Paris 2014 - Day 2 - Fashion Walk and Tea Party

Our second day in Paris started quite lazy. I woke up at 8 a.m. and couldn't sleep anymore so I started to try several hairstyles. In the end I needed 3 hours to decide and make my final hairstyle X_X. So even if I started early, Ami and me left our hotel at 13:00h. But we still had plenty of time because the Fashion Walk only started at 15:10h, so we went to the Angelic Pretty store again and then to a small park to take pictures.

After taking pictures in the park, we went to the Gallerie Vivienne, which was the starting point of the Fashion Walk. It was also the place of the Putumayo Tea Party. When we arrived, we saw the Tea Party because they were sitting in the hallway of the Gallerie. It looked like there were many people attending the Putumayo Tea Party, but later one girl told me that they were only 5 (!!!) guests! There were more models and Putumayo staff then guests! Can you belive it, they had a very special and personal Tea Party with Misako Aoki. Now I regret it so much that I didn't attended the Putumayo TP, I even ordered a ticket but I cancelled it later because I thought it was too expensive to pay 40€ for the Putumayo TP and 60€ for the Angelic Pretty TP, which is 100€ just for 4,5 hours of TP.

We met Rosalynn in the Gallerie! She was so nice to take a picture of us, thank you!

But when it came closer to 15:00h, more and more Lolitas arrived and I was surprised how many Lolitas were there which I know personally or which I at least saw at other Lolita events. I was sooo happy to meet all the lovely Lolitas and I also started to talk with Lolitas I didn't knew before. It was no problem because everyone was very friendly and open to meet other people. I was very impressed how nice all the girls were to each other, all of them giving compliments, taking pictures and talking with each other, so it was quite a special atmosphere and a special moment for me.

Also the whole Angelic Pretty staff came to the Fashion Walk (maybe they were also at the Putumayo TP? I don't know). It was really nice to see how Maki and Asuka greeted everyone and were really engaged in taking pictures with everyone. Generally, especially Maki and Mrs. Honda (the owner of AP) always ask for pictures and take pictures of everyone and everything!

~*~ FASHION WALK ~*~

Around 60 people were attending the Fashion Walk, most of them dressed in Angelic Pretty, because they were all attending the AP Tea Party later or just bought some new clothes at the Angelic Pretty Pop-up store.

When the Fashion Walk started, some japanese staff from Putumayo were telling everyone that we would start to walk now. But not many people heard it in the first place, so when Ami and me started walking, we were at the very front of the walk, directly behind Misako Aoki! But honestly we were just walking around Paris so it kind of didn't really felt special that we were walking with Misako Aoki ^^'''' Because we didn't talked with her or took pictures or anything, just walking behind her.

Generally there were a lot of (professional) photographers and also a camera team. We stopped 3 times to take a group picture. The first one was in a small park, the second in a small passage and the last one in front of the famous Opéra! You will not believe how many people photographed us in front of the Opéra. It is a famous tourist spot so there were a lot of people, so it was hard to escape from all the tourists who wanted to take a picture with us xD

All in all it was quite funny to walk around Paris with a horde of Lolitas, thought the best thing was definitly that I could talk to many Lolitas. At the end I also could finally take a picture with Misako Aoki <3

 ~*~ TEA PARTY ~*~

The fashion walk should take 30 minutes, so originally we should have 1 hour for finding the place of the AP TP. But when we looked at our watch after the Fashion Walk, we only had 15 minutes!!! The Opéra is in the middle of a huge crossing with 7 streets, so Ami and me didn't found the right street. But luckily we found some french Lolitas who also wanted to attend the TP and they had google maps on their mobile phone, so we tried to find the way together. But we went in the wrong direction, so we only had 5 more minutes!! The french Lolitas suggested to take a cab and luckily there was one parking just next to us, so we asked him if he could ride us to the Bristol Hotel (the place of the TP) and he said yes and it will only take 5 minutes.
So we took the cab, but when he started to drive, he drove in a complete different direction from what we thought where the hotel was. First, I thought that we really walked in the wrong direction, but one day later I walked the same street with Ami again because we wanted to go to a shop there, and we found out that the cab driver drove some extra streets to make more money!!! He was only 2 corners away from the Hotel -.- But luckily we didn't came too late, only 2 minutes, but the TP didn't started yet because there was still a queue in front of the room, because they checked the Tea Party tickets of everyone and there were around 100 Lolitas attending!

Number 4 means I was the 4th person who wrote AP an e-mail to reserve a ticket *_*

After we entered the room, we had to find a table. We joint a table with a girl from Austria and from France. It was funny because Ami and me thought that we were the only german-speaking people there, but suddenly the austrian Lolita started to talk to us in german. What a coincidence that we chose exactly this table!

Every table was arranged like this - with a plate of sandwiches and cake and rose petals

Our table - the pink girl on the left is the austrian Lolita, and the two in the middle are the french Lolitas who helped us to find the way to the Tea Party.

In the background you can also see Misako Aoki and the Putumayo staff. They joined the Tea Party too!

While entering, we directly recognized some women who didn't fit to the Tea Party. There were some old ladies at one table and younger women at two other tables, all looking snobby and dressed in typical snobby clothes. Everyone was questioning why they were at the TP, but later I asked one of the older ladies and she told me that they are from a university for fashion & marketing in California and they got invited by Angelic Pretty to the Tea Party. The older ladies were the proferssors and the younger ones their students. And she told me that they have a branch in San Francisco with students who wear Angelic Pretty.
But they didn't stayed until the end, they left within the first hour of the Tea Party.

Then, Maki and Asuka started the Tea Party. They greeted everyone and explained that there will be an outfit contest and a raffle. Everyone was given a paper brooch with a number for the outfit contest, and we should vote the outfit we liked the most.

Then it was time for the food! They had étagères with macarons, tiny cakes and sandwiches. But there were not many macarons and cakes! If you weren't fast enough you probably couldn't grab one of the macarons or the delicious lemon mini-cakes. But there were enough sandwiches to fill your body. At this point I was asking myself why they only ordered such a small amount of food, but later they brought two giant cakes, so I got my answer xD

After grabbing some food, it was time to take pictures and to talk to other people. Generally during the whole Tea Party, everyone was moving around for taking pictures or talking, nearly nobody was sitting in their chairs.

The glamorous room - you really felt like a princess here!

Because Maki and Asuka said at the beginning, that they hope to talk to us a lot, I went to both of them to ask a question. First I went to Asuka, but she nearly speaks no english, so when I asked her "What is your favourite dress?" she understood "This is my favourite dress", so she answered with "Oh thank you" xD. Then I went to Maki, she speaks better english. I asked the same question, but she couldn't decide for her favourite dress and said, that currently it is the dress she is wearing (honestly I expected the answer because they are always saying this ~_~). When I asked her how many dresses she owns, she said "Oooh hmmm.... many!". She also said that all her dresses are from AP. Then she also asked us how many dresses we own from AP and where we buy our dresses. Maki is really cute and I like that she understands english a bit so you can actually talk to her!

In the middle of the Tea Party, Asuka started to collect the votes for the outfit contest. She had a very cute box with Angelic Pretty print! How awesome is this!

Suddenly, the hotel staff was bringing 2 giant cakes! They brought a chocolate cake and a strawberry cake. The chocolate cake had glitter and also real gold on it! I felt so rich for 1 minute eating this cake xD. If you want to know, gold tastes very neutral. It just looks pretty and luxurious ^-^ They also served the cake with sauce... I never ate cake like this but it was a nice addition :)

 The decoration was made from sugar and I think the pictures were printed on sugar plates too!

At the end of the Tea Party was the ruffle. My heart started beating so fast because I desperately wanted to win something. And with desperately I mean really really desperately. I really wanted one of those chocolate bags, I saw them in the online store and fell in love with them but they were too expensive for me. But unfortunately I didn't won anything in the ruffle and I was so sad and disappointed. I know it's stupid to be sad because of something like that ;__; I shouldn't have thought so much about the prizes then I wouldn't be so sad about it.
But everyone who didn't won something during the raffle, got a poster. So nobody was left completely empty-handed.

Raffle prices - the dark blue box, the pink cup & saucer and the drawing were the prizes for the outfit contest

After the ruffle followed the announcement of the winners of the outfit contest, and directly after this was the group picture.

 Winner Outfit contest - Credit by Japan-In-Depth

 Credit by Tokyo Crazy Kawaii

Then Maki and Asuka officially said good-bye and finished the event. A nice girl of the Angelic Pretty staff gave everyone a present at the exit. It was a small pochette with Fantasy Theater print.

Yes there is a calendar on the poster...

The card on the left is the other side of the invitation - just wanted to show it ^^

All in all it was a great event, and I hope they will come back next year and make a Tea Party again!!! I'm a huge fan of Angelic Pretty and Maki & Asuka, and during the Tea Party I really felt like a princess. I met a girl at the Fashion Walk and she told me that she doesn't wear Lolita anymore, but she borrowed an outfit from a friend because she wanted to join the Tea Party. I can completely understand why and I would do the same too if I would leave Lolita (but of course I won't anytime soon ^^).

Thank you for reading,
Miuko

Paris 2014 - Day 1 - Shopping

This year, Ami and me travelled again to Paris for 3 days <3 We were there especially for the Angelic Pretty Tea Party, but of course we also went shopping and visited a museum!

~*~ ANGELIC PRETTY ~*~

On Tuesday we arrived at 12h in Paris. This was exactly the time when the Angelic Pretty Pop-up Store opened his doors for the first day, but we had to drop off our luggage at our hotel before we go to the shop, so we only arrived around 13-13:30h. In front of the shop was a queue so we had to wait for around 20 minutes until we could get in. In this time we looked through the window and we could see all the pretty stuff they had! I don't know why but I became very nervous during the waiting time, because I had fear that an awesome item get sold-out before I could enter the store. And it happend ;_; They had a Lucky Pack for 33€ (!!!) with a chocolate-print cardigan, 2 pairs of socks and 3 accessoires. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT ;______; When we waited outside they still had the Lucky Packs, we could see them through the window. But when we entered they were sold-out ;_;

Pic is from the AP website because it wasn't allowed to photograph inside

I was also nervous because a friend of mine wanted blue Crystal Dream Carnival wrist cuffs and the last pair was directly in front of us at the window, so I looked all the time at it and hoped that nobody will buy it. YES, THEY HAD CRYSTAL DREAM CARNIVAL!!! They had the dark blue Crystal Dream Carnival OP and JSK's, and also all other colors and all matching accessoires for Crystal Dream Carnival. I was really surprised that they reserved a stock especially for Paris, since all the dark blue dresses were sold-out within minutes in Japan.

And in addition to that, they also had many other new prints and items. I'm really happy that Angelic Pretty took all the effort to bring some items for their fans overseas. After they closed their international website I was pretty angry, because this was a sign for me that they don't care so much about their foreign customers. But now after I saw this shop, I have a better image of them again :)

The only negative points of the shop were, that the prices were expensive and that they didn't had much stock. For example the Crystal Dream Carnival Chiffon JSK cost 33.264Yen and they sold it for 328€ (actual exchange rate would be around 240€). And we came back to the store on Tuesday evening (and also on Wednesday and Thursday xD), and the stock was already really shrinked. Nearly all the "cool stuff" was gone.

Btw, Maki and Asuka were also at the store. Like always, Maki welcomed all customers, gave nice compliments for outfits, asked for pictures and gave autographes, while Asuka tidied up the shop with her "grumpy" face. (Can someone tell me why she always looks kinda annoyed and grumpy and not happy at all???) 
It was so cute when we asked Maki and Asuka for an autograph. Maki signed our postcard and wanted to give the pen to Asuka, but she went outside to take pictures. So Maki told us to wait a second and went to Asuka to tell her that we want an autograph from her. It was sooo adorable how engaged they were to make all customers happy <3 After this, they also asked us to take a picture with them outside! Awww <3

 I'm holding a signed postcard from Maki and Asuka

I bought a pair of pink Crystal Dream Carnival socks (for my Day Dream Carnival OP xD) and ALL the postcards. Literally. They sold two postcards for 3€, so I grabbed all they had because usually if you look for them 2nd hand, people sell this shit for 5-7€ per postcard !! I mean you get them for free in Japan but whatever, 1,50€ is better then 7€ and I always wanted to have them. Btw they also sold the new summer catalogue for 9€ which you also get for free in Japan but whatever. (But I guess they had to sell this stuff too to cover their costs)

~*~ PUTUMAYO ~*~

Okay Putumayo was in the same store like AP but I want to write about it seperately. Honestly I don't have much to write about it because I'm not interested in Putumayo at all. Also nearly nobody was interested. While Angelic Pretty sold a lot of stuff, Putumayo sold nearly nothing. I think the problem is, that Putumayo is mainly a Punk brand and they have a lot of Punk stuff, and many Lolitas are not interested in this style.

Misako Aoki was also in the store for Putumayo, but with no Putumayo customers she was helping the cashier all the time xD. I felt a little bad because directly in front of her, we asked Maki to sign our postcards and then she said "thank you for shopping" and directly went outside with us to take pictures. Originally I wanted to ask Misako to sign the postcard too and to take a picture, but Maki thought we want to leave directly so yeah we directly went outside and I felt weird to come back again when she already said "thank you for shopping, have a nice day etc.". In the evening we came back to the store but Misako Aoki was already gone T_T

The shop itself was pretty small and looked like they only rented the place for one week, altought in the internet you could read that the Pop-up store was in a "real" store called Discover Japan. But there was no professional interior in it and no other items besides AP and Putu.

~*~ AXES FEMME ~*~

Oh my god, Axes Femme is my new favourite brand!! I didn't expected much, because on their website you can read that only half of the shop is Axes Femme, and the other half are items which are created especially for european girls. So I expected too small and too boring clothes. But it was nothing like it!! All the clothes look like Liz Lisa, but with a more classical touch. I was in heaven *__*

But most important: they had my size !!! Unfortunately I gained weight so I became chubby, but they have an L size and this is european L, not japanese L !!! Many clothes have shirring, so while they had several items only in M size, it could fit everyone from XS-XL. So even if you are chubby, you don't have to worry about the sizes, althought I don't think they have anything larger then XL. The only negative point was that their biggest shoe size is 38/39. I was a bit sad about it because all their shoes also looked like Liz Lisa ;__;

Also the best thing was that they had Summer Sale. While their items are usually a bit expensive, nearly everything was 30-70% off! Many dresses cost originally 75€, but with the sale I only paid half of it for three amazing dresses! I hope next year I have more money, so I will never buy at normal shops in Germany again and just wait for their Summer Sale and then go shopping there xD

~*~ BTSSB ~*~

This year I bought nothing in Btssb. Usually I'm not a huge fan of them anyway but this year they had SO many pretty blouses and dresses I really want! But I didn't had money anyway and even if they had sale, their items were still very expensive. My friend Ami tried on a dress which was sooooo beautiful! But it cost 357€ and this was already the price with Summer Sale discount X__X.  So in the end she didn't bought it. Also the shop was very empty, actually we were the only customers there!

~*~ PRINCESS CREPE ~*~

Now comes the food part! Like always we went to Princess Crepe. I love this cute small store <3 I ordered a simple crêpe with cake cream and whipped cream. I was really curious what "cake cream" is, and it is not mashed cake xD. It looked and tasted like vanilla pudding.

~*~ HIGUMA ~*~

Higuma is a japanese restaurant at "Rue St. Anne". This is the main street of the japanese part of Paris, where you can find tons of japanese restaurants, shops and cafés (waaay more then at the Immermann-Strasse in Düsseldorf). In this street was also the Pop-up store. I write about this restaurant because it is quite cheap and affordable. For example you can get a menu with Ramen soup + Gyoza for 10,50€. There are also other menus and you always get free tap water!

Not my picture - I forgot to take one - >>Source<<

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

1 Outfit - 2 Meet ups

Hello dears!
This time I will make one entry for 2 little meet-ups, because I have worn the same outfit both times and not too much to write either :)

~*~ 1. Meet-up: Castles and Princesses ~*~

My friend Ami and me planned a meet-up at the castle "Augustusburg" in Bruehl. This castle is really pretty and has a huge park including a forest and several small lakes.

Unfortunately the sun was really really bright so we couldn't take many pictures :(. But I could talk to other Lolitas who I didn't saw in a while, so it was nice to see them again!

~*~ 2. Meet-up: Shopping Queen ~*~

My friend Asukatze is participating in the german TV-show "Shopping Queen". So yes in a few months you will see a Lolita there :D. For the show, my friend organized a little Lolita picnic to intodruce the fashion and we got filmed a few minutes. I don't know if they will use this material and if, then I guess you can see our picnic only for 5 seconds or something xD. But it was quite funny xD.

We didn't planned to wear the same dress! This just reminded us that we should make the Little Bears Café meet-up soon! And the Lady Rose meet, and the Carnival meet... xD

Maybe I will show the pictures of the other people who attended in another post, but I always edit the pictures and this takes a lot of time, so I'm a bit unmotivated to do it ^^''''

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Dokomi Convention

Hello my dear readers!
Last weekend I was at the Dokomi Convention, so here is my event report!

~*~ SATURDAY ~*~

On Saturday I woke up around 8am but I was really fast so I could catch the train at 9am. I was 1 hour earlier ready then planned, can you believe it??? (Usually I always oversleep because I'm too lazy to get up early xD).

So when we arrived at the convention really early, we directly went to the fashion stalls for shopping, because I wanted some items before they were sold out. This year, there were twice as many stalls as last year! And there were also more Lolita-themed stalls: "Ergi by Piratessan", "Harajuku Maiden" and the Dunkelsuess-booth with stuff from "Lorina Liddell". And a looooot of stalls with sweets jewellery.

I got the items I wanted: hairclip and ring from Chocomint. The hair clip was sold out in all colors at the end of the convention!

After shopping we went to the Maid Café. We were one of the first people who could get in, so we didn't had to wait long (many people who came later had to wait 2 hours O_O).
This year it wasn't allowed to take pictures of the Maids or the Café, because they wanted to make it like the authentic Cafés in Japan: you can only take a picture of your food and you have to pay if you want a picture with a Maid. But honestly the Café was nothing like Japan, there was no stage programm, no games and no Moe Moe from our Maid ~_~ But I guess our Maid was just stressed or something ~_~

So here is the picture of my food xD I ordered a strawberry milk and a melon pan:

In the afternoon I participated in the Lolita fashion show like always. This time our fashion show had a theme: "Fairytales". And this time, all models did a really good choreography, because we didn't wanted to do the typical boring poses like you usually can see. 

Here is a video of the fashion show (I'm the third-last person):


Here are the outfits of me and my friend Evangeline:

This picture was taken at the "Nikon" photobooth, so it looks a bit weird

Can you guess which fairytales we were? Okay it's really hard, I was "Brother and Sister", and Evangeline was "Sinbad the Sailor".

For the fashion show I decorated an old book, and many of my friends told me that the Lolita on the cover looks like me, because the hair style is my signature. I'm happy that I have a signature :D (especially because my old signature was my horrible blonde wig >__<''').
I didn't really thought about it when I drew the Lolita, I just drew something which came to my mind, but I guess unconsciously I drew myself!

Okay the violet Lolita looks horrible, I will color it better I swear ^_^'''

After the fashion show we just strolled around the convention and looked at the stalls again (and again and again xD), and then went home in the evening.

~*~ SUNDAY ~*~

On Sunday I haven't done much, I strolled again around the convention and explored some areas I didn't saw on Saturday (for example I completely oversaw that there was a huge artist alley xD). I also met a very nice reader of my blog, Hello again!!! ＼(*^▽^*)／ (It was Sunday right? I'm not sure anymore >_<).

Here is my outfit, I didn't wanted to wear Lolita because of the hot weather:

Later I went to watch the "Charakter-Versteigerung" .... hmm in english it would be "Character auction"?! You could bid on people in Cosplays, and if you won, you could spend 2 hours with them at the convention. The money then was donated for a social project in Germany. This year some people bid really high amounts... the Maids from the Maid Café are always really popular, and this year someone bid 850€ for them!! And also, the less clothes a girl wore, the higher was the bidding xD. But of course everything was just for fun, don't think something wrong about this ^_^

If you want to see some parts of the character auction, take a look here:
Pickachu Group
Maids

I also met cutiepie Riina, she was working at the Maid Café and we drove together with the elevator xD (yeah you don't have to understand why this is funny xD)

Picture by Riina~

I don't have more pictures, but if you want an impression of the Dokomi, you can watch this video from another Lolita:



All in all the Dokomi this year was great, I don't know why, I think 1.) because it was a lot bigger so we didn't get bored, and 2.) the air conditioner was really good, so it wasn't too hot inside (on Sunday it even was too cold for me in some areas O_O).

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Angelic Pretty Tea Party !!!

Dear Miss Miriam,

Thank you for your support to Angelic Pretty.

Thank you very much for reserving your place for «Angelic Pretty Tea Party in Paris» 

We confirm your reservation as following.

So like you can see, I won a ticket for the Angelic Pretty Tea Party !!! OMG I'm so happy, and this time I don't have to go alone, but I can go with my friend Ami who also won a ticket. We both want to wear our Lady Rose dresses => Twinsiiiiiies ヽ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )ﾉ ♪

I got the confirmation at 2:30h in the middle of the night! But I couldn't sleep well this night so I was online at that time and could directly see it <3 Some french Lolitas on Facebook wrote that until now only the first 10 Lolitas got their confirmation. I don't know if this is true but I got number 4 and my friend number 7 (which is quite strange since I ordered both our tickets in one mail, so why not 4 and 5 or something like this xD). But that means I was reaaally fast if I was the 4th mail they got O___o

We will only go the AP Tea Party and Fashion Walk which is the same day, but we will not go to any other events, because we don't want to spend a fortune on hotel costs and it would be also quite expensive to go to ALL the events (despite the fact that they are sold-out anyway).

Btw the text about the Tea Party at the Angelic Pretty website is sooo cute:
We can enjoy delicious cakes and petits fours and spend a special moment like princesses.

But it's true, at Angelic Pretty Tea Parties you can really feel like a princess for 2 hours
☆*･゜ﾟ･*\(^O^)/*･゜ﾟ･*☆

Here some pictures of the location:

Who of you will be also at the Angelic Pretty Tea Party or at the other events in Paris???

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3