Dolly-Kei Coordinate

This is perhaps my first ever formal Dolly-Kei coordinate. It was my friend, Emily’s birthday. I had a night out with some close friends and Lolita friends. Awesome times. A shout out to Emily - HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ENJOY YOUR GIFTS.

As for my coordinates. Any thoughts or criticisms would be appreciated.

Photographer: Aya (My business partner)

Location: Osgoode Law Hall - Toronto

Hat: Kensington Market - $10

Hair Roses: Claires - $5

Shawl: Gift from significant other

Blouse: Sirens - $5

Wristcuffs: Noirette - My brand and handmade

Bangles: Vintage from Goodwill via Mom - $1

Belt: Urban Planet - $8

Skirt: Ofelia Ljuv - My brand and handmade

Bowtie Stockings: XX1 - $8

Over-the-knee boots: Steve Madden - $140

Unseen Bag: Goodwill Pound - $1

Funny how the most expensive thing on me is my gorgeous Steve Madden boots.

Love, Life, Lust.

Aya and I with out Lady Gaga Headbows from Pmall!

I have a lot of missed posts to make.

But, my accumulative posts would sadly be about my spending habits, shopping, and inspirations. Mostly, my shopping. However, I promise to start updating all my blogs (maybe even LJ) more often. I have to start planning some sort of scheduling and posting inspiring posts. Must drill into myself more self-discipline.

Yesterday, my significant other and I went to see the of Get Him To The Greek. It was surprisingly one of the better comedies I have seen in a while and he agreed. It was vulgar, random, self-deprecating, and good to honest hilarious. I was very surprised that the general opinion of netizens didn’t differ from my own (via my iPhone Movies App that is paired with Rotten Tomato Reviews). We then stopped by Aya’s workplace and picked her up so we could go eat Wanda’s Waffles (they had sadly raised their prices by almost $1) - which my significant other was quite into and then dropped by a McDonald’s that Aya’s friend is the manager of - discounts for the win. Business and personal life was discussed. It somehow felt as if when we both took two steps forward somehow something in our personal lives would set us back a little.

Earlier in the week we had both visited Pmall to officially close our Gagoo Locker Box:

Goodbye, useless locker box at Pmall which never sold much because you had shitty sales people. Lesson learned, we will never ever do consignments with Chinese fobs again. I’m sorry, but you guys don’t take the initiative to know us, our product, or learn how to make sales. It’s pathetic. Worst business mistake we have made since we started.

Somehow, Aya and I wanted the huge sequin headbows we both saw on the Liz Lisa site. As you may perceive - one of my bestfriend’s, Aya, has gone GAL or GYARU. Most of her recent purchases were through a shopping service in Japan for Liz Lisa stuff. She has the bags, the OPs, the skirts. Liz Lisa and Vivi have been mostly her constant inspirations and she is basing her brand on this sort of thing - not surprising seeing that she is a part time OTT Sweet Lolita.

The bows were being priced at an unbelievable $60 dollars each. Aya had been there before and we were both indecisive even when offered the for $40 each. We then mentioned that the Liz Lisa site had them for $20-$25 and as we were about to leave the sales lady offered us $20 each which is what we considered to be their equivalent worth. We paid, and were happy:

Then, she treated me to Korean and Sushi dinner at one of the restaurants at Pmall. We de-stressed about Anime North and our personal lives. God, it’s been a whirlwind of stress, stress, stress for both of us. But we ate well - her food though smelt like rotten preserved cabbage:

We then went more window shopping and fount this cute top which reminded us of Emily Temple Cute. I didn’t buy it because it looked much too easy to make.

And, yesterday I sent in my skirt order for the Korean Lolita brand Mew&Lief.

I am buying a skirt in this colorway and print:

I didn’t buy the JSK because it was much too big for me and I had seen the SKIRT IN REAL LIFE! A fellow Lolita visited our Marionette Anime North 2010 Crafters Corner table and I just had to snap a picture of her with Aya’s iPhone. OMG. And I TOUCHED IT. IT WAS A MUST HAVE. AND, my friend - Emily went Sweet Lolita for AN 2010. She’s normally Gothic - but she looks so awesome in Sweet!

Some god ordained a screw-up at the factory Mew&Lief printed at and they had to switch printers and open orders to meet the larger quantities of printed fabric.

This is a skirt I would KEEP KEEP KEEP forever and pass down to my…progeny?

Also, here are some skirts I had made for Anime North 2010. Not my entire stock - I didn’t have the time to take pictures of everything. But, the Candy skirt sold but my ‘Granny’ stuff as my little sister calls it, didn’t. Note to self: Gothic, Sweet, and Sweet-Classic sells at AN.

But, I didn’t want that skirt to sell. I love the old feel of the print and vintage feel it gives me. Of Dolly-kei. I feel like I will be working with Mori Girl and Dolly Kei more then ever. Been so inspired.

Here, I leave you with pictures of my most recent purchases and what I have to work with. Boater hats that were bartered down from $13 each to $20 for two. Thanks, to Aya again. A really adorable fabric I bought 1.5 yards of.

VM georgette chiffon that Aya found at an Italian fabric store on Queen West we have to make something out of.

Anime North and the Aftermath (iPad)...

Before I went off to Anime North I had conned my sister into pretending to be me so that she could buy the iPad for my significant other for his Birthday (far far away in October). It worked, we got the iPad and this is me holding the glorious piece of technology:

I look grimy in that picture. But, I had just arrived home with two freaking huge pieces of luggage. Left the rest at my ‘rents condo.

Anime North was…let me keep it short. Beyond stressful. There were times I wanted to break down crying. I was at such a shit location in the Crafters Corner. But, in the end it seemed worthwhile enough to pursue the whole venture again next year. My mom’s amigurumi was really pretty and sold quite well. Competition was furious. And, I AM IN LOVE WITH THE MORI GIRL TABLE BEHIND US. So, in love that I dream of gnome wristlets every night. I want to make one but at the same time I want to support them. BWHA.

I’ll be spending the next few days updating everything from the Marionette Wordpress, my own Noir et Ofelia design Blogspot, the Facebook fan page, and getting together with my counterpart, Aya to get things sorted out. My mom and I will also be working on her Etsy, Mommigurumi and some new designs for Ofelia Ljuv. I’ve decided that purely amigurumi while anything that I specifically request will go to me - acorns, strawberries, and such for fashion are mines.

I’ll make a picture post soon. I didn’t bring my camera from my hotel room to take any pictures. My friend, Emily, has all of them.

Partnerships.

Partnerships are complicated.

Recently, I have been having a lot of trouble with a number of these in my life. Personal and Business. Don’t get me wrong - I see the benefit of having a business partner but at the same time sometimes I think I could just go Solo. I love my Business partner - where I have for at least a year lost touch with a close friend I gained her. But, there are so many issues surrounding her that I have no control over and wish I could help her out with more. We both have agreed that while we are at the same life-stages that our personal lives have interfered with our potential business many times. At the same time, in a business one must always be on an equal footing.

We’ve had a tough year. Not as bad as last year - but, starting up has been difficult. I can tell you right now that doing the Pacific Mall lockerbox was a complete failure. It was a waste of at least $85-$110 dollars and time that I can never get back. The only things I’ve learned is that:

- I have to watch out for product overlap and trends

- Asians paid BELOW minimum wage never try to sell the product or get to know the product at Pmall. They just sit there and surf the internet.

- Never invest in something when someone can’t tell you what sells here best or tell you about clientele.

- I hate FOBS more then ever and I enjoy haggling because I don’t want them to rip me off again.

Also, my partner has enthusiasm, street-smarts, a good eye, and haggles like a fishmonger. But, she has little skill for this kind of DIY business. She can learn - but I cannot stress more then ever that one has to push themselves. I wish she’d do that more often. I can’t really complain about recent times - she’s starting to get right on the ball now. But, there are times when the stress of passing on knowledge just confounds me. She wants to resell. I want to create. Two opposing forces.

It’s complicated. However, I am sure we can find a happy medium one day - soon, I hope. There are times, I wish I had come into this with her more trained in design and sewing. It’s hard to teach someone design. You have to have a knack or know how to uncover a cycle of chaos and make it work. I have this and the skill to break things down in my head. My partner - design needs a lot of work. She knows what can look good but she has to stick to what she feels is her genre and what makes her tick. I cannot stress this more then enough. Sewing, however, is a skill she can learn. But, I can’t teach everything. Both of us are considering night school for it soon.

Also, I really want to take some silkscreen classes at Peach Berserk downtown on Queen. But, I keep getting thoughts of learning Photoshop (now that I have the latest version, thank you - PF!) and hand-painting my own designs then sending them to Spoonflower to be printed on Cotton Sateen. Expensive but less work and waste then me doing Silkscreening at home.

Thoughts?

Sickness, Stress, Strife, and Sewing.

I haven’t updated in a while. I apologize.

But, I have been really really sick. Nothing life threatening - but the sickest I’ve ever been in at least several years. So sick, that I had lost my sense of taste, smell, and some of my hearing for at least a couple of days. Totally freaked me out. Then, my hormones were playing games with me which coupled to a minor disaster of a nervous breakdown. I’ve actually coughed and blown out enough mucous to literally fill a tissue pile the size of those spring water jugs that sit in office watering machines. Gross. And, that was only less then a week. Man, I went down real hard.

That aside, I finally caved after discovering that the horrid feeling (since I could barely taste it but god - THE BURN was similar to downing vodka) Buckley’s I was taking for a couple of days wasn’t really effective - which possibly could have had it’s remediating properties blocked by the litres of tea I was consuming. I gave in and bought $14 Tylenol Cold Plus - Mucous Relief at Shopper’s. God, and fuck it worked. I FINALLY FEEL NORMAL AGAIN.

I don’t think I could go through the hell of being this sick again. NEVER have I ever felt so miserable at losing most of the 3 senses I have enjoyed using. To only taste texture for three days and smell nothing is just…heartbreaking. I always use my sense of smell. It tells me if something is going to rot, if my plants have fungal mould on their roots, if something will sprout from the potatoes I am going to boil, if the dog peed somewhere in the living room, if I had burnt something while cooking… I couldn’t even cook because I couldn’t smell or taste. Devastating! Not that I wanted to cook. But the thought of not being able to do it again. Eek.

I hope I can get over this ASAP. I haven’t been working because of it and I have work to go to in 12 hours time. Also, I have to work really really hard on my last minute sewing with Marionette’s upcoming selling gig at Anime North 2010. To be honest, the crowd isn’t what I like but there is an opportunity not to be missed. So far, I am 95% done all my jewelry sets. I just have to work on a few more dim sum series earrings (at leat 15 pairs of gyoza, 10 pairs of onigiri, and 10 banana brooches). I’ve created a new Blogspot for my own creations under Marionette. Titled Noir et Ofelia which will cover my own creations separate from partner, Aya’s stuff. I feel that I have more control over what I like to do with having a separate Blog. Wordpress is nice but Blogspot seems to have more versatility.

Lately, there have been some ugly truths revealed in my life. Things, that I haven’t known, noticed, or otherwise may have ignored. I am naive at heart and would like to hope that we can all be friends - but why is it that people have to be a certain way to other people and other ways to different people. Why do people have to back-stab? Back-talk? Gossip? Ignore? Favour? It’s just so complicated. But, I know one thing for sure - things like this tell me who my friends truly are. It’s nice to know that someone I’ve had since the beginning of time is still who I can always count on in times of need. I am so grateful for you. For your insight and truth. :) You know who you are.

I am working on skirts and such also. I’ve not finished one completely but this week will be all about pushing my limits and sewing like a madwoman. I won’t be focusing too much on OTT accessories. I’ll do simple ones…but, I know headdresses there is much too big of an overlap with other people. Jewelry, accessories, and some headpieces will be a must. Luckypacks? Those will be last minute. :) Since, I will be technically the only person sewing clothes this time around. But, I have ideas as to a under-garment Luckypack.