The one that got away

I'm sure we all have it, that one dress that got away.

Whether it was snatched up by someone else before you could get to it, you got outbid on auction or you decided to wait for it and it sold out, it hurts just as much.  Sometimes it's easy enough to find a replacement, sometimes it's hard. 

In my case, it's a dress that I tried on while visiting in Japan.  We happened to visit the Innocent World shop and I noticed a dress in the sale section that I liked.  I tried it on, and while it fit well and was nice, I couldn't commit to it because the color scheme was so different from the rest of my lolita wardrobe.  As time went on, I began to regret not purchasing the dress, and at the time, didn't even know what dress it was. 

Recently, while browsing auctions, I found the skirt and discovered the name of the series: Ribbon Tape.  With that title, I was able to find a stock photo of the dress:

I actually tried on the beige version, but only was able to find the black stock picture.

And now I go about trying to find the dress.  And I realize that it won't be easy.
Judging by the fact that it was on sale while I was in Japan, it was not a terribly popular dress.  Pair this with the fact that a great majority of international lolitas are strictly sweet, and my search is going to be quite the pain. 

Once I get my holiday money, I'll be on a hunt.  My desire to own this dress has only gotten stronger since I visited the Innocent World boutique at PMX and fell in love with their clothes.  And while I know I may not find it, I sure am going to try!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope everyone will be having a wonderful day tomorrow! 

Earlier this week I went to Disneyland with some of my friends.  It was quite crowded but we still had a fun day!

We went to see Rapunzel and Flynn.  You can see my outfit pretty well here.
Sweater: Tralala
Skirt: Gap
Necklace: Tarina Tarantino
They were posing like that with us because Rapunzel was getting jealous that we were talking with Flynn too much haha!  So he was proving his devotion to her awwww

We also saw Aladdin and Jasmine.  I'm taller than everyone except Aladdin D:  And I'm not even that tall!

We tried to see Duffy Bear in California Adventure but he had gone in for the day, so we took pictures with the large stuffed Duffy Bears.

At night It's a Small World was all lit up with lights.  It's very pretty and the picture doesn't really capture it.  We also watched the Aladdin musical at DCA, danced at ElecTRONica and watched Fantasmic! twice.  The downside was that it was very cold!  I wished I'd brought a coat instead of just a sweater. 

Fashion

These days, I'm not sure what direction to go with my fashion choices.

I have decided that sweet lolita, as cute as it is, is not the best look for me.

Take this outfit for example.  It is a pretty straight forward sweet coordinate, all Angelic Pretty. And while the dress is super adorable, if you look at it, it doesn't fit me properly.  Due to my, er, ample bosom, the dress has become empire waisted on me and therefore is too short lengthwise.  While I've always been able to fit into quarter shirred items, they were always maxed out at the bust and often pretty short.  I tried to go with it, but I've come to terms with the fact that most of it just doesn't fit me properly.  The only really "sweet" item that I'm keeping is Baby Swan Lake since I really love that print and altered it to fit me. 

This is probably the closest I will come to sweet: Hime style.  I consider it a completely different style than sweet, but others would consider it a sub-style.  Fortunately, the A-line look is pretty flattering for my body shape.  In fact, if I was able I'd wear a lot more of this style of dress from brands like Mary Magdalene and Victorian Maiden (although really those are classic).  Unfortunately though, those brands don't fit my chest. 

As of now, I'm moving in a more classical direction, since I think it suits me better.  The longer dresses and bodices are much more forgiving to my body shape.  It also suits my face better; while I feel like I look like someone trying to wear kids clothes in sweet, classic is more mature and I feel like it fits my look more. 

But now I'm not sure if I should stick with lolita.  I love it but I don't wear it all that often, since I only really wear it for events and such.  I'll probably just stick with it for events, but I wish I wasn't so lazy and wore it more often sometimes.

But lolita isn't the only fashion I wear, more often I wear gal or other cutesy coordinates.

This is actually from last summer when I went to Disneyland with some friends, and is a good example of how I'll dress on an average day.  I love plaid skirts and I like to spice it up but wearing accessories and shoes from Japanese brands.  It was really hot that day, hence only wearing a simple t-shirt.

Another casual coordinate, the skirt is Tralala and the tights actually have gold stars on them.  I think I was just wearing a black tank top underneath the sweater, but it was cold. 

A picture in actual gal styling.  The dress is from Cecil McBee and the sweater is from Tralala and the rest is offbrand.  Dolly still looks much cuter than me though!

Another coord, this is from when I was in Japan at Takuya Angel's shop.  I love a schoolgirl look... pleated skirts and blazers and stuff.  I would love to be able to wear MA*RS but it's so small T_T Why do I have to have such a much bigger frame than Japanese people?

I've been wearing my more casual/gal-ish coordinates lately, and I kind of want to get more of those clothes instead of lolita right now.  Usually I just want to get new brand dresses but I want to get more clothes that I can wear more often. 

What do you all think?

November Events

This month has been quite eventful!

Last weekend was particularly busy, as it was both the opening weekend of Sanrio's 50th Anniversary Event "Small Gift", as well as PMX.

The first event was the Sanrio VIP party, which I was fortunate enough to attend as a volunteer for Japan LA, who curated the art exhibit.  While I spent most of the night watching over the art, I was able to get some pictures.
I wore my Swan Lake JSK and tried to coordinate it like a ballet costume, with a bun and such.  I'm not sure how much I liked it, I wish I could have worn pointe shoes to get the full effect!

 Myself and my friends on the red carpet!  I am in the center.
Outfit Rundown:
JSK: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright
Blouse, Shoes: Angelic Pretty
Tights: Capezio

We were also lucky enough to meet a few designers.   The first was the designer of the character Cinnomonroll, who happens to be a lolita as well!  She was wearing a lovely Baby JSK and wanted to take a picture with us.  Because of the language barrier we couldn't talk much, but she seemed very sweet.

We also met the designer for Alice and the Pirates, who was attending the event before attending PMX as a Guest of Honor.  She was very nice as well and seemed quite excited that I was wearing Baby.

All in all the event was fun although I didn't experience much of it due to working.

The next day was the first day of PMX.  I went and was excited to see that Innocent World had no markup.  I ended up buying a JSK from them, and I really love it.  In fact, I've begun to transfer over to classical.

JSK, Socks: Innocent World
Blouse: Metamorphose
Shoes: Offbrand
I actually wore this on Sunday.

Saturday was the I <3 Nerds party at the Sanrio event.  I was working again, but I decided to dress in theme.  So I dressed as Hermione, because she is the biggest nerd I could think of!

Myself and friends at the party.

Sunday was the final day of PMX and I wore the Innocent World coordinate above.  It was a pretty laid back day.

On Thursday night, it was time to camp out for the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.  I saw it with my friend Ashley and dressed up as Hermione again!

A picture while sitting in line.  I was glad for the robes since it was cold!

Friday we woke up and got ready for the TRON Legacy Pop up Shop at Royal/T.  Myself and 2 of my friends wore TRON themed outfits that we coordinated.

Us in front of the pop up shop.  All of our outfits were coordinated from mostly items from Forever 21.  The shop was pretty cool, but also expensive, so we didn't buy anything.  Maybe one day when i have more money!

They even had TRON themed furniture, so we posed on it.

Later that night we headed to ElecTRONica at Disneyland for dancing and fun.  They now have a prop lightcycle on display, so I took a picture with it.

Saturday was the 80's Prom themed party at the Sanrio event.  I didn't really dress in theme, I just wore a prom dress I had from high school when I did cotillion.

Ari was a super awesome Glam Rocker and took a prom date pic with me!

Today was the last day of the Sanrio event, which was sad.  However, the Holidays are upon us, so I'm sure many new adventures will be on their way!

Harry Potter Day

I've been a Harry Potter fan for about 12 years now, and dressing up as Hermione for about 11 (yep, before the movies).  So I was super excited to hear about Harry Potter day at Disneyland (http://potteratthepark.blogspot.com/).., two of my favorite things combined!  It's basically a day where people dress up in Harry Potter outfits and compete in a Harry Potter based scavenger hunt in order to try to win for both their team and their house.

Of course I dressed up as Hermione, who's been my favorite character since I first read the books.  Fortunately it was not too hot or the uniform would have been horridly hot (I didn't even wear the robes because it's already so many layers).

Myself and Julie, who was a random Gryffindor, and Ari photobombing as Draco. 

The contest involved 2 parts; one part was using clues they gave us to find different locations in the park and getting a clue, and the other was finding randomly placed characters for trivia questions.  Our team did really well, we only missed one question and found all the locations.  Our team was part of Ravenclaw house, and we won the House Cup!  Our team was one of several that tied for second place also.

Myself and some fellow team members answering a trivia question from Draco Malfoy.

It was a really fun day and got me hyped for the movie release.  I'll definitely be busting out my costume again for that! 

Update

It's been a while!  I have been super busy lately with work and events and such.

Back in October we visited Goofy's Kitchen for the birthdays of several friends!  It was quite fun although I couldn't eat as much as I would have liked.  My stomach got small!  Oh well!  I have several pictures from the day, with the characters at the restaurant as well as Rapunzel since we went to the new photo area for her and Flynn.  It's really cute, they made a replica of her tower room.

It was also my first visit to elecTRONica.  This is a new event to celebrate the release of the new film TRON Legacy.  It features dancing, a laser show, a dance pre-show, a special sneak preview of the film, a replica of Fynn's Arcade and a video game contest.  It is so much fun, we've been going back every weekend!  I love it because it's a great chance to dance and be nerdy!  A bunch of friends and I got Identity Disks to carry around when we visit!

Myself with the sign for the event and my Identity Disk.  Outfit is mostly offbrand, although the skirt is Tralala and the sweater is from Disneyland.

My friend and I even coordinated some TRON themed outfits for one night, but my pictures of them got lost!  I'll have to get them from her.

Another big recent event was Halloween.  My friends and I visited Disneyland for Mickey's Halloween Treat.  After not having time to finish the fairy costumes I had been planning on making for myself and Ashley, I ended up wearing my Jedi costume from about 3 years ago.  Unfortunately this ended up being really really hot since it is several layers.  It was fun to wear though, I love Star Wars.  I would have worn my Princess Leia costume except my hair no longer matches the extensions that I have for her hair.

I made the whole costume except for the leggings and the boots.  Unfortunately my hair is no longer long enough to do cool Jedi hair, so it was just a bun.

A cool picture from inside Space Mountain.

This past weekend was Halloween itself and there were many events going on!  On Saturday I wore a lolita coordinate that I meant to be a princess look. 

JSK: Atelier Pierrot
Tights: Forever 21
Shoes, Tiara: Offbrand
Wig: Styled by me

We went to downtown Orange for lunch and then a bit of antique shopping.  Then we headed up to LA for the Japan LA event at a Pub and then over to Ruin Hollywood for their Grimm Fairytale Ball.  It was pretty fun, but it got pretty crowded and hot in the club.  I entered the costume contest for kicks but didn't win.  Oh well, not much of a surprise, since I wasn't even really wearing a costume, more like a dressed up lolita coordinate. 

On Sunday we went to do Karaoke.  I wore my Hermione costume since it's simple and comfy.  Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of it, but I'll get some this weekend at Harry Potter weekend at Disneyland!  I'm so excited, Harry Potter has been a huge fandom of mine since I was 11 years old and I can't believe the last movie is coming out!  It was hard enough with the last book!

Hopefully I'll be able to update more often.  There are many events this month!