Cat Tights!

So since I last posted I've completed my job training for the museums, endured turning 24 (nice family meal and presents though) joined a gym (to use the swimming pool) and survived my first week of working 3 jobs. I've had a wonderful time although I'm really tired! I've been a bit too rushed in the mornings to take photos of my Goth in the 'Office' clothes, but I promise I'll take at least one this week.

Instead here is the outfit I threw together when I woke up from a nap I wasn't supposed to be having and realised I was late to meet my friends at the pub for their birthdays (twins) on Saturday night. It's the result of a 5 minute mad dash around the bedroom. The photo isn't great but I didn't have time to take another one.

I really wanted to wear the Cat Tights I brought at Enchanted! I hadn't planned anything, so I made it up as I went along.

On closer inspection I realised the tights have grey stripes on the back, so I decided to have a go at wearing the same OP I wore to enchanted, but with different jacket and accessories. The jacket matched a little better in real life, the tights look a bit washed out here because of how bright the flash was! I had my hair half up with a black bow in the back because I REALLY can't do hair when I'm in a hurry!

I went for antique gold/brass toned jewellery, including a beautiful lace choker Flick and Ed got me for my birthday, added the star brooch to go with the tights and the cat too (although I wish it wasn't silver for this outfit). I wanted to wear my pearl bracelet too, but I couldn't locate it quickly.

Here is a collage of close-up shots of the tights which show the true colour a little better. They are so detailed and fantastic. I think my favourite thing is the fact that they have cat feet on the bottom at the front and then on the sole of the foot there is a paw pad! So cute =]

What I'm Wearing:
Dress: Innocent World via egl-comm-sales
Jacket: From charity shop - originally brown but I dyed it black
Shoes: Deichmann, just got them for work with birthday money (£17.99)
Tights: Lilly via Lorina Liddell stall (available online here)

I'm still not very confident with matching colours, especially more than one at a time...The curse of a monochromatic wardrobe? It's fun to try though! How do you think I did?
Do you ever buy something new and then want to wear it the first chance you get, even if you haven't thought it through? Maybe it's just me... Patience is not my strong point!

I hope you all had a lovely Easter! I'm off to sleep now, but I'll try to post again next week!

Enchanted Event

I attended Enchanted in London at the weekend - such a wonderful event. Got to see lots of friends and meet new people. I was in a fashion show too! I got an email about 10 days before the event to say that one of the models couldn't get a visa, and was I still free to do it. I jumped at the chance - despite being very scared about doing all the make-up and buying scary things like brown shoes!

In the end I didn't need the brown shoes, and a very kind lolita MUA helped me with the false eyelashes and retouching my lip gloss. My sister in law had helped me curl my hair too but in the end the designer had a wig for me for wear anyway. I really liked this wig - I want to buy one like it!

This is me on the cat walk!!! In cat tights hehe! (I couldn't resist buying a pair at the stall later on =])

(Photo taken from Lorina Liddell's twitter - follow the link on that post to their website)

None of my friends at the event recognised me under all of that make-up and hair! I put these photos up on facebook and even my own dad struggled to identify me!

(Photos taken by Hirokawa Yumi from Uplift Tokyo/Lorina Liddell, found here on their official tumblr)

Really had a lot of fun, although it was very surreal at times! Especially looking in the mirror and freaking out because the last time I had a fringe I was about 14! Maybe that's why no one recognised me, or maybe it's just that no-one really looks like themselves with this much foundation on! I've not done much facial make-up before but I think it looks OK, at least you can't see my spots!!

My co-ord for the rest of the event was very simple in comparison, but I was happy with how well my hair survived being unceremoniously shoved under a wig cap at the last second! Here are some photos Jing Li took of me and Lizzie =]. Those false eyelashes look a bit ridiculous without everything else to go with them, don't they!

All the models were really lovely and helpful and I had such a nice time seeing all of my lolita friends and meeting new ones too. I also brought a few goodies - I'll be posting about them soon! I'll be very busy for the next week though attending a friend's wedding and starting my new jobs, so you'll have to wait for a little while longer =]

Black, Blue and Bats

I'm sorry I've been away for so long, life keeps getting in the way of blogging!

I've been meaning to post this picture for a while.

Taken by Elisabeth at the late Halloween meet up for the midlands lolitas, in front of St Martin's church in the Bullring. Funnily enough, I used to work in the tea shop here! I didn't get to wear nice clothes around the place then! They did let me lock the front door of the church sometimes though, with a giant iron key the length of my forearm =]. This picture was taken before Andie ran across to help me straighten out the chiffon underskirt on my dress; it was tucked up into my petticoats =S

What I'm Wearing:
Underbust JSK: Surface Spell £45 via lolita sales on fb. The blue bow came with the JSK.
Blouse: RQ-BL from Sai Sai in Camden £32
Bag: Living Dead Souls, originally had a large red bow which I removed years ago, I added the felt bat and sequin stars to match the JSK. The bag is a bit of a 'lace monster' but I thought that was appropriate for a halloween meet! My mum brought me this bag because I didn't have a handbag for my Brother's wedding in 2007.
Tights: It's very hard to see but I was wearing blue tights under black star print ones. The blue tights were a gift, and the star ones were from Primark.
Boots: New Look £29.99
Hat: I know it doesn't show in this photo but I had blue roses on he back of my hat (also came with the JSK) and lots of black lace.
Coat: It's new. I brought it off a friend for £20, because I was the only person with small enough boobs to get it buttoned up! Supposed to be a size 10 but really isn't.

As an apology for being away I'll be posting cute cat photos soon, so watch this space!

First Lolita Meet

These photos were taken a little while ago now, at my first meet with the Midlands Lolita Community, we were meeting to take a group photo for the Tea Party Club calender! Our month was September so we went for a back to school theme, with books and satchels, and tried to use autumnal colours in our co-ords =]

I don't have a wealth of autumnal colours in my tiny lolita wardrobe, so I tried to make it extra school-girly! My hair doesn't like co-operating though, so it was trying to escape from the pigtails! Also I couldn't find my fray-check to put on the ribbons so they are all messy at the ends =[

These pictures were taken by the lovely Florence of The Street Style Carousel; she did individual photos of us all while we were waiting for some late arrivals.

What I'm wearing:

JSK: Moi Meme Moitie via egl-comm-sales £85
Socks: Innocent World via egl-comm-sales £10
Blouse: Charity shop in Derby £3
Jacket: Miss Selfridge, gift
Petticoat: Ebay 5 years ago, I think it was £25. I really need a poofier one though!
Detachable lace collar: New Look, I think I got it for £5 with a special offer
Shoes: Primark £8
Hat: Peacocks £9.99
Cameo Brooch: Junk Shop in Minehead £2.50
Star Brooch: Sugarpinkmoon on Etsy £5
Flower Clips: H&M £1.99

I can't wait to see which group picture gets selected for the calender! Many thanks again to Florrie, both for these pictures, the group shots and having to put up with people stopping to ask her what we were doing all day! Also a big thanks to all the Mid Lolis for making me feel so welcome, you guys are the sweetest =]

Fabulous Modelling Debut!

OK, so this title is more than a little tongue-in-cheek, because although it was a shoot with a professional photographer, who is also a MUA and straightened my hair, the first time it's been pampered in like a year- when did it get long again?! Woohoo! I don't feel like a model at all, especially not a fabulous one! My lovely friend Olivia had just had her home studio finished and wanted someone to test it out with =] Check out her site here!

The original plan was to photograph one all black outfit and one all white outfit, but we couldn't be bothered with the hassle of changing the white backdrop to blue, so only the black got used.

Here is the black outfit:

Sitting on the suitcase I brought all my stuff in! Wearing the Camden blouse, with my black pinafore and petticoat (I would have liked to have a black skirt underneath too but didn't have one long enough).

Impersonating the pin-up girl photograph on the wall beside me:

We also took pictures of my new black and white skirt outfit:

The bow wouldn't stay straight for some reason.

So I took it off (next time I'll tack it down!). Also I swapped back to the top hat because the other one was a lot warmer under the stage lights! That's also the reason I'm wearing the lace tights - I think plain black might have looked better but I was already melting!

With teapot:
Olivia has the cutest teapot ever!

Close-up:

I found the whole experience to be pretty fun, strangely tiring (many failed attempts to get a picture that looked like I was flying Mary Poppins style probably didn't help there...) and more than a little embarrassing!

I think I thought that after all the work these pictures would be amazing, that I would look like a real model and feel really pretty, but instead a lot of them look a little awkward, because I'm quite a physically awkward person, the oddness of the situation doesn't help and I couldn't see myself and many of them have really goofy expressions! I hereby pass a decree that I'm never allowed to show my teeth when smiling again. It looks awful!

See?

In fact there is something I absolutely hate about every picture I've posted. Maybe practice makes perfect? Maybe I'm too self-critical at the moment? Maybe I should just stick to the day job =P Still it was an amusing evening and if Olivia needs a guinea-pig again I'll be happy to oblige!

One thing I won't be forgetting though - MAC make really good ghost pale foundation so at least my skin looks alright here!

What I brought in Camden

In my previous post I mentioned that whilst I was in London I spent an afternoon shopping in Camden. Whilst I was there mostly to hunt for vinyl to give to my dad for father's day (I scored a rare Jefferson Airplane double LP for him =]) I popped into Sai Sai. They stock a range of goth and alternative clothing, and also some lolita stuff from GLP and Red Queen's Black Label. The quality is pretty variable and often poor, but the prices are far lower than brand; comparable to bodyline but without the shipping cost to pay and the chance of actually trying things on to check they fitted.

I therefore decided that I would buy this Red Queen's Black Label blouse even though the quality wasn't fantastic because it was £32 and some of the worse offences to the senses were so easily fixed:

As you can see I've already removed the largest part of the jabot bow because it was just faintly ridiculous. It was far too easy to remove the bow (held on by 2 stitches!), tug the large part out of the central band and then stitch the bow back onto the jabot. (far more securely!)

The lace on this blouse isn't fantastic but the collar lace is small so it doesn't show too badly and most of the ruffles are made from dotted tulle instead =]. I'll probably remove the lace from the sleeves and replace that eventually, but for the moment I'll just hide them under a jacket or cardigan.

My black and white Meta skirt arrived too!

I wanted to post another picture too that included my shoes, but blogger is playing up...

Next time I post I will have some much better pictures anyway I hope! A professional photographer friend of mine just built a new home studio and wants a guinea pig, so I'm making my fabulous modelling debut (gulp). 

Red and Black week: My first Lolita

OK so it's not completely my first Lolita. There was this, when I was 17:

With my rubbish petticoat and plain H&M blouse. Such an ita!

And the old school lolita dress I brought off a friend later that year. I only have a photo of it from when I wore it as my improvised Blair Witch costume (see this post) and not in any of the proper co-ordinates I wore. Still an ita though =P

I decided then that I would not try to wear lolita until I could afford to do it properly! I'd saved up some money for my accomodation in London when I go to Highgate but then my sister-in-law offered me their sofa bed so I decided to treat myelf =]. 

Also in lolita fashion, finding things that fit me is difficult because Bodyline, the only 'brand' I could afford new seem to start at size M and many lolita brands only make one size, so even second hand it can be difficult. However I've put on some weight recently so rather than beat myself up about it I'll use it as a chance to wear pretty clothes without having to alter them. Maybe when my PhD is over I'll get healthy again and take in the waists a little!

Here are the things I'm buying from egl-comm-sales, they fit this weeks theme rather well! Please note these pictures are not mine, I'm using the photos provided by the sellers (I hope they don't mind!).

Dark Red Velvet Skirt by Metamorphose Temps de Fille

Striped Skirt by Metamorphose Temps de Fille

and this lovely Mini Tricorn hat!

I'm really excited and already I can't wait for them to arrive!

I have some blouses which will do for now, but I'm going to keep an eye out for a black peter pan collar blouse with pretty lace that is small enough in the bust for me! I hate being flat chested, but even though I weigh over a stone more than I did at 18, it's the one part of my figure which hasn't changed at all, so it seems I'm just going to have to accept it. =P If any one has a loliable blouse they'd like to sell with a max bust of around 82cm I'd be very interested!

Thanks again to Sophistique Noir for this weeks theme. I've loved reading all of the posts, I wish I'd had time to participate more but I've been busy preparing for my fieldwork at the cemetery.