

Jokes aside, I hope you like the coordinate. I like it a lot myself. It's very subtle and elegant, but also good for a mature casual day.

Want to see how the other participants Lolified their favorite movies? 

Check out the links below!

Breidholt

Review: Bodyline Wig 056

Recently I purchased Bodyline's W056 wig. It's my first wig, so I'm very excited, as I've wanted one for years and years! This is a detailed description of my experience with this wig as a first time wig buyer.
Bodyline's service was as usual fine. However, they didn't ship out my order until last Tuesday, and I ordered the wig two weeks ago. They skipped a Tuesday, even if I got my tracking number before then.

I bought the wig in the "Mediumbrown: 8" colorway. The pictures taken inside are not true to color, because of my camera. I will, however, provide a better photo taken outside in sunlight.

The wig arrived in regular netting and a plastic bag, in a thick plastic envelope. It kept it's shape nicely enough.

This is the wig straight out of the bag. The curls are nice and tight, though not as small as in the picture. The texture is a little synthetic and rough, and definetely not soft like real hair, but nice enough.  It's not particularly shiny.

A neat little detail, to make it look like it's actually your real hair, is the skincolor at the top of the head.

A big minus, however, is that the wig is really, really thin. You can clearly see the wig cap when holding the wig up like this. They did not use a lot of material for this wig! Miraculously, you cannot see it on the back of my head when it's worn.

This is the netting on the inside. Pretty standard clasps and all.

And here's two pictures of me wearing the wig. I hope you can excuse my no-make up face. As you can see, it's not terribly shiny. The top picture is pretty much true to color. The color is pretty accurate to the provided photo on their website, I think. My head is also pretty ginormous (one of the biggest in my highschool class, back in the day) so I think almost anybody could wear the wig.

All in all, I'd give this wig 3 out of 5 spades.

♤♤♤

Two are detracted for the synthetic feel and how thin the wig is, on top. I'm impressed with the fit and the quality for the price. I'd definetely order wigs from Bodyline again.