Gobelin appreciation

2026

Time flies. In between my last post in 2017 and today a lot has changed.

I have been into lolita on and off but the love will always be here even if one day I do decide to stop. 

Age does make a difference so if you are young and you are reading this, wear all the clothes, live all the life, do it before you are trapped (in whatever way, let's not get into that now).

Anyway as you know if you follow me since the start... (how long as it been? An eternity now, right?) I am a huge fan of the classic lolita brands, and some pieces will forever have my heart but also cause me pain. One of which is my dream coat (which has never and will never fit me), the 

Victorian Maiden "Gobelin Coat With Fur". 

So, when Kurumi announced her collaboration with Shimamura and the Noel de Memoire Series and I saw that coat, I knew I had to get it... even though I shouldn't spend a penny on anything. 

At first it seemed super cheap but then adding shipping, taxes etc, it was still sort of expensive, like a second hand coat and there are some things I'd like to improve, we will talk about that later.

As always, I asked the best shopping service in the world for purchases in Japan for help. She was the best as always and helped me. I did not know what I wanted, if only the coat, if I needed the accessories too... it is not fun to shop on a tight budget. 

It took some months for the actual items to be made and launched (I made the order in August and they were ready in December?). I paid the remaining amount and she shipped it really quick. It arrived in less than two weeks and after dealing with customs, it quickly came to my door. I wanted to film an opening video but it had been a while since i got something and was too excited.

I knew what it was, first I was not expecting anything and the Calbee on the box and all the lettering gave it away, it got me really excited!

There was also something else inside. One day a relative who stayed over broke one of my novelty items which i loved and seeing me so sad this person said "find a replacement and I will pay for it". I did not know if i could but i posted about it on facebook and who contacted me? My shopping service saying there was one for sale on mercari. I bought it!

 

Broken box. (never found that missing piece)

New box! Yay!

And now for the main bit, the coat!

When I opened the box I was really nervous. When you are plus sized you always wonder if things will fit, what if it didn't? I did not want to go through the hassle of trying to sell this especially since I was not sure if anyone else would be so much into granny couch stuff that they'd pay over retail price (shipping and all the fees).

Looking at both here they look perfect, right? But then I tried them on and I have a couple of issues:

1. The length:

One could tell that it was long but I always assume that long on a Japanese person does not mean it will be as long on me, but this one is... I am unsure if it is far too long. Still debating on this.

2. The size:

That is my fault, I orderd a 3XL which means it is perfect on the bodice (bust/waist) but then the sleeves are super wide for me. I mean i can work with it but would prefer them to be a bit tighter. I just have one of those odd bodies... I usually say that being plus sized is worse than being petite because the issue is to have the garment actually fit you. If it is too big you can always get it tailored, but if it does not close... its not the same. So I am ok with this.

3. The cape:

Did I really need it or did I just love the coat on the model and wanted to look like her? I find it a bit useless now that I have it. Also it is way too long for my taste. This one I should probably have gotten in a smaller size. I really need to get it altered to wear it, I do not like how long it is at all. 

4. The quality and thickness:

Its not warm at all, it looks like a winter coat but it is more of a spring/ autumn coat which might not make much sense visually speaking. But at least that might give me some time to get it altered so I can wear it still this year? Hope so...

The quality of the lining and fabric isn't the most amazing thing I have seen but I was expecting that due to the price range. 

I have another cape from Victorian Maiden for reference but that one is actually too small for my large shoulders and its not from a coat but a piece to be worn over a top. Something in the middle length would work better for me. 

As you can see the print is more dainty on the VM cape and the one on the right is a bit larger. The lace is also extremely beautiful on the VM cape and very tiny on the larger cape. I am not sure if I should find new lace and add it to the trim as I will be making it shorter. 

Lining of my Victorian Maiden cape

                                                                  Lining of the Kurumi x Shimamura cape

And this is the length on me. As I said, I do not hate nor love it, I think I may be too attached to my dream impossible to fit Victorian Maiden coat which makes my brain think this shouldn't be this long. I am not sure. I did not wear the cape because I really dislike it as it is. I was just trying the coat on anyway.

Overall, I am happy I got the coat. I would probably not have gotten the cape maybe or would have bought two sizes down hoping it would be shorter. The good news is that with the extra fabric I'll probably be able to make a rectangular headdress out of the excess material. The bad thing is, I don't own a sewing machine and am too scared to do it myself so I have to find a seamstress (and I know 0) around me to help. 

If you are interested in looking at the entire line, here's a link to the complete collection. I also liked the beret, the scarf, the boots with the fur and the skirt. 

FEBRUARY

I have trying to get back in touch with wearing the fashion again. 

For various reasons I have not been wearing it as much or did not wear it as much last year. This year I plan to change that. 

The most important steps (and the ones I don't mind sharing) include:

- losing the excess weight (I went from a size 40 to a 46)

- improving myself stress wise

- putting myself first

- saving so that I can go back to buying nice things

- reconnecting with hobbies as a whole

Until I achieve that, instead of waiting like I keep doing, I have decided to at least wear the fashion for myself and post more in my accounts as a boost to want to continue. I need that stimulus otherwise i lose interest and just go back to being a couch potato. 

This saturday I decided I wanted to try a dress that fit me but I did not wear yet and just hang out with myself having tea and working on understanding a bit more about bullet journaling (hobbies). I started off with the dress, tried going without a wig but could not deal with lolita without bangs so I had to get some... and then to hide the gap I needed to add a hat but it looked silly on its own and i wanted to hide the braid elastics so I added some bows... and then more bows and then more cherries to fit the theme.... and suddently this ended up not being that casual at all.

I realised I cannot do casual lolita at all. Totally failed haha but I think it looks cute. 

This dress is VERY short however. I wish it was at lest a palm longer skirt wise. But I do love the dotts on the straps and Emily Temple Cute Jsks with full back shirring are the best dresses for people my size. I kid you not, totally recommend them. 

Outfit Information:

Hat: Innocent World

Shirt: offbrand (Primark)

JSK: Emily Temple Cute

Necklace: offbrand 

Cherry hair clips: offbrand 

Bunny / Ribbon rings: offbrand (Chocomint)

Cookie brooch: honestly do not remember...

Ivory hairties: BABY, the Stars Shine Bright

Wrist cufs: Alice and the Pirates

Bag: Angelic Pretty

Socks: offbrand 

Shoes: Emily Temple Cute

There's a lot I want to unpack in this photo but I won't, not yet. I will leave you with the lovely Bordallo Pinheiro tea set which I love and matching the ETC vibes perfectly. 

What about you, what have you been doing?

Also please leave your blog/instagram/etc links so I can support and follow you. 

Love always,

Jo

Japan 2014 -Tokyo Haul

Thursday the 6th of August

Hello again,

Since I'm behing Schedule with these posts and a shopping haul means some photos and no text (exagerating here) it will be fast to get it done.

I woke up early and went to the living room like any other day. The usual breakfast here is coffee (with cream and sugar, freshly made), an individual salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomato, ham and my fav sesame dressing!)and a thick toast with butter or jam.

I always get spoiled in Japan and then get a reality check when we are home. I often even skip breakfast.

 After that and of couse changing diapers, watching tv, rolling around on the floor with Mari and playing with her, I went back to the room and started organizing my purchases and taking out all the stuff from our carry on bags. Since I was doing that it made sense to take photos of all the things I got during this trip to post on poupee and also here of course.

The first item was a present from my husband. He knows how much I love Vivienne Westwood and we had been in the second hand store in Harajuku too but he wanted to give me something special so he tricked me, said he was going to the bathroom and went to buy me this instead. I love it, its colorful so its not going to be easy for me to incorporate it in my rock n roll sort of daily look but its amazing, i'm super happy! I now own my ring, a hat and a hankey haha - worse VW fan ever, right? :P

My new Vivienne Westwood 2014-15 fall winter collection hat.

 And this is what I got Lolita-wyse in Tokyo:

1. Mille fleurs petticoat
2. Emily Temple Cute dot (ivory x black) under knee socks
3. Emily Temple Cute Fairy Tale Frame Jsk (black)
4. Alice and the Pirates cardigan (black)
5. Accessories from Closet Child (2 ring bows, 1 rabbit ring, 1 rabbit hair acc/brooch - not cheap but i like them)
6. Mirror/charm from Q-Pot

 This is all my doll related purchases (VOLKS; Junie Moon, random shops):


1.Volks mook, came with their mascot.
2.Volks necklace for my dolls
3. Volks book kit so my dolls can have a nice looking hard cover book prop.
4. Tickets to dollpal in Osaka (not Dollpa)
5. clothes for my blythe dolls, special colab cotton drss, 2 pairs of socks
6. Last issue of Dollybird - this one comes with a chair kit
7. cute blythe notepad, can't resist stuff like this
8. 3 new rement sets
9. Random plastic bottles to use as props
10. cute kitty cat

 As I left before my new Juliette et Justine arrived here is a shot of it. I finally do not regret getting it, i hate the shirring and those black detachable things for the straps and I still find its too expensive for the lack of detail such as lace etc but I adore the print and it looks nice on.

Juliette et Justine ete des contes de grimm Jsk (black)

Some of you wanted to see my new bunny muchacha mook bag better so I took a photo of it too, here it is (I've been using it a lot here):

Ahcahcum Muchacha bunny bag

 We had one of those instant food packs for lunch, curry. Rice has to be made seperately but its still convenient.

I love the cute plate too.

 In the afternoon we did very little. I remember doing some cleaning and that my husband and Mari spent some time playing in the building's little kids playground.

This is the view from the balcony, that's Sango over there. To go anywhere we have to cross that bridge, unless we are travelling by car.

After taking a bath Mari got to play with her new toy, a kit that will help her train her skills to catch rea fish at a summer festival when she's old enough to try, cute!

 And before we finish the day of course there was yummy food as usual. Mari and myself love mushrooms and enoki, shiitake etc are ridiculously expensive in Portugal and so soooo cheap here. I just try to eat as much as possible.

I really like shabu shabu. Its tasty and not too heavy.

And that was my day after being so tired from all the walking in Tokyo. Calm days are nice as well, don't you agree?

Love,
Jo

9th March

After an odd night that Saturday, (We changed, went out for kebabs and witnessed a robbery and waited 15min for the police to arrive while noticing that apparently nobody cared and reported it - despite a lot of people walking by - sad huh?) we had a more relaxed Sunday.


First my family was gone, so no mom and my brother also went to rest due to having gotten a cold and second Sunday's are always a bit... slow.


We hanged out at home a while and then in the afternoon finally left to walk around town a bit and for Mari to run around because that's her favorite thing right now.


I recently got another dress, its not really a new dress, but a dress I already own in another color way. One of the local lolitas has it in yet another color so I thought it would be fab if we did a trio. Sadly we never heard back from said Lolita so it ended up being me and fla twinning again. I changed the outfits in order for them to kinda be a twin and off we went. My favorite outfit is fla's. I just adore the burgundy ribbon on that dress, I think its pretty unexpected. Obviously I matched it with burgundy pieces and I think it works out quite nicely.

I am not really sure about this cut on me actually, for casual outings sure, for actual proper Lolita like this... I'm not sure it suits me. It makes me bulkier than normal. I do adore the print on the dress and the fabric though so I'm sad to let these go. They were not super cheap either.

Eventually fla had to get ready to leave which was sad.... we will miss having her around, I felt so... appreciated... actually no, I felt like someone considers me to be a good friend and wants to hang out with me which is something I have not had for a while nor did I know that I was not getting.
That made me get very gloomy these next days, I think you only miss things when you acknowledge them. I got so used to being with my family and only meeting certain people on some occasions that spending a whole weekend with someone dedicating their full attention to me kind of spoiled me.
I now plan to kidnap fla and her boyfriend and "force" them to move to the most amazing Portuguese city of them all, Porto.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at the photos.
I had so much fun twinning, I want to do it again soon!
Love,
Jo

7, 8 of March

            I was going to post a bit more, stuff other than just this weekend but I ended up procrastinating and I'll only post about the weekend in the end. I hope you will like reading, it was a very happy time for me so hopefully you will.

7th March - Friday
Two events took place on friday, my inlaws sent a package full of food again and that arrived which is always a colorful fun event for me and my husband. Mari had fun taking everything out of the box and putting everything inside again and so on...

Later that evening, around 10pm my dear friend fla arrived from Lisbon. She wanted to come over to visit me and my familly and would stay with us for the weekend!

8th March - Saturday

We woke up at decent time i suppose but took our time around the house. We decided we should go have lunch somewhere and everyone got ready.

Me, my husband, Mari, my older brother and fla all got in the car and my husband drove us to the nearby city of Vila Nova de Gaia to go to his favorite restaurant. 

My friend fla brought gifts, yes i know.... what a nice girl! 

She got things for Mari and also made some things for both Mari and myself. <3

She got Mari a set, a H&M red dress with pink dots and she made a matching bear headdress. How cute is that? 

I keep telling her that I adore the floral headbands she makes so she made me one. She made it in red, white and gold. It is huge I wonder if i can pull it off. 

She also made me a bear black headpiece. She did it out of a sort of spike things, as a dare. I shall wear it just for the lolz. :P I wonder if i can pull it off?

I also saw her wearing these tights and i loved them. I told her so and she got me a pair. I had no idea they were from Primark. They look amazing in pictures, everyone should get a pair.  

In the afternoon we had scheduled a Lolita meeting. One of the local girls, Isabel, had scheduled it before fla even knew she'd come over. It sounded like fun but we had other plans so we knew we could only stay for a bit. Still we got dressed and went. We had decided to wear the same dress since we both own Metamorphose temps de fille room print in the white colorway. Of course for fla that means her confort zone: sweet lolita and for me quite the opposite. It's fun thought and i think i pulled it off.

 We ordered one cake and shared. It was ok, i think the presentation is better than taste there but the kitchness of the decor of that place won me over.

We had to leave a bit earlier (aroung 5.30) because we had a classical music thing at 6pm. We got in the car and off we went. Unfortunately that weekend there was a ton of traffic and, in the end, we could  not get there on time. So that means no show and leaving the meeting earlier for nothing! We decided not to let it go to waste and stopped in a nice spot for some shots.

So I guess since we got nice shots I cannot complain but i'm still sad because i wanted to take fla to the show. Oh well....
We both wore the same print (fla wore the op version and I wore the jsk), the same shirt, the same lace socks in different colorways, flat shoes, ankle socks and the exact same bag in different colorways, same accesories etc. I think it was a decent twin experience and it was a lot of fun!

Soon, the next day report. I wonder what we both wore.... :P

I hope you liked the post, i miss her terribly!
Love,
Jo

Familly time

Hello again,

This Sunday we saw the sun peaking. Its been really grey and raining a ton every single day so I knew we should take this chance to go out.

We decided to go to a museum because on sunday mornings in Portugal some museums are free.
Mari seems to like art pieces a lot, we have a big paiting on the staircase and every time we are taking her to bed she holds her hands up wanting to touch it. I figured it wouldn't hurt to go to a museum.
Seeing as there are usually art instalations at modern art ones I picked the most notorious modern art museum in our city, Serralves. There was an exhibit from Ccildo Meireles which consisted mainly of large scale instalations and some were interactive as usual.

Mari fell in love with the "egg" installation. We took her shoes off and let her stay there and she was clearly feeling the egs with her feet and smiling like mad. She did not want to leave!

After leaving she felt a bit cranky (probably wanted to stay there) so I let her walk for a bit. I thought it would be for a bit but she was having so much fun walking while holding my hand that we ended up visiting that entire floor like that. It was fun.

We got tired a while after and left without seeing everything, the purpose of visiting was making Mari happy and estimulating her senses so our work was done anyway. We decided to go to the cafeteria to have a cup of coffee. Mari drank a whole glass of water.

We then visited the book store but Mari is so into books she started crying when we took the books she was picking up from her hands and we left a bit embarassed haha the life of a parent.

We then went to take a stroll in the gardens. They are huge and so pretty!

The reason why i like them so is that you can find any sort of environment, modern things, old trees, designed fountains, very crude ponds with ducks... everything. We spent some time there playing since mari loves water and taking photos.

We wanted to have lunch somewhere nice but when we arrived to the place we were going to try out they told us they did not have baby chairs and obviously we left. It's a very recent place so its a bit of a shock to hear that they do not have baby chairs... we just went for the obvious safest option: a nearby shopping mall.
Mari ate a MacDonald's bowl of soup and we both had asian noodles,at a Wok to walk franchise store. My husband likes eating there, and I told him to just grab me something while i fed her.

They also had a small park for kids to play in and we took Mari there for the first time. She really liked the horsie. I want to get her one now!

We did some grocery shopping next and went home.
My brother stopped by at night and we were not very hungry but i was obcessing over cake so my husband went to get some chocolate muffins to surprise and make me happy (<3) so we ust drank tea, had some toasts and muffins instead of a normal dinner.

That was basically the nice part of my weekend, on saturday i just took care of my daughter while my husband worked.

Hope you liked hearing about my weekend.
Jo