LBC: Lolita Designer I'd Like to Meet

Well, another week and another theme for the Lolita Blog Carnival. This week is about the Lolita designer we want to meet.

First of all, the only Japanese designer I could have chosen is Yumi Fujihara, the owner and designer of Innocent World, but I already “did” and even thought I didn’t talk to her because she was busy and the language is a barrier, I could see an interview and listen to her views about Lolita.

But there are two indie designers that I’d really like to meet because their clothes are awesome and they are super skilled <3 They are…

1 Piece, 4 Seasons

I recently joined Lolita Blog Carnival, a fb group for lolita bloggers (No way Sherlock!), and in their own words: “What we do here is simple: We decide on a topic, set a date, and then we all make a blog post about that topic on that date.” Pretty simple and fun, isn’t it? I’m quite happy to join it because I never know what to post on my blog and I want to make it more Lolita related.

This week’s topic is “1 piece, 4 seasons.” I will cheat on this one for two reasons:

1. 1. I don’t want to use Polyvore with pieces I just find around there, for me it’s more fun if I use my own wardrobe and I’m actually wearing the outfits… which leads me to the second reason.
2. 2.   Right now I’m outside Serbia (Finland yay!) so, I’m far from my Lolita wardrobe.

What I’m going to do is to post pictures with outfits I used during those seasons ;3 There is only one piece of which I have pictures of all seasons (Good, I can include a story as well), it is this Bodyline skirt:

My Most Precious Lolita Item

Another activity from the fb group Rosas de Azúcar. This time it consists in posting our most precious Lolita item.

Otra actividad del grupo en fb de Rosas de Azúcar. Esta vez se trata de postear nuestro ítem lolita más preciado.

Which is your most precious accessory or garment? This IW JSK

¿Cuál es tu accesorio o prenda lolita más valioso? Este JSK de IW

Is it because it’s expensive, a gift from someone special or hard to get? It’s because it was my first brand item, my first non ita JSK and my first IW thing, it has been with me for years! Thanks to this JSK I started to love IW <3

¿Lo es por caro, un regalo de alguien especial o fue difícil de conseguir? Es porque fue mi primer prenda de marca, mi primer JSK no ita y mi primera cosa de IW, ha estado conmigo por años! Gracias a este JSK comencé a amar IW <3

One of the first times I wore this JSK, I was so young!
Una de las primeras veces que usé este JSK, era tan joven!

Does it have a story? Well, it was hard to get it since I didn’t have paypal at that time, and Candy, a Spanish Lolita was nice with me and accepted money through western union. It was quite a problematic transaction, and I’m grateful that Candy had a lot of patience, and at the end I got it <3 I stopped wearing it because it torn in the chest and I didn’t want to touch it because I could make it worse. I was able to fix it in 2012, but I gained a lot of weight and couldn’t wear it anyway. Finally last year I lost all that weight and I’m ready to use it in spring ^^

¿Tiene historia? Bueno, fue difícil de obtener porque en ese entonces no tenía paypal, y Candy, una lolita española fue buena onda y acepto que le pagara por western unión. Fue una transacción algo problemática, y agradezco que Candy fuera tan paciente, y al final lo obtuve <3 Dejé de usarlo porque se rasgo un poco en el pecho y no quería tocarlo por miedo a empeorarlo. Fui capaz de arreglarlo en el 2012, pero engordé mucho y no lo pude usar. Por fin este ultimo año perdí todo el peso ganado y estoy lista para usarlo de nuevo esta primavera ^^

Picture of the last time I was able to wear it in 2011.
Foto de la ultima vez que puse usarlo en el 2011.

Other girls that have made the activity (Spanish)

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Personal challenge - 100% off brand lolita

I decided to set as a small goal to make the most loliable outfit I could out of off brand. The only thing I used that was specifically for Lolita was the petticoat, the rest is stuff I got in normal stores.

Decidí fijarme una pequeña meta que consiste en hacer un outfit lolita con puro off brand. La unica prenda que usé que fuera especificamente lolita fue el petticoat, el resto son cosas que encontré en tiendas normales.

JSK: Orsay

Blouse (Blusa): Vintage

Flower & Bag (Flor y bolso): H&M

Necklace (collar): Serbian designer

Shoes & Tights (zapatos y medias): Random store

Innocent World Tea Party in Vienna

On October 12 was held the Innocent World Tea Party in Vienna. Tickets were sold months ago and they were sold out in minutes! I was really lucky to get one. Since at that time there was no paypal in Serbia, it was painful to make the payment, but thanks to my family and friends in Mexico, I was able to pay ^^

The day came and I woke up super early to take my plane. I arrived some hours later and ran to the hostel to take a shower and change my clothes. Sadly it was a bad hair day, and I had nothing to fix it! I did all I could and went to the hotel where the Tea Party would be.

I arrived and it was awesome, it was the first time I saw such an amount of beautiful well dressed lolitas.

One Month in an Appartment in Finland

It was my turn to go to Finland. I went the night before to the train station to take my train to Budapest, since flights from there are way cheaper than from Belgrade. I arrived in the morning and killed time until 5. Since for some weird reason I wanted to get Pizza Hut really bad, I went to look for it, there was only one place that sells it, the Plaza Arena.  

 

Biiiig disappointment! But at least I found a beautiful dress at Orsay haha 

We are so poor we could only afford going to two countries

As I said in my last entry, he came to visit me from Finland, we spent two nice weeks and Croatia and Slovenia were the next places to visit. I really wanted him to go to Plitvice, the national park in Croatia so, the trip was tiring, all night long from Belgrade to Zagreb and then 2 hours and a half to Plitvice.

I won’t put pictures of the park, but if you’re curious you can check this post I made in my LJ from the first time I went. It’s incredibly beautiful, and something that everyone should see before dying haha

http://nyu-hikari.livejournal.com/157457.html

Finland Meets Mexico in Serbia

In one of my entries I wrote about a trip I made to Finland, well, now it was his turn to visit me. It all started on August 6, he arrived at midnight and after 3 months, I was so happy, excited and nervous to see him again. When I saw him crossing that door, I couldn’t believe it was real, I just ran to hug him. Sadly when we were in the bus… it broke down ¬¬ sooo, we had to walk home. At least he didn’t get mad or anything, even though he was really tired, I was the one who was mad =P

  

The 7 Deadly Sins

Esta vez la actividad lolita consiste en escribir sobre los 7 pecados capitales en el Lolita. Cuando recién leí sobre esta actividad me la imaginé un poco diferente, sin embargo, también esta es divertida, así que vamos a ello.

This lolita activity is about the 7 deadly sins in the lolita. When I first heard about it, I imagined it a little bit different, however, this is fun too so, let’s start.

My First Outfit

Recientemente me uní al grupo de Rosas de Azúcar, un grupo para blogs lolita en español y en donde se realizarán actividades para postear en el blog. La primera es sobre nuestro primer outfit.

Recently I joined the group Rosas de Azúcar (Sugar Roses), a group for Lolita blogs in Spanish and where different activities will be made to post in the blog. The first one is about our first outfit.

Cuestionario Lolita

Too lazy to translate =P

Supposely now I know serbian

This last Wednesday was the “graduation” of the Serbian course on Avala for the project “Svet u Srbiji” (The world in Serbia). We had to sing, dance and some others had to recite some personal redaction. At the end it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

I woke up early to take a shower and then my friend Suhejl came to my room to do the makeup and the hair. Hel told me what to wear and everything. I can’t believe how good he is at that stuff; I really liked how I looked.

We were in the middle of the last practice when the guest started to arrive so, we had to stop and wait till everyone was on their sit. I had to dance a song called “Moja čokolada” (My chocolate) and I was dying! I’m shy, and I simply cannot go in front of people doing those things, I felt like an idiot. Happily it ended fast.

We continued with the presentation when they put the video of a friend who abandoned the program. It was a really sad video, I looked at the audience and there were a lot of people crying.

At some point there was the turn of this guy from Congo who made a hip-hop song, and he really surprised the audience. It’s a very simple song about the life in Avala. I’ll write the lyric, because even if it’s very simple, I find very creative to write a song in Serbian after 3 months of studying it.

Svakog dana jedemo krompir (Every day we eat potatos)

Svakog dana idemo na Banjicu (Every day we go to Banjica –basically it’s where civilizations starts)

Svakog dana imamo čas (Every day we have classes)

Pola pet, mi smo umorni (4:30 we are tired)

At the end we danced kolo, which is a very simple Serbian dance, it was very very fun, it’s basically the only thing I can dance haha

The event finished when they gave us our diplomas. And then there were a lot of pictures, a cocktail in the restaurant, and a party at night… I didn’t go since I was tiiiired.

   

I Love Being a Lolita in Serbia

Today I want to write about the reasons for which I like to be a Lolita in Serbia. I cannot say I dress very often, since I used to have classes everyday during all day, and now that I have more time, I’m traveling (And traveling with Lolita clothes is incredibly uncomfortable) or I do nothing (I’m lazy like that haha), but if I have the chance, I take my frills and go outside.

Take into account that I’m going to compare how I live Lolita here and how I lived it in Guadalajara so, this is only my point of view.

Jagodina or, where are my strawberries?!

Last Saturday I was planning of going to one city in Serbia, but at the end I changed my destination to Jagodina, a small city 3 hours away from Belgrade. The reason is that I gave this trip as a birthday present to my friend Asni and she wanted to go there, Why? Because she looooves strawberries, which in Serbian are called Jagode, and only because of the name she wanted to go. At the end, well, I didn’t see any strawberry hahaha 

We had to catch the train of 7:50am, it was 7:42 and we were still on the bus! We had to run to the train station and buy the tickets fast! The train was full and we had to go in a different cabinet. I slept all the way, since we had to wake up at 5:30am to be ready. 

Problems of Being a Lolita in Serbia

Being a lolita in Serbia is not something easy for 4 main reasons.

Paypal

It just started to work here just a couple of months ago, before that the only way to pay was Western Union (Which commissions suck badly), or credit card, which basically prevented from buying in the second hand market and Japanese stores. I’m not an expert in this matter, but a girl from here told me that is was almost impossible to buy online, and actually none of the people I know here do it. Yes, now there is paypal and it’s not a problem anymore, but sure it helped to the fact that there are almost no lolitas in Serbia.

Shipping prices

Serbia is usually one of the most expensive countries to ship something, at least from my experience. I’m not really sure how does the postal system works, but every time I put Serbia in a web page, it gives me a really high price. When I ship from México, the cheaper price is for America, then Europe, Australia, Asia, and almost at the end small countries like Serbia with no concrete list. Or for example, when I ordered a coat from Infanta, the shipping cost to Serbia was 60euros with no tracking, while it was 45euros to Vienna using EMS.

Economy

Most salaries in Serbia are not high, everyone say it here, Serbia is a poor country. Yes, if you go out, all people is having a good time all day long, bars are full, and it gives the impression that everyone have money, but that’s not the case. Lolita cloth is very expensive, especially for students who don’t have a work.

Material

I’ve been going around fabric stores, and there are really not that many options. There are a few nice prints and that’s it, I haven’t found a lot of lace either, so, handmade is not that easy. Of course that plain dresses with no print can be made, but finding a beautiful fabric always inspires.

Lack of a community

I don’t really consider this as a really big problem, but it’s a plus I wanted to mention. I talked a little bit with a girl who used to be Lolita, and she told me that what I’m going to find are those girls who dress like lolitas in anime conventions. I was looking around and I couldn’t find anything. For me this is not a problem, but there are girls that could get discouraged with the problems above plus, the lack of other lolitas to share their interests.

But not everything is black in Serbia for the Lolita, there is a positive and beautiful side which I’ll write about in my next entry.