Day 04 - Gal inspirations

Hey there! (: I chose my own topic for Day 4 because I didn't really have much to write for the original challenge to be honest! xD. So without further ado I'm going to show what and who inspires me to do Gal!
I think its great to draw inspirations not only from people but places, objects and even cartoon characters and to save them into a large folder. Not only am I inspired by Japanese Gyaru's but also Gaijin gals to view different co-ordinates and people's different takes on it from a foreigner's perspective and the resources they have in their country.

Japanese fashion inspirations

RinaLee

Day 3 - Best and worst experience with non-gyarus

Sorry I've been really lacking when it comes to updating frequently. I've been quite busy and somewhat lazy when I do actually have the free time. But here I am at 3:34am - my mind functions better at strange hours.

At first I didn't really understand this challenge but after reading Chewiee's blog post I realised I had an air-head moment and misinterpreted the whole thing xD.

Best
Lets start with the positives shall we? ❤
To be honest I get a range of different reactions when I'm wearing gal but I have noticed compliments are usually from elderly women, little kids and occasionally middle aged mum's. I can't exactly remember one particular experience that outweighs the rest but a lot of the comments are somewhat similar in being called a princess or a doll.
Elderly ladies usually comment on how colourful the outfits are or call me pretty which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside 8). I also get a lot of lovely comments when I go shopping from shop assistants/personal shoppers and are genuinely intrigued and interested in where the style comes from.

Me // Leanne // Michelle // Letitia

Day 02 - A picture of yourself with fifteen facts

1   ♡ I have a huge weakness for cute things but being into Japanese culture and
        fashion, I guess that comes with the territory.

2   ♡ My most favourite Anime and Manga series is Higurashi: When They Cry

3   ♡ Seeing kittens makes me so emotional, I get teary x'D.

4   ♡ My biggest phobias are needles, blood and insects - especially spiders ;-;

5   ♡ I remember my first crush wasn't even with a human - It was Spyro the Dragon...

6   ♡ My best friend and biggest inspiration in my life is my Mum.

7   ♡ I don't actually have a "favourite" Japanese clothing brand. Its hard to stick to one!

8   ♡ I cannot stand the phrase "make love" - CRINGE

9   ♡ Red Velvet Cake is life

10 ♡ I have a very large family which consists of 27 cousins, 21 second cousins and 2 third cousins (is there such a
        thing?)

11 ♡ I am half Maltese; half British :3

12 ♡ I have never taken/tried any illegal drugs at any point in my life and I doubt I ever will.   

13 ♡ T.O.P. is my main bae.

14 ♡ I am a terrible liar

15 ♡ I keep my friends for a long time - my longest friendship has been for 19 years.

My god these posts take me so long, I can never think of anything interesting!
Bye Bye

Day one - When did you start dressing gyaru?

Hello everyone, as I have been stuck on topics for my posts recently I thought I'd start the Gyaru meme! I wont be posting everyday but I will post consistently. 

I have briefly explained how I got into Gyaru subculture in one of my previous posts but it mainly summarised how I developed in Japanese fashion overall.
Most fashion styles I try straight away - I buy the clothes and fix my make-up and that's pretty much it - I'm now Fairy kei/ creepy cute/Cult party kei etc.! However, with Gyaru I never really had that sudden starting point, it was very gradual (when I started developing the style more seriously).

March Gyaru meet!

Photo by Kacey

(L - R) Miki // Me // Lizzie // Kacey // Kitty // Marie // Shay // Charlotte

So this post is a little over due, I can't believe its been over a month since I last had a Gyaru meet! My life has been very busy since then - at first, I didn't really have the money to see people, but now with my new job I don't have the time! Plus its now the exam/dissertation month for a lot of my friends still in University, so my social life has died down a little since they have a lot of deadlines. 

But anyway! A huge Gyaru meet was arranged last month in China town (obviously) and to my surprise there were quite a lot of new faces which is always great to see other's getting into the style.

✩ Gyaru and highstreet stores haul ✩

I made this video a while ago - it was back in February I believe but I forgot to post it on here. There are some affordable Gyaru-able items and the others are pieces I purchased that also appealed to me :3. That's not to say you can't try putting any of those pieces into a Gal co-ordinate. Its all about experimenting and how you put it together and most importantly - MAKE UP. You can pretty much wear anything, bend the rules and be creative with Gyaru which is why I love it so much ♡

Random style post

As many of you know I am constantly trying out different styles and I have been documenting them mainly on Instagram. So that means these are not the best quality photos since they're from my phone. As I've only just started getting into blogging again I will take more images with my DSLR camera from now on ^^.
I mainly get a lot of my ideas and inspirations from random images on tumblr; at the moment a lot of Swankiss photos are popping up on my dashboard and I love the brands use of pastels, the silhouette of their clothes and the huge amount fluff *o* so much fluff!
Pastels are a staple in my wardrobe and although I do like certain aspects of Fairy Kei I find myself feeling a little frumpy in it ;-;. Has anyone else noticed how there's never any tight cropped fairy kei style tops?! I really dislike wearing loose fitted clothes (although it depends on the style) and if I do wear it, I make sure the other half of the outfit is nicely fitted. I think it gives a little bit of a mature edge to it and I like to feel very feminine ^^

My Jfashion journey *picture heavy*

So I had to title this as "Jfashion" because most people have a certain style they've developed over time such as forms of Lolita or Gyaru. However for me it was just...TRY EVERYTHING. TRY EVERY DAMN THING YOU POSSIBLY CAN!

It made coordinating quite difficult because I had to try fitting every kind of colour into my wardrobe for example, trying to match one top perfect for fairy kei when the rest of my items were shades too dark to make a well executed coord.

Like many of us who have developed a love for Japanese fashion I was into alternative fashion beforehand, adorning myself in studded belts, band t shirts, skinny jeans, neon hair accessories and converses. The obsession began around the age of fourteen when the little-emo-me discovered Death Note - a Manga and Anime series. Anyone else familiar with this should have come across the character Misa Amane (who is annoying as f btw) and is portrayed wearing Harajuku fashion. To be honest I'm not sure what you'd title her style as? A hybrid of punk and goth with a Japanese edge to it? I remember distinctly in the final episode of Death Note she is shown wearing a Lolita dress which was my first encounter with the fashion.

☆Hime and Bodyline☆ Haul video!

Another Style post

I am one of those people that just wants to try out EVERY type of Jfashion there is. I just can't stick to one! Although Hime Gyaru is my favourite I still like to have all kinds of variations in my wardrobe. So that's what I did today, tried out some new styles with the clothes I already have ^^First up is Rokku style, I was inspired by Glavil/Tutuha I'm not sure what it is called at the moment as some people still call them by both names haha. Sorry my photo is wonky and I wish I had chosen my purple wig instead, but here's a run down.

   ♡ Skull Bandanna - Yumi                                         ♡ Black beret - Yumi                  

   ♡ Mesh jumper - Choies                                          ♡ Top, wig and leg warmers - eBay 

   ♡ Skull tutu - ACDC                                                ♡ Shorts - Camden

   ♡ Cross Necklace - Primark                                      ♡ Chain Belt - Topshop                   

   ♡ Stockings - eBay                                                  ♡ Brown Boots - Primark

   ♡ Creepers - Offbrand

Gyaru Meet 22/2/2014

On 22/2/2014 we had a Valentines Gyaru meet in Leicester square and for once we had nice weather! It was a surprise and I definitely didn't need the huge coat that I wore ;A; 

When I arrived I managed to get some outfit shots of everyone that was already waiting. Here are some shameless selfies from the morning of my make-up ^^. I'm really proud of what I achieved with this look and I wish it stayed this way all day long.

Shopping spree ( ノ ︶∀︶) ノ ´¯`•• .¸¸.•´

So, I always complain about being broke and this is the reason why...

I can't stay away from sales pages on facebook! T____T But anyway here is what I bought~

Brighton Japanese Festival

On the holidays I visited Brighton for the Japanese festival hosted by Popi Atom - manager at Cyberdog Brighton. I completely forgot to write a blog post on it so...here it is!
I went with Lauren and we set off from London Victoria really early. We grabbed ourselves a McDonald's breakfast and headed off to Brighton!

Lauren on the train looking srs. 
After two hours we arrived and got completely lost for an hour and ended up in Hove which was uhhh..Kind of my fault haha. We walked past the Taj-Mahal-looking-art-gallery-type-building along the way which is just before we go so horribly lost. I think the festival was literally just on the next road from this building...oops hehe. Well I know for next time and we got to the festival in the end!

When we reached the festival I met up with my old school friend Alex who I haven't seen in such a long time! It was great meeting up, he was one of my close friends in year 10/11 and he's so freaking tall (he's 6ft5"). I was the shortest and he was the tallest in our year at school, we looked really odd walking around together. I also met up with my friend Richard that I met in the summer of 2012 at the ScReW gig :)!

It was quite a small festival which I thought it would be as I've been to Brighton festival back when I was 16/17 and that was with Alex as well. I got myself some vegetarian sushi as I don't eat seafood because I was starved by the time we arrived and also had a long chat with Roxie Sweetheart as she had hired a stall for the event :D.

This is the ring I bought from Roxie Sweetheart because I absolutely adore Korillakuma :3 -please excuse my randomly wrinkley and yellow looking hand haha I get dry skin sometimes :c. I also finally got to wear my deco nails I bought from Tofu cute at MCM expo :D. They were a bitch to get off though.
Anyway we heard there was going to be a fashion show and Popi had introduced herself to us and convinced us (well convinced me more than Lauren as she was already up for doing it haha) to enter the fashion show. I got all dressed up so I thought why not? Although I wanted to walk up there with Lauren rather than alone haha.

So we waited and derped around a little bit in the Maids of England tent which is a maid Café in London that I still have yet to visit! >  >

Yeah we derped hard.

I'm just going to leave this image here....
We found it on all the tables in the café hahaha and I may or may not have taken it home with me...

When the shows started first up was Maids of England. Two maids did an Otaku dance...the song I don't know or remember and the Butler did a cover of Taeyang's - Wedding dress

Next was the Cyberdog fashion show which was sponsored by Roxie Sweetheart and Kiss Me Kill Me.

After that ended, we were up!! I was really nervous for some reason, even though the stage was very small and there wasn't a large audience I just have this fear that I'll fall off and break my neck haha.
There's me and Lauren in the left hand corner next to Roxie  where we had to introduce our names and the style we were wearing :)

Then we had to individually go down the cat walk and have photo's taken at the end, I walked with Lauren because I'm a wuss haha. Here are some photo's that Alex and Richard took :)

Us with Amélie and Popi Atom after the fashion show

A few minutes after the show was finished Popi approached me and said I won the fashion show which I was really surprised about. I won £40 worth of Cyberdog gift vouchers, Roxie sweetheart earrings, bracelet, ring and a Kiss me Kill me belt. Since I walked up with Lauren I halved the prize with her as we agreed before they announced who won :).
It was a great day but really exhausting as well. 

Bye Bye
xoxo