Throw some shades on

When I was a younger lolita a few years ago, I tried to become "famous". I made myself a Facebook page, tried the cheeky writing style and gave on to the whole idol pose/cutesy thing that was trendy back then. I don't even know why I did that. Well, I suppose that as any teenager ever I just wanted to exist.

Why do we want to become well-known ? What does it change for us ?
I guess peer recognition is a thing. It's a signal that not only you fit in, but you fit in so well it's actually you who set the trends. You're know the one who decide who fit in or not. As someone who never succeeded fitting in, I can now see why I was so attracted by e-fame.

Of course it backfired, because you can't take all the space claiming that you're better than others when truly you're not. Before setting the rules you have to follow them, comprehend them then bend them at your will. People with long-lasting fame usually deserve it for their skills, because they're people to look up to.

The thing is, I don't want to be someone to look up to. I'm a imperfect human. We're all. I make life choices according to my very own my past and current experiences. We should all do that. Really, no one should admire anyone, cause you know what ? You're gonna be disappointed a way or an other. These people are awesome, nice, stylish, clever, pretty but not perfect. Remember that.

My quest for recognition was a real let down, and while I stopped thinking about it, taking a break from the Internet, my past errors continued to simmer down in the mind of people. I gained in my national comm a reputation of elitist strictness. To be fair, I do apply a pretty strict set of rules to everything in my life, including lolita fashion, but as I know it's based my own really crooked and bizarre mind it's restricted only to myself and I do my best so it won't trouble my judgment of others.
While I do partially appreciate this image which allow me to get away with not acting like a super kawaii carebears person, I'm sometimes not as amused by people interpreting my shy behavior and absolute fear of being an awkward embarrassment as being a snob. Well, I suppose I have to deal with it. It's my fault for sending the wrong message in the first place.

Still, what I wanted to say is that I'm happy it didn't work out. I'm happy I'm not obligated to anyone, that I'm not feeling forced to do anything to achieve status. I'm not is the craze. I don't think I represent anything for anyone apart maybe a friend for those few I got closer with. When I see people going crazy on the Internet for this or that, I'm just happy that whatever happens, as nobody needs me and I don't owe anything to anyone I can just walk away. Maybe it's stupid but to me it is freedom. I'm visible enough to have the occasion of doing an array of awesome things and meeting plenty of new amazing people, but just small enough to be able to leave whenever I want to. That's how I intend to live my life at the moment : by being able to just leave. "Normal" life, family, lolita fashion, anything really. I'm resigned to not fit in. And now for the first time of my life I feel free.

Museum of fairground arts

When I set up a meetup for my comm, I really try to find something a bit different, places that really have their own atmosphere and makes you travel.
When I first saw the pics from the garden of the museum of fairground arts, I knew I had to set up something over there. To be fair I didn't even know about the place until lovely Shenna from lacealamode posted the pictures from her visit last February. A museum where you can ride the attractions ? I needed to go !

A wild herd of lolitas appears

The only downside of this place is that the dimlight makes taking pictures really hard.

Some of  Josephine Baker's costume were in the museum !

There were three parts in the museum, each of them was composed of a great dance hall and an area with rides we could try on. They actually rent the place. Just imagine celebrating something here !

Camélia and her friend creepy unicorn guy

Camélia, Léa, Chloé and Lunila on the venician ride

Teeny tiny ram ride

Flying horses of the automaton gallery.

The automatons sang an opea piece for us. Those were distorting mirrors.

Venitian room.

Great barrel organ. They are my weakness, it's a shame they're not more common, especially the smaller ones.

Yes, we rode that

Vélocipède

 Ok so it was my first time earing about this thing. This weird carousel with bikes is called "vélocipède", and you have to actually ride it like a real bike, it's powered by pedaling. This one is fully working, and it's the only one still functional in Europe ! Needless to say that I loved it. The machine itself is so heavy that you really feel like you're going incredibly fast when it start to move. Such a blissful feel of freedom.

Look how stupidly happy I am. I couldn't stop smiling, I had way too much fun

Chloé, Lunila, PumpKin, Camélia, Léa, me and Chloé (thanks Lunila for the pic !)

After that we all went to a restaurant nearby to have some dessert. I took a mint lemonade and some tarte tatin.

Then some of us ended the day by some ramen in Japan Town. I got tonkatsu, since I wasn't feeling up for a soup.

This was truely amazing.

 I have a really specific connection with traditional, popular culture since I come from a rural area and have been raised with local tales and songs. I felt so moved and so happy seeing this place, it really made me miss home and some parts of my childhood. I'm very much a city girl now, but I couldn't stop talking about my days at my friend's farms, the summer neighbour party with the old accordéon player and the cold nights spent in this half deserted castle in Ardèche. This was twice as important to me since I had memory issues due to medication a while ago and the place really triggered some very specific memories that I missed dearly. It was really hard for me to not cry at the sound of the organ barrel, and me who was feeling so blue just before the meetup went out with the biggest smile across the face. So maybe I'm a bit partial on that, but you should definitely visit that place. It's worth it. Trust me.

Thanks a lot girls for sharing this moment with me, we had a wonderful time together and I'm happy you liked the place too. I look forward to organise an other meetup with such a great group of friends !

Fashion mix ?

It's been a while I didn't post, and I have so many things to tell you still ! While I write all these articles, we do have the time for a style point, right ?

I had a lot of fun last time explain step by step my wa lolita outfit, with all the choices I made for a perfect mix. Not that the outfit itself was anywhere near perfect, but much more that it was -in my eyes- well balanced between japanese tradition and modern fashion. Anyway, as it was tons of fun I though "why not doing it on other outfits ?".  Well, here we are.

Today I wanted to talk about this outfit : the "Trendy Goth" (yes, my staple outfits have names, I'm that obsessed).

As said above, this outfit is my constantly evolving staple for this season. The base is a leather legging with and over-size sweater. Shoes may vary, but they always are short boots. I wear the outfit with or without sleeve rolls.

The challenge here was to mix alternative elements within a fashionable outfit. For that, I used references to goth culture rather than pure goth elements. The leather bag from Torrente has spikes, making it pop from the rest of the outfit and giving a punk edge to the ensemble. The Litas are a really direct reference to emblematic platform shoes from goths and drags, while still being a "mainstream" fashion piece.

The oversize sweater with legging combo is really trendy and helps me looking slimmer and taller. The woolen look of the top echoes the wood of the shoes for a natural feel and stop the outfit from looking too sharp and leathery. The general look is really inspired by avant-garde fashion.

I'm not a jewelry person, plus I feel like the oversize look ask for simplicity so I just kept my usual earrings and added nothing else. To give a bit of androgyny, I chose a masculine looking back-combed hairstyle showing my undercut. Once again, pretty gothy but still mainstream.

As for the makeup I wanted to try out the ever so dreaded black lips style, with my brand new black lipstick from Kiko. I layered it with a wine colored lip ink for it to last longer. To lighten up the look I kept hair off my face and chose a set of golden eyeshadows. I also lightened up my brows with a golden brow pencil. Finished up the look with a really thin cat eye and some light contouring on a not-too-heavy foundation.
Alternatively, I would wear a plum lipstick with colder brown eyeshadow.
Once again these echoes gothic style and color palette without being too heavy. It's unusual yet flattering and even pretty fashionable since black and gold are a basic for black based high fashion makeup.

Here ! What did you think about that ? It's funny, because when you're dressing up it doesn't feel like much, but breaking down the outfit really gives a lot of informations. I like this outfit a lot, and it's true that my muggle clothing don't get that much love on this blog. They totally deserve more post !

Back to writing my long due meetup report. See ya !