Manga Bal 2012

This post is a follow-up for my last post. It is about the same event, but the good part of it this time!

So we went to an event called Manga Bal on the 25th of February at the national library. It was during the one-time-a-year night where the subway and some other places are opened all night long.

This was the poster for the event.

 

For the occasion I chose to try out a coord with my new dress, the Fancy Box jsk from AP. I put on a very simple make-up because I knew it would be very hot in the library and I didn't want it to run on my face during the night.

 

 

I went at the library around 7:30 PM. Since the event was until 3 AM, I didn't want to go there too early. My friends were already there so I just joined them when I arrived. One of my friends was cosplaying Ciel from Kuroshitsuji and my other friend was dressed in regular clothes.

 

 

At first we went to the exposition on the last floor. There was a bunch of figurines, mangas, cute goodies and costumes. My friends had already seen everything so I just went over it pretty quickly. They dared me to guess from which anime the costumes were, I got them almost all right ahah. While I do not like popular animes like Naruto or One Piece, I do enjoy a lot of them. 

While looking at the exposition, I was asked to take a picture. The girl was really nice and she soon told me she was the owner of Angelic Pretty San-Francisco. I couldn't believed it! She recognized me because I was wearing the dress she had just sent me! It was a really nice surprise for her and me to meet there. We talked and bit and she took a picture together with me. I will definitely order from there again, especially now that I know who the owner is and how nice she is. I prefer encouraging people I know instead of the japanese site.

After that, we went upstairs to see what was there. On the way we met some of the lolitas I know from the community so we joined them and went to the tea tasting area. I don't remember which kind of tea it was though. I know it was Japanese tea that could be drank cold during summer.

 There were a lot of people cosplaying all around the place. I took some pictures and would like to share them here. There were also some other lolitas, but I don't have pictures of them unfortunately.

 During some time I went with my lolita friends because the tea tasting area was too crowded and we weren't comfortable with our poofy dresses. During that time we went to search for someone they thought they had seen downstairs and ended up doing a little interview about lolita. Here is the video in which we appeared. We are at the beginning. Unfortunately it is all in French, but it is very short anyway. I look weird there ahah...

 After the tea tasting, we went to see a friend who was invited to talk about her book. She read a chapter from it on stage. I filmed almost all of it, but I didn't finish the video about the event yet so I can,t show it here. Anyway, it is all in French and since my blog is in English I kinda doubt people will be able to understand what is said in the video. If you are interested, here is the book. It is called Cétacia. You can go check it on here http://cetacia.com/ It is in French again. The story is very interesting!

 After Mel's conference about Cetacia, we went to watch a movie in the projection room. The one that was playing was Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. Having seen it for at least 4 times already, I spent most of the time talking to my friend who had also seen it often. I also have the movie at home, which can explain why I ahve seen it so often. The graphics of this movie are so gorgeous! Even though it's been out for a while now, it is still one of the most beautiful CGI movie I have ever seen in my whole life.

 After that was the Manga Bal. It ended being just a dance party to loud J-Pop music so we decided to leave before the end. We were all tired and I was working at noon on Sunday.

This is it for the Manga Bal event. I will update this post with the video when it is finally done.
Here is a duck face collective picture for you to see while waiting!

Thank you for reading again!
*Kinerai*

Dealing with rude people

I was supposed to write an article about the event I attended yesterday, but I think this has to come first. Yesterday was a lot of fun, but we also encountered so many rude people...  I feel like I have to share everything that happened and how we tried to deal with it. If you have any advice or similar experiences to share, don't hesitate to do so in the comments. I'm curious to know how other lolitas deal with those kind of situations.

So yesterday was the 'all night' event there is every year where the subway and some other places in town are open all night long. There was an event at the library about Japanese culture going on from 6 PM to 3 AM. 


This is not my picture, but it is the library we went to.

We were really happy to attend an event about Japan outside of Otakuthon and G-anime. So I all dressed up in lolita and one of my friends decided to cosplay as Ciel from Kuroshitsuji. She was only wearing the top since her shorts weren't really suitable for the weather that day (it was very cold and windy). There was another friend with us that was wearing regular clothes.

So I met them a bit later since I had something else to do before the event. I'll leave aside the details since I want to make a post about the event itself later and the good things that happened that night too.

Once we got there, we soon noticed a lot of 'regular' people were there, meaning they had no clue there was an event going on at the library. There were not many lolitas and cosplayer yet when I arrived at 7:30 but already people were looking at us a lot. As usual we decided to not mind them.

There was a couple of 'bad' events that happened to us throughout the night. The first one being a drunk man who was finding lolitas too interesting. We first noticed him when he went behind me when someone else was taking a picture of me. He tried to make bunny ears behind my head and ended up touching my hair unintentionally. I was creeped out to see it was a drunken man who had touched my hair. He then made a comment about a lolita who was talking to me, showing with his hands that she had 'big' breasts. We could only give him a disgusted look... which he didn't understand apparently since he came back later on. I had met 2 other lolita friends when he tried to talk to us again. We quickly walked away and never saw him again... luckily! The next step would've been to ask a security guard to escort him to the exit. He was drunk in a public place, which I find unacceptable, especially when there were children everywhere in the library!

Around the same time we encountered the drunk man, an older women came to us. She asked if we were cosplaying and we gave her the usual speech about lolita being a fashion and all. That was ok of her to ask questions and all. She seemed truly interested by the fashion. But then she took my dress and checked under it to see if I had a petticoat. I promptly told her not to do that. I find it really rude when people check under my dress. Would they do the same thing with a girl wearing regular clothes? Would they check under her skirt? NO! I always feel insulted when old ladies try to look under my dress. I do not own any bloomers yet and they could show my underwear to everyone around if they lifted the dress too high. I didn't find a safe way yet to prevent that to happen... but I do tell them not to lift my dress when I catch them doing it. How rude can people be when you are not dressed 'normally'? They seem to think everything is permitted when they see a lolita or a cosplayer... as if we were not human anymore when we are not dressed in usual clothes.

 

Talking about loosing rights when you are in lolita. People were taking pictures non-stop. A few asked for permission, but most of them were just taking pictures without asking. At the beginning it was ok. But towards the end there were so many people doing it that we were feeling insulted. We are human beings... do they take pictures of regularly dressed people without asking? My guess would be no! The only thing we found to do was to hide our face when we didn't want to be taken or give them the 'death glare' so it'd be apparent on their picture that we didn't want to be on it. The worst was when we were going back home. On the subway ride, a man was holding his phone in our direction and laughing out loud at us, saying stupid comments... everyone on the wagon looked at him and gave him discouraged looks. He was apparently drunk so he didn't get the message since he made some other comments out loud, though they weren't about us all the time. We sat far away and ignored him. My friends got out before me and I was afraid he would get off at the same station as me. It wasn't the case, but if it had been, I would've stayed inside the station until he left and waited a bit until I left to walk home just to be sure he wouldn't follow me. Sometimes you don't have the choice to be alone in lolita. During those times, I always try to stay in secure places until it is safe for me to walk alone in peace.

And yes, this is finally the last bad luck that happened to us that busy night. I don't know if I can say it was the worst, but it was surely the one thing that showed us how rude people are outside of conventions. We were thinking our province had open-minded people... well we were wrong. It is as worst as all the other places.
Later yesterday night, around 11 PM, a bunch of people came in the library. They were of any ages. My guess is that another event had ended nearby and they wanted to see the library at night since it is not usually open at that hour. Maybe they were curious too. They obviously had no clue about the event that was going on though. They were literally laughing at us. Without any subtlety! They were laughing and pointing in the direction of almost every lolita or cosplayer they were seeing... as if we were the weird ones! They were the ones coming in on an event about Japan and organized by the Otakuthon's committee... Most of the ones who mocked us were young men strangely. Every time I get laughed at in lolita it is almost always young men. I still don't know why though. We were only looking at them in the eyes every time, trying to make them understand they were not funny and were very immature. Being laughed at in lolita happens often... but they were the rudest people I had seen yet. I do hope one day it'll be easier to go outside in lolita or any other unusual fashion. Bearing with ignorant or immature people is very tiring and it can spoil a day easily.
What to do against them? Well, ignoring them is always good. But smiling back can be useful too! Some feel stupid when they see you smile back and stop laughing. While it is hard to react on the moment, I guess it can come more naturally after some practice... which I hope I won't get too often!

My rant about rude people is finally over. I do hope it was useful to some of you in a certain way. It shows a really honest view on how people really are sometimes. Of course there were good moments during the event! I made new friends and met wonderful people for the first or a-lot-more-times. I wanted to write about the bad part first so I could leave all of it behind and talk about only the good moments in my next post. It'll be full of pictures and happiness this time :D

Have a nice day and thank you for reading!
*Kinerai*

Packages through the mail #4

Hi lovelies!

It's been a while since I last posted something. But here I am, back from a big cold. I can finally post the pictures of the package I received through the mail last week. I was too sick to take pictures of myself wearing the items I received. I just looked like a zombie, so I preferred to wait until this week to finally finish taking the last pictures.

So here is the package I received last Tuesday (on Valentine's Day!). It was from Angelic Pretty San Francisco.
This is only what was inside the box since I can't seem to find the box's photo on my desktop.

 

Inside the pink paper was not the usual pink AP bag, but the dress and other items carefully wrapped in transparent plastic.

This is the complete set in Navy from the Fancy Box series. I'm really happy with my purchase since it was sold out on the international website! It didn't come with an AP bag and sticker, but my guess is that it's different with every shop.

 

The dress is simply gorgeous. The lace at the front has cute stars on it and the one at the bottom is a bit more simple with the AP logo. The front pink bow is detachable, but not the 3 smaller ones. I was surprised by the lenght of the socks! Usually, OTK socks don,t quite cover my knees, but these cover them without any problem! I'm really happy, I was beginning to think I would never find OTK that are actually over the knee for me. The best part about the dress is probably the cute characters on the print. The are so cute! 

 

Hope you enjoyed this package opening!

I don,t know when I will get to open another one though. This one was very expensive so I have to save up for the next weeks now. But I will be attending an event on this Saturday and will dress lolita too. I will probably make a post about it.

Thank you for reading!

 *Kinerai*

Deviantart - Cute Monster Design Contest

I made an entry for the cute monster t-shirt design contest on Deviantart.com!
I would be so happy if some of you would go vote for me :D

I designed a really cute monster! While it is not lolita... it does have a cute pink bow! If I win one of the prizes where you get copies of your shirt design, I will give away one (or more) of them here on my blog.

Here's the little cutie, click on the link bellow to vote. You need to click on the 'I'd wear that' button at the right of the image to vote for my design.

http://beyondinfinite.deviantart.com/art/Hug-me-284225546

 

Here's the original image I used for the front of the shirt. Just don't copy it please :)

P.S.: My package is already in Canada! It'll be there probably on Monday next week.... I'm sooo happy!

*Kinerai*

Lolita Styles : Gothic Lolita

It's been a while since I wrote about the various lolita styles! Well I decided to finally continue the list.
This one post will be about... well you guessed it: Gothic lolita.

While it is not my style, I do plan on buying some MmM in the near future since there are some prints that I like.

The gothic style is mostly marked by dark colors, elegant and sophisticated prints and designs. There's not many brands who offer this style. The most known would be Moi-Même-Moitié (speaking French, I'm proud to know how to pronounce it!). It is really expensive though! There's also Atelier Pierrot, Btssb and metamorphose who sell this style of lolita clothes.

Here is an example of the various colors used for gothic lolita dresses. The black/electric blue combination is a recurrent one because of MmM but there's also white/black, black/gold, Black/silver, wine, emerald, plain black and much more.

 

 

The prints and patterns used in the gothic style are often crosses, religion related (like churches and cathedrals), flowers, etc.

 

 

The lenght of the dresses and skirts is a bit longer than the other styles (with some exceptions). As in the classic style, you can find floor lenght one pieces.

You now have a good idea of what the dresses can look like for that style, let's take a look at the commonly used accessories.

For the head, headdresses with flowers and crosses seem to be fairly popular. There are indeed headbows and bonnets as in the other styles too. 

 As for the accessories, the same themes come back. There can be crosses, flowers, bats, etc. Chockers and pendants are a nice touch to add to the outfit. If socks are worn, they will likely be OTK, else tights are worn very often. Not much skin is usually shown for gothic lolita. Purses are mostly black with some dark color touches. The shapes are plain most of the time.

And finally, the shoes! Of course any lolita shoes that are black or white could do. But platforms and heels are also accepted. As long as it is elegant and goes well with the coord, any shoe could look good and be in style. Even gold or silver could be good if matched with a black and gold/silver dress or skirt.

I think it is it for the gothic style. I hope I didn,t forget anything important. If I did miss something or if I wrote something that is incorrect, please tell me and I'll make the modifications!

Let's finish this post with a picture of Mana-Sama! 

 

 Thank you for reading!

I'm receiving a big package through the mail soon! Stay tuned to know what it is! (p.s. It's from Angelic Pretty again)

*Kinerai*

50 things in my room

Today I was bored and wanted to make a new video.
While it is not purely lolita, my room is still a sweet lolita's one.
I hope you will enjoy this short but cute video of stuff that can be found in my (messy) room.

 

Click on the youtube sign in the video to see the better quality version directly on youtube!

Wardrobe post - January 2012

I posted my wardrobe on EGL. For those of you who haven't seen it and wish to go take a look, here is the link and a preview picture:

http://egl.livejournal.com/18151731.html

It would've been too long to repost the complete original post so I prefered to only put the link, sorry for my lazyness >.<

I'll try to continue my lolita style posts soon.
*Kinerai*