Photographer Problem and Royal Unicorn Love

Hello my dear readers!

Last Sunday we had a small meet-up in Cologne. When I write about a meet-up, I often write that I didn't took many pictures because with my old camera, all pictures came out blurry. But now that I have a new camera, I figured out that this is not the whole problem. Another problem is that I just feel uncomfortable to make random pictures in a Café or from other people, and I feel to embarassed to take selfies or pictures of my food, because I have the feeling the other people around me think "OMG what a Hipster, taking pictures and uploading it to Instagram" xD (and I don't even use Instagram xD) But I will work on this, I NEED to work on this because I want to take many many pictures when I travel to London in 2 months!!!

Okay like you can imagine, I wrote this because we had a small meet-up in Cologne and I only took outfit pictures, even if 90% of the meet-up was just eating eating eating xD But who wants to see eating Lolitas anyway xD

I wore my Royal Unicorn dress and Evangeline and Mahi wore the same print *_* The meet-up had a Classic Lolita - theme and we three are huge Angelic Pretty fans, and this were our most classical dresses xD

I don't know if the other girls want their pictures here so I don't post them.
When I look at the pictures I realized how short the dress is *_* AP dresses get bigger but shorter T_T

Thank you for reading!
Miuko~ <3

Giveaway prize *_*

A few days before Christmas, I won a prize at a Giveaway ヘ(^_^ヘ)* (ノ^_^)ノ
All the items were pink-colored, so I had to participate and I was very happy when I got the E-Mail from AliceHearts!

The Giveaway was from her blog ☆ http://darknessbornfromlight.blogspot.com/ ☆ => please visit her blog!

You could win make-up, body lotion, scented candles and a secret present ~ guess what the present was?? Socks from Innocent World (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

The socks reminds me of something: 2 years ago, I wanted to buy these socks for my strawberry skirt (which I don't own anymore), though not the original ones but the replica (because they were cheaper ^^'). But the socks got lost, I got the money back but still, I had no strawberry socks. And now I get exactly the same socks and even the original ones!! What a happy coincidence (★^O^★)

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <333

New Year - review, preview and resolutions

Hello my dear readers!

The year is nearly over and it is time for a review. I also want to make a preview and show my new year resolutions.

~*~ REVIEW 2013 ~*~

Events:
~ we organized 4 Royal Pony meet-ups
~ Japan Day, where my new shoes broke
~ Dokomi, with a fashion show too early in the morning, but with unexpectedly many visitors
~ Kawaii Tea Party in Utrecht with RinRin Doll and Misako Aoki
~ Paris with Japan Expo, Maki & Asuka at the AP shop, which is closed now (*ﾉ´□`)ﾉ
~ AnimagiC which was soo boring this year
~ my first 'real' photoshoot ヽ（＠*▽*＠）ノ

Purchases:
~ Lady Rose, which arrived in bad condition and I made it even worse ^_^''''
~ Day Dream Carnival, THE dress of the year xD
~ Royal Unicorn
~ my first AP blouse, finally after 3 years I found a brand blouse which nearly fits me
~ more shoes (I hate buying Lolita shoes T_T)
~ Prisila Hime wig, which was kind of too expensive (>_<)*
~ Usakumya bag ♡
~ and other small stuff

Resolutions fullfilled?
~ I only had 1 resolution, which was loosing weight, and it totally did not happen ( ≧Д≦) (I tried several times but I failed)

~*~ PREVIEW 2014 ~*~

Events:
~ Enchanted Event in London
~ Lacebook Tea Party in Rothenburg
~ Japan Day
~ Dokomi
~ more ???

~*~ RESOLUTIONS FOR 2014 ~*~

~ get a better job and earn more money for more burando
~ loose weight !!!

I don't make more resolutions because too many resolutions mean too many possibilities to fail xD And these 2 are the most important ones for me.

So, what happend to you this year, what are you planning for next year and what are your resolutions? You can tell me in the comments, I would like to read it ｡◕‿◕｡

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ ♡

Royal Pony Christmas Party

Hello my dear readers!

This year I was so happy that we could organize a Lolita Christmas Party! We searched for a room to rent or a café or restaurant, but everything was too expensive or already booked. But then the Lucky Chocolate Maid Café made an event and asked us if we want to have a Lolita meet there. So lucky!

This was the header I made, but sadly the weather was rainy and ugly and not really christmas-like T_T

So first we went to the park to take some outfit pictures. I have worn my Prisila hime half-wig for the first time! I like it but I think I spend too much money for it, it is not really worth it. When I see the hairpieces on other people they look so natural, but when I wear them I think they look too fake for my taste ^^''' But wigs are perfect in winter, they keep you so warm and you still look great :D

Group shot! I think this time all girls took a lot of effort into their outfits, I loved them all!!!

The print glitters *_*

Ami with her Eternal Rose Bouquet <333

Evangeline with her Royal Unicorn <333

The ground was so wet and dirty X__X

Burandooooooo $____$

After our small fotoshoot we went to the Maid Café. They have reserved some table for us and organized a small game: guessing brands and print names! I always thought I am good in this but I'm not, well I know all the Angelic Pretty prints but only a few prints were from AP so I didn't knew many names ^^'''

The cute Maids singing a christmas song:

Thank you for reading and I wish you a nice christmas time, only 1 week !!!! I am so busy that I kind of don't realize it X_x

Article about Lolita in Japan

Hello again after one month ^_^

Today I want to share an interesting article about Lolita with you. The article mainly deals with how such an extraordinary fashion style like Lolita and the "Kawaii"-culture in general could evolve in Japan, and only in Japan! It is really a phenomenon why you don't find something similar in other countries.

Also you can read about why the brands are so expensive and that the emloyees and owner of the brands actually are far away from being rich.

The article can be downloaded here: www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal111/Japan5.pdf
It is written by Teresa Younker who is a student from the USA (but I think she is Japanese) and she had the oppurtunity to work at Btssb and Mary Magdalene.

Picture from "Kamikaze Girls" movie

Here some interesting quotes if you don't want to read everything:

~ "Cuteness is used to soften up the vertical society, to soften power relations and present authority without being threatening."

~ "Unlike in much of the West, where adulthood is seen as a period of freedom, in Japan adulthood is viewed by many young people as a gloomy period of heavy burdens."

~ "Adulthood in Japan [...] places special burdens on women. [...] Unfortunately, life after marriage is not a glowing picture of family bliss. Mothers are discouraged from social life and increasingly expected to devote themselves to supporting their children’s trajectory through the education system.
Against this social background it is no surprise that cuteness has gained such widespread popularity and that Japanese cute focuses so squarely on childishness."

~ "By acting selfish and childish, the Lolita contradicts nearly every single “traditional” Japanese value: self discipline, responsibility, self-sacrifice, and hard work. She is saying, “I’m a spoiled, immature little brat and I like it that way!"

~ (about Mary Magdalene:) "They would usually only produce around 50 of each item, but each item would be impeccable. A staff member would personally inspect each product, remove lose threads, and iron it before it shipped out. The staff salaries were quite low. The starting salary at the time was JP¥700 an hour (US$8), and even the CEO could not have been making much. He ate sack lunches, shopped for used clothing, and rode his bike to work every day."

~ "Although Baby has larger operations than Mary, they encounter similarly high production costs and rely mostly on staff dedication to make ends meet. There were moments when I was amazed they could afford to stay in business, and it was clear that everyone working there, including the CEO and designers, were not in it for the money. Although the company spent considerable sums on marketing and goodies for their customers, they kept their labor costs very low. The average salary for a shop staffer was JP¥800 (US$9) an hour, and the highest paid workers were only paid JP¥1000 (US$10)."

Thank you for reading,
Miuko

Simple Outfit for Royal Pony Halloween Meet-up

Hello hello!

This year we also organized a Royal Pony Halloween meet-up. At the beginning, not many people wanted to come but a few days before, so many people wanted to come that I had to call the restaurant again to reserve more seats and then at the day of the meet-up, some came spontanioulsy so we barely had enough space to sit ^^'''

I usually have only Sweet Lolita items in my closet, but for Halloween I wanted something dark so I was wearing a dress from Zara. Since I also had to leave early because I had to work in the afternoon, I choosed a simple outfit. Many people told me it is so uncommon to see me in such dark colors xD

with Evangeline <3

Everything in my outfit is offbrand!
Dress: Zara
Coat, Bag: H&M
Blouse: Fashion Club
Hat, Tights: C&A
Shoes: S.Oliver

So yes, you can make outfits from offbrand items for less money than brand BUT honestly they will always look quite simple and not as elaborate as brand items. But I hope you still like my outfit ^_^

Thank you for reading,
Miuko

Carousel Shooting

Hello Lovelies!

Last month my friend Nyanko invited me to a photoshoot. It was my first photoshoot with a professional photographer and I was really happy that Nyanko invited me because I'm always too shy to ask someone I don't know for pictures >_< Also this shooting was perfect timing because I got my new DDC dress just 3 days before, and the carousel where we took the pictures was at a funfair which is only 1 weekend per year!!

Sorry that I put a watermark on the pictures, but recently I saw some pictures of my blog on Tumblr (which is NOT ok without permission and even not giving credit) and the photographers didn't added an own watermark so I added mine.

Here is the credit for the photographers:

Metamorphis

Daylight and Shadows

They are so talented, check out their pages!!

(btw if you live in Germany/NRW, they are looking for more Lolita models so you can ask them ^^)

What do you think about the pictures? I love the fantasy look of them, the more unreal the better <3

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3