One of the most memorable lines from the Japanese Fashion panel run by Martha (of Moss Garden) last Otakon was her comment while explaining the main source of Dolly Fashion items in Japan:
They buy it here.
It struck me as true then - Dolly Fashion pulls many elements from vintage European style, especially from the Gunne Sax/Little House on the Prairie era, which is more common in vintage stock in Europe & North America than in Japan. It strikes me as even more true, though, looking at the Grimoire store blog over the last few days, where Hitomi (? I think) documents her recent shopping trip to Toronto, Canada.
You see the second photo of a Tim Horton's store in this blog post? The one with the Starbucks next to it? I GO THERE ALL THE TIME. Not even kidding. The Grimoire staff were buying stock in my city, probably even at the thrift stores I haunt regularly. Too funny!
Really, honest to goodness: They buy it here. Which means you can too.
(they also post images from "The Brand Upon The Brain!", a film by my favorite Canadian art house cinema director, Guy Maddin, in this blog post, which makes me very happy!)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Monday Movie: Kalamari Kastle visits BtSSB San Francisco!
Dreaming of checking out Baby the Stars Shine Bright's San Francisco store, yet lacking the travel budget? Check out this video shot at the September Ice Cream social by Kalamari Kastle instead!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Indie Brand: Princess Doll
Princess Doll is a long-established Japanese indie brand, specializing in subdued classic designs. Their signature styles include empire-waisted babydoll dresses, detailed or gathered bodices, skirts with ruffle hems and off-center bows near the hem.
For the most part, they stick with solid colors or light floral prints, although they do branch out into more Victorian-wallpaper prints and tartans for some releases:
For the most part, they stick with solid colors or light floral prints, although they do branch out into more Victorian-wallpaper prints and tartans for some releases:
Perhaps their most iconic piece is this one, which features custom printed fabric along with their detailed bodice style and a more fittted waist. This one was featured in a Gothic & Lolita Bible ages ago and is very hard to find these days!
For the most part, Princess Doll seems to be about relaxed, comfortable, timeless elegance. Their dress designs in particular have a charming yet refined look: the bodice detailing makes them seem more formal, but it's combined with a floating, easy-fitting skirt that looks super-comfortable. My favorite combination!
International customers can order Princess Doll items through Neo Tokyo, which also stocks some Angelic Pretty, Chocomint, Decoart, h.naoto and even old items from the now-closed Sex Pot Revenge label. However, these items are marked up, as the Princess Doll site notes, and you will want to check the exchange rate & shipping costs to decide if Neo Tokyo offers a better deal than using a shopping service.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Shopping Services
I've mentioned shopping services a few times now, without really clarifying what they are - it's one of those things most lolita fashion followers just assume everyone knows about!
A shopping service is pretty much what it sounds like: someone who will buy things for you and then ship your purchases to wherever they need to go. Obviously, this is incredibly handy for lolitas who live outside Japan, especially since many brands do not yet ship internationally. In addition, shopping services aimed at the lolita market may offer other services, such as:
- Reserves: for popular items and special prints, brands offer their customers a chance to "reserve" or pre-purchase items before they are released. This can sometimes be your only way to get highly desirable prints, colors or cuts of certain items. Reservations can be a complicated process, so the shopping service which can do this well is highly regarded (and often very busy).
- Auctions: mbok and Yahoo Japan are bustling markets for second-hand lolita clothing, but it's difficult to get an account on either if you're not inside the country, and many sellers will not ship outside Japan anyway. A good auction service will bid on your behalf, ask questions of the seller, resolve any problems which arise with your item (like checking for stains and damage) and handle shipping the item overseas once the auction is won.
- In-person shopping for specific, hard-to-find items: Resale shops like Fairy Angel and Closet Child only list a fraction of their inventory online. The matching socks for your new dress may no longer be listed on the website, but you've heard there are still some on the shelves at smaller shops. A few shopping services will actually go look in person for you, with the understanding that if they find and buy the item you've requested, you're on the hook to repay them. This is a lot of work, and many shopping services will not do this at all, or only for selected customers.
Of course, shopping services don't do all this for free! Most of them charge a flat fee based on the cost of your items, between 5% to 20% depending on various factors, plus additional costs like shipping, packaging, transportation and more. Specialized services like reserves or in-store hunting for rare items generally come with a higher fee.
The added benefit, for Japanese lolitas doing all this brand shopping, is getting to rack up loyalty points and earn status as a brand VIP. Most Japanese brands offer special perks to their most loyal customers (a.k.a. high spenders), and it's easy to rack up points towards free items, special party invites, and so on by running even a small shopping service.
If you're interested in knowing more about how a shopping service works and the effort involved, Kalamari Kastle has agreat interview with Chibi_Tenshi, who runs a highly respected and well-reviewed operation.
My personal experiences have been with Celga (Yahoo Japan auctions, okay service but the fees were a little high) and Japonica Market (Yahoo Japan & Mbok auctions, my preferred service due to their reasonable fees and great customer service).
A shopping service is pretty much what it sounds like: someone who will buy things for you and then ship your purchases to wherever they need to go. Obviously, this is incredibly handy for lolitas who live outside Japan, especially since many brands do not yet ship internationally. In addition, shopping services aimed at the lolita market may offer other services, such as:
- Reserves: for popular items and special prints, brands offer their customers a chance to "reserve" or pre-purchase items before they are released. This can sometimes be your only way to get highly desirable prints, colors or cuts of certain items. Reservations can be a complicated process, so the shopping service which can do this well is highly regarded (and often very busy).
- Auctions: mbok and Yahoo Japan are bustling markets for second-hand lolita clothing, but it's difficult to get an account on either if you're not inside the country, and many sellers will not ship outside Japan anyway. A good auction service will bid on your behalf, ask questions of the seller, resolve any problems which arise with your item (like checking for stains and damage) and handle shipping the item overseas once the auction is won.
- In-person shopping for specific, hard-to-find items: Resale shops like Fairy Angel and Closet Child only list a fraction of their inventory online. The matching socks for your new dress may no longer be listed on the website, but you've heard there are still some on the shelves at smaller shops. A few shopping services will actually go look in person for you, with the understanding that if they find and buy the item you've requested, you're on the hook to repay them. This is a lot of work, and many shopping services will not do this at all, or only for selected customers.
Of course, shopping services don't do all this for free! Most of them charge a flat fee based on the cost of your items, between 5% to 20% depending on various factors, plus additional costs like shipping, packaging, transportation and more. Specialized services like reserves or in-store hunting for rare items generally come with a higher fee.
The added benefit, for Japanese lolitas doing all this brand shopping, is getting to rack up loyalty points and earn status as a brand VIP. Most Japanese brands offer special perks to their most loyal customers (a.k.a. high spenders), and it's easy to rack up points towards free items, special party invites, and so on by running even a small shopping service.
If you're interested in knowing more about how a shopping service works and the effort involved, Kalamari Kastle has agreat interview with Chibi_Tenshi, who runs a highly respected and well-reviewed operation.
My personal experiences have been with Celga (Yahoo Japan auctions, okay service but the fees were a little high) and Japonica Market (Yahoo Japan & Mbok auctions, my preferred service due to their reasonable fees and great customer service).
Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday Movie: Gay Pirates
This one's for all you pirate guys & gals, a sweetly sad little sea shanty about love and loss among the pirates (well, the gay ones). Not very frilly, but still adorable!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Indie Brand: Antique Beast
Highly sought-after by the ubergothic are the rare items from indie brand Antique Beast. They've been around since the early days of Gothic & Lolita, and they continue to turn out a handful of designs each year, always sold out in early reserves and cherished for many years by their owners. And is it any wonder? If you dig old-school gothic elegance, Antique Beast has you covered:
Antique Beast is especially well-known for their lush and detailed accessories, especially head pices. Each one is hand-crafted and the consideration given to texture and balance is stunning.
This is perhaps the most iconic Antique Beast design for me, and the first piece I saw by the brand. It's low-cut enough to qualify as Ero-Loli, but it captures the dark elegance that first attracted me to the whole Gothic Lolita style:
The timeless quality of their designs puts them outside the realm of trends; they're neither fashionable nor unfashionable, eschewing change for a fixed, unwavering aesthetic. That makes their pieces great wardrobe investments, but it also means they show up rarely on the second-hand market.
Their infrequent sales periods are announced three days in advance through their website, and also on their email newsletter. The designer also keeps a blog where they mention upcoming reservation dates, although it's mostly brief personal entries. Basically, they open up the shop for a few days, closing down again when they've reached the maximum amount of orders they can produce within a 6-8 week window. Once those orders are made, they re-open for new purchases. It's a smart system, one that keeps their income steady while ensuring clients don't wait overly long for their reserves to be filled.
Antique Beast only accepts payment via bank transfer and postal order, so you will probably need a shopping service to place an order, although there is a mention of accepting Paypal for internationl orders buried in their blog, so it might be worthwhile to send them an email first. They just did a round of orders from Nov 25-28, so it may be a month or two before they open up again.
Because items are made in limited numbers for pre-purchasing customers, you can request up to +5 cm on the measurements for your order, including bust, waist, skirt and sleeve length. That said, their standard measurements are on the small side, so it's not a huge amount of leeway.
Antique Beast is especially well-known for their lush and detailed accessories, especially head pices. Each one is hand-crafted and the consideration given to texture and balance is stunning.
This is perhaps the most iconic Antique Beast design for me, and the first piece I saw by the brand. It's low-cut enough to qualify as Ero-Loli, but it captures the dark elegance that first attracted me to the whole Gothic Lolita style:
The timeless quality of their designs puts them outside the realm of trends; they're neither fashionable nor unfashionable, eschewing change for a fixed, unwavering aesthetic. That makes their pieces great wardrobe investments, but it also means they show up rarely on the second-hand market.
Their infrequent sales periods are announced three days in advance through their website, and also on their email newsletter. The designer also keeps a blog where they mention upcoming reservation dates, although it's mostly brief personal entries. Basically, they open up the shop for a few days, closing down again when they've reached the maximum amount of orders they can produce within a 6-8 week window. Once those orders are made, they re-open for new purchases. It's a smart system, one that keeps their income steady while ensuring clients don't wait overly long for their reserves to be filled.
Antique Beast only accepts payment via bank transfer and postal order, so you will probably need a shopping service to place an order, although there is a mention of accepting Paypal for internationl orders buried in their blog, so it might be worthwhile to send them an email first. They just did a round of orders from Nov 25-28, so it may be a month or two before they open up again.
Because items are made in limited numbers for pre-purchasing customers, you can request up to +5 cm on the measurements for your order, including bust, waist, skirt and sleeve length. That said, their standard measurements are on the small side, so it's not a huge amount of leeway.
More on Meta Sales
According to this blog post, Meta is doing an in-store sale on two of their more recent prints, Twinkle Journey and Old Rose. Old Rose is a classic-style print in muted colors, and Twinkle Journey is the infamous unicorn print.
Strangely enough, the Twinkle Journey items are completely sold out on their website, and have been for a while. I know the print is very popular among Western lolitas, and it seems odd they would discount it for local customers rather than sell it full-price to international clients. Old Rose is still in-stock online, and at full price too.
Then again, the blog does mention that the Hukuoka store is the only one to still have the Twinkle Journey print in-stock, and perhaps it's less expensive to sell at a discount rather than ship to the main office for webshop processing. Who knows? But if you've been hunting for either of these prints, the 30% discount will more than make up the cost of a shopping service!
Strangely enough, the Twinkle Journey items are completely sold out on their website, and have been for a while. I know the print is very popular among Western lolitas, and it seems odd they would discount it for local customers rather than sell it full-price to international clients. Old Rose is still in-stock online, and at full price too.
Then again, the blog does mention that the Hukuoka store is the only one to still have the Twinkle Journey print in-stock, and perhaps it's less expensive to sell at a discount rather than ship to the main office for webshop processing. Who knows? But if you've been hunting for either of these prints, the 30% discount will more than make up the cost of a shopping service!
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