Paris - La Vie en Rose - Part Two

                                                 Saturday, the 21th February

I woke up very early, knowing what to wear makes it easier but I totally thought i'd have more time because I ended up having to leave the house with no makeup on. I put my hat in a bag, gathered all the makeup stuff and left the house on my own because my schedule was different from that of the regular atendees. 

I arrived at the venue right on time which was good. The minute I got there I left my things in the storage room and just started working.

The first thing to do was to take all the sales stall boxes downstairs so i decided I should take my shoes off and just went on barefoot which was somewhat strange i suppose. It made it easier for me and made me work faster. After that we then started putting all the merchandise on the tables. I helped with the japanese indies brand's stall but since there were already people there someone asked me to get the triple fortune boxes too. I ended up placing tf articles up for sale (omg those bonnets all went through my hands hehe). Fortunately I had help and soon we had finished. Me and Vief who also had had no time to put makeup on, managed to have some time to go back to the stock room and finally get ready. 

We sat there for a while and got ready, Vief helped me with the lashes because I am terrible with that sort of stuff (but I managed to put them on!) and then we left. My last official job before the opening was to great the guests at the entrance and to ask them to separate into 2 rows, the VIP and Valentines. 

And the game was on, suddently guests were finally checking in and LVER started. <3

First batch of guests! I took this photo right when i left the entrance after separating the lines. These are the first guests for LVER.

Once guests went down there would be two desks for ticket control. In this room there were 4 stalls in the 4 corners, Syrup, Btssb, Triple Fortune and Grimoire. There was also the place to leave guest belongings and the buffet area. 

That is where the triple fortune stall was, it seemed as if everyone just rushed to it first in fear that the bonnets would not be enough. Triple Fortune made a LOT of bonnets though so in the end everyone who wanted one had the chance to get one, unless they wanted a specific color.

Some of the beautiful outfits in LVER, everyone looked so amazing, it was a bit overwhelming!

This is part of the select shop stall. 

And this is one of the best bits of the trip for me, Moss Marchen. I have always known Martha online and we only met now and I love her, she is (I dare to say) someone i can clearly see me befriend if only i had been lucky to live close to her. I think she is awesome in every way possible. Her items are also perfection and I wanted everything. <3

And every time I see Fidel David in an event it makes me happy. He is a really nice person and his creations are incredible. 

Grimoire Stall. I honestly had almost no time to check things, I found myself to be like a little lost busy bee this year, I think it was the year in which I had less time for myself. 

The adorable Syrup stall, look at all the girly adorable accessories! I later regretted not having had the time to check everything carefully. I love what my friends got from the stall.

This is the outfit I chose for this day. I knew I'd have to move around a lot and work so I chose one of my newest dresses. I always wanted an Enchantilic Enchantilly dress because I love the fabric choice, the themes and also i love how fairy tale everything looks but when i tried it on I understood that having a designer/owner who isn't petite is a plus. The way this dress is cut shows that she understands the need for confort and the shirring doesn't squeeze me like others do and the shoulders are wide enough for my frame, its just perfect. I am not keen on the full shirring cuts now but I do love the fit. I also chose the hat because I knew I was going to work for triple fortune for 2 hours and I thought it would be respectful to wear something visible from them. I also wore a colar made by a Portuguese non-lolita designer to represent my country. I honestly love that i did not have to use a wig because it would be super tiring to have one on. Unfortunately none of the photographers asked me for a photo during the event so I have no decent shots of my outfit alone. And there goes one of my lolita dreams, to appear in a lolita major publication as a style reference and not in a group shot. This saddened me, I must confess.

After taking a walk around the room and chatting with some people it was then time for me to work at the triple fortune booth. Unfortunately that meant I couldn't go on stage to great the visitors in Portuguese but seeing as there were (that I know of) only two portuguese girls in the event - and one of those was me) not much was lost i suppose.

Working for triple fortune was interesting, I got to use my very basic japanese with Babi and Kaie and I hope they appreciated that I tried my best to help out that way. I did not get to speak to them about non business related things because I wanted to be professional and also because i'm shy and i was very busy haha. Rosalynn has a photo of me there, which I like a lot. It's the only one I have. <3

It was very interesting to feel how much the attendees wanted those bonnets and i tried my best to advise them on the best colors to match their styles/outfits.

After that I got to see a bit of the Mix brand / Indies brands fashion show which had a lot of very original looking items and also major brand pieces from brands I love like Atelier Pierrot and Juliette et Justine. There were also non lolita items of course since other styles were involved this year.

Here's a video of the fashion show by rosalynn - LINK

Girls seemed very busy and focused taking photos of one another and more than half of the guests were wearing lighter colors and princessesque coordinates, I felt a bit different i suppose.

There were also fashion shows from Triple Fortune (finally seeing the girls in the full coordinates made the rehearsal movements make total sense, it was a perfect show!).  love that green coordinate and i adore the male stule shirt. And I still want the black, red, ivory argyle pattern bustier.

After that I finally had a bit of time to get some photos taken with some friends or people that I have a connection with. I am glas i managed to get some photos, this year I honestly feel like I rushed so much it made it harder to enjoy myself although I could totally tell the event was a total success which made me happy of course.

I finally got to meet Rosalynn! She is so young and sweet and she is always super excited for everything and cheerful that i guess i cannot help but to adore it. She was wearing sweet lolita which is totally her thing and she looked adorable. I also met her mom and had the chance to tell her that i love how much support she gives to her and how much i wish i had the luck to have the same and that was also one of the special lver moments for me. At least looking back I always seem to remember that moment so I think it is.

Lempicka Maria was also there and I had met her already. We share a love for Moi-même-Moitié 

but although i branch into many other brands and styles she doesn't seem to which I admire.

She is always super sweet to me when we meet and she treats me with much care and respect and I value

that very much. I am so glad we got to take a photo together this year too. <3

Nana and Lea looked amazing of course, they always do and they are so nice, I really like them both. They are so pretty, its ridiculous really.
And on the right is Spiro, one of the amazing russian lolitas at the event. I am a big fan of their community, after being in love with the Finnish community I later fell for the russian in terms of fashion sense. They just really know how to do ott and fabulous coordinates as a whole and they are all such an inspiration for me. Spiro curiously is the only one that I managed to talk to for more than 2 minutes and she was just great to me during the whole event and I am going to be forever grateful.

There's someone I need to meantion in this post too with which I have no photos, Ada. Ada was amazing to me as well. Not because she gave me her raffle prize (how nice does someone have to be) but because I was feeling down, tired and just a bit odd at some point and she just made sure I got in a brighter spirit. Thank you Ada!

I managed to cheat my shy nature and ask Babi and Kaie for a photo when they came to me and gave me one of their catalogues with their autograph to repay me for the help that afternoon. I really like this photo too, i think we look really nice together I must say. <3

The other Portuguese attendee is Isuzu. She is actually living in Paris so technically I was the only one that went from my country which is kinda special but mostly very sad. It was really nice to see her even there, it made me feel more at ease i guess. 

Another great surprise this trip was that I ran into yourpervert who has always been those people who's photo posts i'd usually follow like crazy. Flawless style and great personality. Another one of those people i'd friend irl if only i had been lucky enough to be live near of.

Vief and Annso did not twin as usual but they were still a pair. Vief looked so adorable in Kodona, she totally can pull it off and they were just bubbly and nice as usual. Thank you for everything Vief. 

I also met Shannie Bee during this trip and I feel in love with her outfit for Lver, she added wings to the back of her dress, and the dress was to die for, the whole thing was flawless. She is super sweet, I barely knew her before but now I have discovered her blog and I adore it, I'll surely follow from now on. 

After this I went on stage finally to represent my community and after saying goodbye and helping clean up there was of course the group shots and such. I did not manage to be in the group photo for last year's SFE event so I was glad I managed to be in this years photo.

You can spot me if you watch at 5:40 <3 Thank you Cristina for the video. 

After everyone left I stayed and we took down all the items and made sure nothing was left behind. It was time to leave the venue. 

I then left home and when I arrived everyone was taking a rest but online people were talking about dinner and drink plans so me and Jo decided we'd go out. We made dinner plans with Kyra and got lost so Kyra and her husband came to us. Hah and we had a map! Not our best moment. The place we chose was closed but there was a japanese restaurant nearby and we decided to try it and we were lucky, it was affordable and the food was good. After that we got in the subway and met with the best people and had the (literally) worst Mohito I have ever had. 

But left with the best photo. 

I of course met and talked to many amazing people that day but unfortunately I took very little photos. Every time there's an event I always regret that I did not take enough photos and despite that this repeats itself. 

I have been looking at blog posts and I also talked to people at the event and everyone adored it this year. French Café and all the Street Fashion Europe members did an amazing job. It is an honor to have been part of it again this year. 

Hope you enjoyed reading this post.

Love,

Jo

Japan 2013 (Day 7 - 18th July)

 Hello again,

On the 7th day, again, I stayed home all morning so my husband could work on his thesis.  So I woke up and had breakfast (something a bit more continental this time) and spent some time with the familly members that were not as busy: Mari and my inlaws (and occasionally their huge lovable cat, Mi)

I apparently only had a toast with butter and a glass of 100% orange juice. 

So I cleaned up the room as usual and vaccum cleaned some more. That's what our room looks like when everything is more or less tidy.

Mari kept busy by emptying a box of paper tissues. We made a video of it she looks adorable untill the end when she starts eating the tissues. Bad Mari.

If you do not know, curry is even better the next day! So we had the leftover curry. :D

We left with Mari for the station, since it was still day time she took a little hat to protect her from the sun. 

We arrived at Namba and my husband left us and said he'd be back soon, he had to go do something at his japanese bank. So we waited here and I took these photos. 

Look! It's that building i took photos of in one of my trips to japan. heh Still waiting... 

and waited some more. I got a little bit fed up but there was nothing that can be done but wait. haha

 Unfortunately Mari had started getting annoyed too so i had to constantly pick her up and play with her etc etc and in the end i got rather tired.

When my husband arrived i just said "I'm not upset but please take her for a while!" hahaha  

We had scheduled to go somewhere at 7.15h but it was about 6.30 so we took a walk in the Namba underground mall. 

I got some gifts for my friends... bough some magazines for myself and looked around.

I found this charming tea house... it looks like something out of a book, or from another country. It's def. not japanese looking and we do not have this sort of thing in Portugal so...

This statue was a sort of ball labyrinth. I filmed the circuit but i'm not gonna waist bandwith posting that here. It was pretty cool though and everytime a ball fell it made a sound and it was, with that system, playing music!

We decided instead of having a late dinner we should just eat then so we looked for restaurants. My huband wanted to have ramen (again) but there was an udon one right next to it and he went with it to please me.
In the end it ended up being a good call because Mari had some too.

I love how they always bring table wear and seats for kids without us even asking. This is what i call service! For Mari to eat udon i cut it realy small and she apparently now is a fan. 

This is mine, i picked a summer special udon and it also came with inarizushi (稲荷寿司) which is a ball of rice covered by fried tofu. It's good.

We got double the average amount of udon that day because apparently they had won an award and if you said a catch phrase congratulating them for it they would bring you an extra serving for free, how odd is that?

There were so many cute items in this store, i thought my friends vania, susaninha and fla would like it especially. I did too and my husband wanted me to get that cat bag but i think i should just save my money for lolita stores for now and then go back in the end to regular stores.

It was time and so we went outside to the designated place. I spotted my sister in law before my husband did haha! There she was smiley and lovely as usual and i finally got to understand that the person who she married was a musician we had met before at one of her live acts. My husband did not know either, it was kind of funny!

They are, of course, the perfect match!

 So why did we meet there? Well apparently people (even if against the law? - only saying this because at some point a policeman came over and told them to "knock it off!") go there and perform their songs for different reasons, to be known, the spread some message, to enjoy themselves. So does Yoko and her friends.

All the people performing that night, all are her friends.

So we spent the rest of the evening watching and listening to them and their messages which were very different from one another. Mari liked it, slept a bit and met some strange people.

One of these people asked my husband if i was russian (what?) and after being told I was portuguese and that was our daugher he said "oh so your baby is an half baby (which means half japanese, half something else) and then followed with an "Yokatta ne!?" which is ridiculous and very funny. What? :P

I really liked the sky that night, cities look so different in different light and atmospheres don't they?

After some hours Mari started to get hungry and it was getting late so we finally said goodbye and left.

We made the mistake of trying to get to the JR station in Namba from the outside and obviously got a bit lost and ended up having to go back to where we started haha but saw some things some people who read this might like: 

 Game Taito Station and Sega arcade as well. I know my brother would like to go in one of these, i never did even though i've seen a few. Bad bad non gamer jo. :P

When we got to the station there were a couple of aquariums and those made Mari a bit more cheerful, enough to get her to be quiet for most of the ride home. 

Since we had an early dinner my mother in law made us some last minute onigiri which we appreciated dearly!

This is what I bought that day (totally over-spent on magazines and mooks):

• Last gothic and lolita bible
• Last kera
• Jane Marple 2013 Summer collection mook

The bag that came as a gift with the Jane Marple mook, not my usual style but i'm going to wear it soon i'm sure!

 And that was my day! I hope you liked reading about it. And as promised here's the second buy from the shopping trip in Shinsaibashi:

Angelic Pretty Eternal Rose Bouquet jsk + socks set (ivory) 

It was love at first sight! Not 100% my style but who cares I am in love. <3
Socks / Dress

Kisses,

Jo

Last meeting appearance?

Hello everyone,

So life has been pretty ectic lately. I am overwhelmed with work and arriving home rather late. This means that i've been tired and a bit absent of anything online related (unless that means 5 seconds here and there and sending emails and research, doing a lot of that lately). I am also finally starting to feel rather beat up from being in my 37th week. That's all for sumarizing what's going on over here.

Anyway the only lolita-related things I can add to this post are the following.
On the 1st of September we had a small gathering. It was scheduled for an animation related event but it was in the fabulous Hard Club. The café / restaurant is located in the top floor and from there we have a view of the rest of the place. Seeing as me and some other people didn't want to pay 5 euros to basically get into a space where you had a tiny corridor with only animation related merchandise for sale, a small area for workshops etc and an auditorium where cosplay competitions and whatnot were being held we just stayed there for the entire time. During that time the girls who are more into that sort of thing could just hang at the event back and forth as they wanted. It ended up being a really nice afternoon and I must recommend that you go to the café/restaurant for snacks, to hang out with friends or even have a meal. It's a good place for that and the staff is very friendly.
I took my blythe dolls with me and some (well most) of their wardrobe so me, Vânia, my brother (yes!) and Annie spent some time discussing my doll hobby and getting them into thousands of new outfits. It was ridiculous, childish and very girly and fun i must say.
It was very hot there so we all had cold beverages and just chatted a lot about this and that.
As I am not very organized unless we're talking work and some other things, I forgot my camera so we only took photos when my husband decided to stop by and join us. That means i only got photos in a very dark area and without much sunlight. It feels nice to wear lolita while i'm in the end of my pregnancy but i always want to ditch the heels and go for comfort.

Inside the Hard Club café/restaurant. Don't you just love the atmosphere?

My outfit was mainly Moitié, except for the jewelry, the headdress which is meta and the shoes which were my second ever pair of loliable shoes!

Group photo. The lovely lady in the right end had already changed into her summer clothes (too hot for lolita) but that doesn't mean our community doesn't want her to be in the photo!<3

*as always let me know if you want this photo removed for some reason!* The next day was what I was excited about though. My friend lucythewhite was organizing a Baby Shower for me and since its not common at all to have those in Portugal I was looking forward to it. So basically I mhat we a list of things that we still have to buy for our daughter and whatnot and people decided to pick what they could afford and whatever they could do to help.

Lucy picked a place that offered a brunch service, it was my first time having brunch and I honestly saw no difference between brunch and lunch. It's not something ordinary people like me experience a lot in my country.
They served a wide variety of things and had an infinite service of natual juices, when i say infinite i mean infinite!

Brunch goodies! 

We chatted a lot and had fun even though it was super hot again.

Annie made a personalized package of course. 

Baby shower haul! Isn't it impressive?

This is what Carla sent us all the way from Ireland. It was so nice of her, i love everything, thank you!

I'd like to thank everyone who came and also everyone who sent gifts but was unable to come. It made me feel blessed and it was of course a huge help, especially since we are undergoing so many renovations at this time.

I also am attending classes to get ready and while there i realised that i do not own too many baby clothes (which the nurse said its what usually happens) but i actually needed to get more so i went to Primark just to shop for her. I found the most adorable things ever but gosh baby clothes are expensive!

Blanket, bath towel, under garments, kigurumi and pink coat.

In terms of lolita related stuff there's not much to report. I have been focusing on other things and might not be able to afford a lot in the future.
I did however make an effort to get the new bible (45) and midori's book. They arrived this week. I really loved the bible but am not very keen on the midori book. I find that it is lower quality (print wise) than Misako's and also there are some segments that just do not interest me much. I do love it though, i never find that getting books is a waste.

Gothic & Lolita Bible and Midori's Doll Classica.

I found that Primark was filled with interesting accessories and footwear but not really clothes (I never really fall for their clothes lately). I loved them but i don't find them very affordable for primark etc. I'll try them with some outfits and then if i regret getting them i'll just exchange them for some more baby clothes.

Primark black classic heels.

I also got them in red. These are not suede, they are mostly shiny pleather but the color is very striking! Might not match most of my clothes though.

Primark red classic heel shoes.

And that is it for now, not very exciting I know but that's life at the moment.
Love as always, Jo