International lolita day, winter.

9th of January

This day our community, the Portuguese Lolita community had organized a small gathering in my town to celebrate the winter loliday with a huge delay. Better late than never, right?

Anyway the weather was a disgrace, it was raining a lot and barely anyone was in the streets. 

It was scheduled at a lovely chocolate/cake store in which we had too many yummy sweets. It was great.

I had a lot of fun just looking at lolita magazines, eating and chatting with everyone and I love how everyone looked so different too. 

My friend Su came all the way from Lisbon to attend and stayed at my place which was a plus. <3 

Su, I adore you Su.

After getting dressed I went over to the meeting spot where soon all the participants arrived. Sadly it then started raining (a lot!) and we had to go all the way to the shop under heavy rain (my feet were super wet) but once we got there we got pretty confortable.

The counter full of tasty chocolates <3

We chatted and looked through lolita magazines and just spent a lovely afternoon. I really do wish we had these more ofen but the truth is, we just don't..

Group photo. Everyone looked super different, which is really cool. 

I am going to leave you with some photos of the goodies. The food was super yummy and just perfect for a dark and wet afternoon like that one. <3
I had my favorite drink (cappuccino) and a slice of chocolate / passion fruit cake, it was amazing!

Also Su brought me an adorable present, this cute cupcake shaped box which is now being used as decoration downstairs <3 My daughter also got treats, a princess crown and scepter which she loved.

You spoil me too much Su!

That was pretty much our day. 

The next day Su had to go back home but we booked lunch at our favorite restaurant, Ichiban.

Su loved it which is what's important. The view there is usually amazing because its right next to the sea but the weather was even worse on that sunday so just getting out of the car and into the restaurant was a freaking nightmare. 

Anyway I hope you liked hearing about my special weekend. I really want to have another one in my town just like that but nothing is scheduled for the rest of the year hehe.

I love you, thank you for following even if i'm too busy to post often. <3 I really really do appreciate it. <3

Hello 2016

 Hello everyone!

Today is the 27th of February and it is my first actual post for this year which is sad. Work has gotten me super busy but I have been wearing lolita a bit, not as much as I would like unfortunately.

Anyway but the year started well! I was determined to be more active and take every opportunity to wear lolita and the neighbor lolita community in Vigo (Spain) had a christmas meeting scheduled for the 3rd of January and I jumped on the opportunity to see those awesome girls and guys. Their community is so much more active than the one in my country, I just love attending their meetings.

Anyway we decided to make it a familly trip and left on saturday morning. Our first stop was the city of Ourense where they have an Onsen. Unfortunately I did not go in for reasons not worth mentioning but my husband and daughter were having a blast!

We then headed over to Vigo for dinner. We wanted to go to a place where I had the best risotto of my life but it was closed so we just ate at the first place we found. It was not even close in terms of taste but it was fine.

My daughter played a bit in park and eventually got back in the car and went to the hotel where we would spend the night.

me and my daughter walking around town in warm confortable clothes.

The next day we packed our things and started getting ready. Both me and my daughter wore lolita to the event and of course we asked if kids were allowed first. She was the only child at the event and she behaved well. 

There were so many cute lolitas there, it was pretty packed and booy do these people eat a lot! I was so full after this meeting! We had a bit of everything: sweets like donuts and cake, coffee, juice, tea, bread, cheese, prosciuto, eggs, etc etc etc. 

I was not the only representative of our community, Egl Portugal, in fact we were 4! 

The two girls who are super creative and have the same first name and the only male style wearer (male) in our community at the moment.

 I wanted to wear my newest dress and it was a nice pic because it is roomy and confortable. I felt elegant in it, not really macabre as I probably should, just elegant and a tad cute. haha

Angelic Pretty jsk, socks, offbrand shirt, necklace and shoes and indies brand headpiece. I dream of having bat items to match this now.

 And here's a group photo of everyone there, how exciting right? Look at all those cuties! So many people in the same meeting is not something I am highly accustomed.

Anyway there was a handmade item swap. I made something and the girl who got it seemed happy so that made me happy too. I received an incredible small cape number which I have already worn and will show you later on. 

I hope you liked reading about my day. I will try to update again sooner than later. I owe you that much!

I hope everyone is doing well and that you are as happy as possible. It is what I wish for myself. <3

Trying to bring a community together.

Hello everyone!

Not sure if you know but I am Portuguese. Portugal is a small country which has been deeply affected by the recent economic crisis to an excent IMF has to interveen for a while. We are now supposed to be recovering and people are struggling a lot, that includes everyone. Salaries are low and at the same time despite food still being somewhat affordable things like electricity and gasoline etc are super expensive. I think in terms of gas we have some of the most expensive prices in Europe? Something like that. 

On the other hand despite it all tourism is blooming and the country still has many monuments back from when we were big in Europe (discovery age and whatnot) and the food is super rich and diversified. Alcool is affordable and we have amazing wine. Because we needed EU help in pretty much everything our transportation services, airports, some concert halls, football stadiums etc are somewhat new and modernized. Because of the crisis people had to try to survive in other fields and have opened new and exciting restaurants, cafes, shops a bit around (at least my town) even though there are still a lot of stores closing and empty.

We have a gigantic amount of music festivals all year but mostly in the summer and they always sell out despite the expensive (for a portuguese citizen) tickets. I always find that amusing. I make more than min wage and cannot afford them the way people go to them at least. The average music festival attendee goes to more than one and usually buys the most complete ticket version.

Fashion is also blooming here with interesting new designers and people apparently caring more about what they are wearing. Its nice to go out and see everyone bringing what it is for them, their a game. But despite all of this and despite lolita numbers growing in the world and all the events and all the buzz around lolita everywhere in Europe and despite the efforts, in Portugal, lolita is close to dead. Numbers do not increase (people leave and then sometimes someone new comes around) but the level of committment and support surrounding a community and events has fallen. I suppose we can't blame ourselfs for that, society is changing but it seems like other countries have managed to obtain some number growth so this is disappointing. After being here and in the fashion for 10 years or more I cannot help but feel a sense of ... failure while at the same time I am fully aware that there is little I could have done/can do more than what I did and still do (not as much I am not afraid to admit). 

So how does all this rambling fit with the post itself? Well as an effort to cater for the community we do have and knowing some people are not able to move to attend meetings (because traveling for an event is not something we do here, trust me, even tried that "give away free stuff" technique and it still did not work) I decided to arrange for an online national meeting on the 18th of July.

People seemed excited and we got a wooping! 17 participants enrolled. Wow, imagine that, 17 people. I bet you feel excited for me heh? 

The problem was that on the date apparently only around 5 people remembered to attend and those 5 experienced some kind of tecnical difficulties with tinychat which is unfortunately the only platform I know that is free and enables multiple people chatting with a mic and camera at the same time. Out of all those 5 people I am not sure how many were wearing lolita. So it was a bit of a fiasco which is sad. 

Well I did feel pretty which is good considering I've been very sick which is something I will not bother you with in detail. 

I was inspired by Carmilla's style I think. One gets inspiration from what we have in our memory bank without realizing. I went to a local store the other day when I was still healthy and I saw this floral crown I've been in love with for a while. But now it was on sale so I finally got it. It is the hugest flower accessory I have ever worn and i think that's what reminded me of her. Also I got that underskirt as you know and I was dying to use it and Carmilla's dresses are sometimes on the longer side so that sealed the deal. 

 Anyway this is also not new because I have posted about Paris but I am really proud of the way it ended up looking so here it is in a bit more detailed. It took a couple of hours to make because its all hand sewn and I used things I had in my crafts box which was great! I really like it but it matches almost nothing else. Its a bit like that pierrot hat i made for the Lver btssb outfit too. There's something about Paris that just makes me wanna go crafty.

Anyway I hope this post doesn't get misunderstood because this is my personal diary and I do want to be honest but I do not want to be too negative or anything, I always see myself as someone who is just honestly speaking her mind and usually very strongly based on reality other than my opinion.
It can be seen as a positive thing too, at least when you hit rock bottom there's a place to... improve? Maybe now the local community will reflect with what's been going on lately and for a bit and move? I don't know, I hope so. Not sure if any of the people involved read or even care but ya know. One does what one can.

I really hope I can be well again soon, I honestly do not know what is wrong with me so I cannot give this health situation a name yet but i'll carry on with the testing and visits to doctors to see what is going on. I hope I don't have to go to the emergency again though, I hate going to the doctor to be honest, I feel very helpless there even when i'm being discharged.

I hope you are all well, I really do.
Love always,
Jo

I'm on holiday!

Hello everyone!

So I am oficially on holiday starting today and I already wore lolita because my local comm had a meeting scheduled (Saturday, 11th July) and they had a theme, Alice in Wonderland. I did not want to go in something super elaborate because it is summer but I was not sure of what i could wear in the theme... until i remebered I had this dress and so I decided to go as a classic version of Alice. I put it together right before the event.

I decided to take my daughter because my husband offered to give us a ride and was being super supportive. He really wants me to enjoy myself as much as possible which is basically one of the reasons I fell for him, his heart.

Everyone seemed cool about me taking her and she had fun, she ate so many sweets (I only had tea so that was fine). Not sure its good for a kid her age to eat stuff like that but i suppose one time won't hurt. 

Since I lost my favorite and only pair of sunglasses I had to get a new pair. It does not match lolita at all. haha

I am a bit worried about these shots to be honest, maybe my camera settings are wrong. I must ask someone who gets them to have a look. Photos come out a bit blurry and with little definition at the moment. 

After tea, cookies, confeito and chatting they called us for photos. I asked Gabi to take some shots with my camera too because she will only deliver hers in a couple weeks and that did not make sense to me since I'm on holiday and now is the time I can actually update (but she is really busy!) so that's why I have some photos. I could have taken more now that I think back.

The only shot I sort of like, look how blurry it is! Anyway this was my classic take on Alice.
Outfit info:
Onepiece: Atelier Pierrot
Head accessories: offbrand (stradivarius, aatp and chantilly)
Acccessories: handmade, offbrand (primark, bijou brigitte)
Tights/socks: offbrand (primark/tutuanna)
Shoes: offbrand (t.u.k.)

The "tea time" gigantic tea cup necklace really brought the look together.
My friend Paula made it so its dear to me too. <3

After the shots we spent some time chatting outdoors in a café because it was really hot inside the store. Braga is a city away from the coat so temperatures are higher there.
At 7-ish we were ready to go home, especially since we were 45min-1 hour car ride away from home.
We said our goodbyes and thank you and left.
It was nice spending the day with local lolitas, it had been a while.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my day and that you are enjoying yourselves too. 

Jo

No more macarons

Hello!

So remember that place I was so happy about having reopened, the tea house where we usually hang out around here? It closed, yes, AGAIN. The sign on the door was removed, everything inside is gone and there's a paper saying it is closed for debt meetings. I think its gone way past meetings now, it looks like a ghost store. It's terrible. How did they let this happen again?
But anyway less more worrying and terrible than those poor workers being put in this spot again (I used to chat with them about it) but still disappointing is the fact that again we no longer have a french style pastry café again.

We had scheduled a meeting exactly at that place and when one of the girls got there she saw what was going on and for a bit we thought they were closed only on that day but nah.
So we changed plans and moved to the Armazém do Caffé which is also tasty and the people who work there are also pretty nice so it was ok.

I arrived a tiny bit later than I wanted to but when I got to the coffee shop I wasn't the last one so that made me feel less guilty. But lucy and kuks were already there and they looked so beautiful, I was smitten! kirarah and Sakura arrived a bit later and we sat there and chatted a lot mainly about cultural differences between Japan and Portugal because Sakura dreams of living there.

The theme was "floral" so I went with a grey x black outfit that time. The weather was sad and gloomy and I didn't feel like wearing a lot of color then. I think it was an ok pick since the dress and tights have tons of floral details and I have some flowers on my hair as well.

 

The coordinate made of: MmM hair accessories, BPN coat, Meta dress, Iw tights and my beloved bordello boots that I wear way too much.

 The fact that I picked black ended up being great for the group shots as we all looked completely different even though the theme was the same. Don't they look beautiful?

 After spending the afternoon drinking hot chocolate/tea/coffee and chatting about this and that we eventually came back to my place where some of the girls got to finally meet my daughter. I really like this photo because Lucy and Kirarah look very happy and so does Mari. <3 I want to have it framed.

And this is what a lolita mommy looks like I suppose.
We decided we should go to a restaurant and have dinner together for a change so we went to lucy's favorite chinese restaurant and had a good time there. We ended up meeting another portuguese lolita there who didn't even know we were heading to the same restaurant so it was sort of amusing.
After this amazing night was over we said goodbye parted ways and headed back home.

I wish we could all just have fun like that every day. But the next day was a work day. Back to reality. :D

Hope you liked reading about my day again.
Love,
Jo

Lolita in 2013

Hello everyone,

Well part of my new year resolution in lolita is to try to wear as many different styles and outfits as possible without planning too much. I never plan outfits ahead of time... i mean maybe the previous day or something but never weeks in advance and most certainly never have I bought anything to wear a dress. I just wear the stuff and that's that.

That does mean that sometimes i risk coords being hit and miss or that I will be lacking stuff to match a colorway or style (it usually happens more with sweet lolita for obvious reasons) but that just makes me wanna try things more. It's fun! 

Today I bring you two outfits. I usually post a bit more about my day but we pretty much did the same thing in both: we went to a coffee shop (same one actually), had something to eat and drink and chatted a lot. Just the girls going out and enjoying life. 

I got the Metamorphose Candy Star Rabbit Onepiece in pink recently. 

I always wanted the blut jsk but can never find it so I decided to try this one instead. Unfortunately i have nothing to match it and its rather short for me (in my opinion of course) so I have decided to let it go. Maybe I can find the version I like best someday and I'll try coordinating it again.

I was chatting with my good friend lucythewhite and remembered she owned the perfect bag for this dress, her box swimmer mint dotted bag so she came over that same day to visit Mari and leave the bag so i could use it the next day. I had to decide between two tight choices... I was going for these really busy and odd leopard print tights but she said the bright pink ones matched perfectly so I went with those. I think i still liked the other ones better so when i came back home i had to try them on with the outfit. I regret not trusting my instincts haha. 

This is what i ate: a berry tart and an expresso of course
(portuguese are big expresso fans)

And this is the coordinate I did with that dress.
You can totally see how funny I feel in that outfit,
look at my face, i swear i must have laughed right after that shot.
I think its pretty cute though.

And this was taken when i came back home.
Those were my first option that i decided against because of my friends suggestion.

See how the bag matches the presents? 

The last saturday we had another gathering. I had worn sweet lolita twice in a row so I really didn't feel like wearing it. I decided to wear a dress I am trying to sell too. I always do that so I can decide if I really want to sell them or not... maybe i'll change my mind... one never knows.
I think i might keep it afterall, I have too many black pieces in my closet but this is so comfortable.
It's a black Pinasweetcollection Onepiece. It's actually up for sale at the moment if you are interested!

We went to the same place. There's a reason for that. It's called Boulangerie de Paris and they had 3 venues. We used to go there from time to time because one of them is actually in the downtown area and its very convenient. For some reason we don't have a lot of tea houses in Porto and finding a place with french style pastries is also kind of difficult so we loved it.
Last year, without warning, the owner just decided to close for lack of funds and didn't even pay his employees etc. It was all over tv and everyone was shocked and sad too of course. Finally after many months another company bought Boulangerie de Paris and this store (one of the 3) was the first to open. The cakes are a bit different (less yummy) but its still far better than always going to the typical portuguese coffee shop and we missed it. So we ended up going twice to celebrate its return.

They have photos of Paris views all around the shop. 

This is what I wore, it felt quite casual and confortable.

Me and lucythewhite. I feel like we're always togehter,
but we never have photos together. I'm happy we took one.

I  finally found a way to coordinate those tights. They are from Juliette et Justine btw.
If you are 170cm tall and you wear a euro 42 and thought brand tights cannot fit you,
Innocent World and Juliette et Justine tights do and they are confortable enough.
Let me know if you'd like a review!

Also I've been thinking  I should start writing in Portuguese. There are so many english blogs already and I don't think there are Portuguese lolita blogs in portuguese (I know some girls from brazil do blog in portuguese though!) so maybe I should think about it. If nobody things it makes sense then i'll decide against it of course.

Well that's it for today, 

a big kiss as usual, Jo

Lisbon trip (part3)

Hello!

I woke up and took my brother to a very famous place for breakfast, Confeitaria Nacional. It's a lovely place but there aren't that many tables so sometimes you have to wait a bit for a table. Fortunately we didn't have to.

After that I went to a goth store to buy a pair of shoes that I had seen online, a pair of t.u.k. heart cut shoes. They are very much like a pair of baby the stars shine bright heart cut heels except there is an extra strap on these and the bow is in another place. They obviously look a lot less well made and elegant but i still like these and i thought it would be a good buy. 

We finally went back to the hostal where we took it easy and i took my time getting ready. I didn't want to be late (and I wasn't yay!).

I stayed in Lisbon because of this day's events. I told the local members that I could be there that day so they were super kind and arranged a meeting on purpose. It felt really nice not having to think about what to do or where to go for a change. 

The person in charge of the meetup (nessi) decided we should visit an exhibit called "Um Chá para Alice" or Tea with Alice. It is at the Gulbenkian foundation until the 10th of February 2013. You can read more about it at the Gulbenkian website.

For those who cannot visit I leave you some examples of the wonderful illustrations one can find there. Enjoy:

After we visited the exhibit some of the girls had to leave so I spent some time with them and we also took advantage of the light to take the mandatory outfit shots. Some of the people attending didn't wear lolita because they are fairly new to our community. We are absolutely ok with that as our main purpose it to promote the style and meet anyone who is interested. They were actually very nice girls and I was happy they could have attended even if briefly.

I decided to wear very typical sweet lolita to please the two people wearing lolita in this photo as they are both sweet lolita fans. I think nobody was expecting to see me in all pink and off white hehe that was fun!

 I wore a btssb coat, wrist cuffs and bag, Metamorphose socks, Emily temple cute shoes, Angelic Pretty headdress and dress and Primark hair accessory and shirt.

After saying goodbye we went to meet the other attendees at what it seems to be a very popular and fashionable tea house called Poison D'Amour. Traffic was caotic in that area and we were a bit late but when we got there the rest of the group was still waiting to be given a table. Yes we had to wait to be seated. That is just so strange to me, it never happens in my city (or very rarely!).

The building is a simple typical portuguese building but one cannot miss those huge black banners announcing that the tea house is right there.

The first thing you notice on your right when you get in are the cakes. The cakes look like art, they seem to be perfectly put together and the colors and textures just make you hurry and take a bite.

The connection with french desserts is clear, it it wasn't for the name of the place or the cake's names then this huge imagem on a big wall would seal the deal. 

I didn't take a lot of photos of the place though. We waited a lot for a table.

I read magazines, chatted, went to the bathroom to check on my makeup, went outside, came back in again.... and still no table. I was a bit upset but i wasn't the only one, everyone was freaking out.

After we got a table it was time to order... which didn't go well either as it took another eternity. They clearly weren't having a good day and the customers paid.

 I took photos of the girls, the table and ... my nails. That's how much time i had befor the food came.

FINALLY we got our order and chatted while we drank tea. It was fun.

After paying (it was expensive imo) we visited a nearby store that stocks Irregular Choice goodies and I helped them sell two adorable very loliable bags to two of the girls. What can I say? I love shopping!

After that we headed downtown where we chatted some more, took some more photos and then said goodbye. I had a blast.

I bought some food at a supermarket and cooked at the hostal and then went to bed. 

And that was it for day 3, hoped you liked reading!

Jo