Inspiring Series: Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena) is my favorite anime, bar none.

If you haven't seen it, you're totally missing out, and I could talk about the series for hours, but this blog is about fashion and not about fangirling. Most of the time. Sometimes they coincide. Right now is one of those cases, so I hope you will forgive me my fangirling moment.

Inspired Coords Part II: Non-Characters

Continued from last week's post, I have a third media-inspired coord type to show you.

Type 3: A non-character or setting

If you're doing this one, you clearly like a challenge.

This is, simply put, the hardest way you can take inspiration from media. Whether you take your inspiration from a culture or from a setting, you're taking a broader base of impression and trying to distill it into a single outfit. For example, while many people will say that the setting of a book “becomes a character,” you’ve got to admit that it’s hard to translate that setting into human form.

However, it can be done.

My favorite texts for this are works like Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Each of these offers dreamlike descriptions of places, not concrete but very vivid. They give a wealth of images, colors, and textures that can be translated easily to fabrics and jewelry.

Inspired Coords Part I: Characters

I'm back! After doing the play and having the kids ask me to come to their concerts the next week, I'm finally back on the blogging train. And all the costuming I've been doing has given me ideas.

Inspiration for Lolita coords comes from everywhere, but it can sometimes be hard to figure out how to take that inspiration and translate it into a completed coord. And, since I like a good challenge and am hot off the heels of taking a script and making written characters a reality, I'm going to take on media-inspired coords.

I'll be covering three different types of outfit inspiration over the course of two posts:

1. Characters that are already visually represented
2. Characters that are not visually represented
3. Non-characters

The first two will be in this post, and the final type will be given its own post.

Let's get started, shall we?

Outfit of the Day: Happy Halloween!

So, I love Halloween.

This probably comes of no surprise to anybody, given my love of costuming. And this year, they encouraged folks at my office to dress up. Dangerous, that.

Because I wasn't feeling particularly spooky of face this year, and because I wanted very much to wear my new antlers from Mythical Designs, I decided to do a deer-inspired outfit. The main part of the outfit was the face. I used too-dark bronzer (also known as "bronzer" because of how pasty white I am) and cheap white face paint to make my cheeks tan and add some white spots to it. I would have painted my nose black to add some more deer-i-ness to it, but I ran out of time in the morning. What can you do?

Anyway, here's what I looked like from the neck up.

Close Encounters of the Frilled Kind: Well, That's a First!

Breaking hiatus to share a story with you guys.

I wear Lolita almost every Sunday. I attend church, and it gives me a good excuse to wear frills at least one day a week. So today I wore a black and gold skirt, lace top (which didn't match my outfit as well as I should like, but a subpar coordinate was fine by me when we needed to be out the door fast) and black shoes. My cousin, visiting for the weekend, wore the skirt I bought for her along with a lace blouse and earrings shaped like a rainbow-colored layer cake.

And now I'm kind of wishing that my coordinate had been better.

You see, after church we went to a local grocery store to pick up some supplies. As we got to the checkout, the young lady working the register smiled at us.

"I like your outfits!"
"Thanks," I replied.
"Lolita, right? I spotted you two across the store, and I love the prints."

I was floored. I have never had anybody know what I was wearing. Usually, people just call it retro and girly and leave it at that. I've been asked if I was going to a "German cultural festival." I've been asked if I was dressed up for a play. But coming across someone who actually knows what Lolita fashion is? Never.

So, yeah. That made my day and I had to share.

Outfit of the Day: Inspired by Dark Mori

Several weekends back, I was visiting family for their county fair. My cousins suggested that we go to Pioneer Village to explore, take a few pictures, and just generally have some fun. Of course, since I am me and the weekends are when I let loose with my clothing, I was dressed to the very strange nines. This time, it was black. All black. Lots of black.

I don’t usually wear much mori kei because of my body shape; curvy me plus flowing clothing can result in a frumpy rather than fairy-like appearance. However, this particular outfit isn't strictly mori kei, and, more importantly, it's much more comfortable than my usual frills. Therefore, it was perfect for bumming around a county fair. It was also perfect for climbing around in train cabooses, crouching down next to sod house windows, and running through the rain despite water-soaked shoes.

I'm sorry I didn't get any close-up pictures of the outfit, mostly because I spent much of the trip behind the camera. However, we did get a few good posing shots of me (though my legs do look a good deal shorter than they actually are). This is one of them.

Outfit Rundown:

Top: I got this as part of a mystery bag from GoodGoth a few years back, but the tag is missing.
Skirt: A gift from my friend Liz, tag also missing.
Vest: Handmade
Tights: Wal Mart
Shoes: Wal Mart
Hair Accessories: Claire's

These are fun, too. We got some creepy pics of me as the villain of our day's amorphous story (which, given that I was looking black-clad and witchy, wasn't an unfair read of the appearance), so this creepy pic of me staring through a window will have to do instead of outfit close up shots.

Fashion and Costuming: A Blog Hiatus

I have exciting news! And by "exciting news," I mean, "Please forgive me because I won't be able to blog regularly for a while."

I’m volunteering as the costume manager for my old high school. I know the director, and so when she said that the fall play was Seussical and she needed behind-the-scenes help, I volunteered. Since I’m living with my parents just two blocks from the school, I’m an easy distance from the auditorium. And, because she knows me, I got roped into planning most of the costumes that won’t be rented and possibly a puppet or ten.

I’m so excited to do that, but it’s going to take a chunk out of my free time. For the next two months or so, I probably won’t be updating this blog. I’ll come back of course, but for a little while I need to put my energy into creating brightly colored outfits for the Whos and feathered tails for a flock of sassy birds. I might post an outfit shot or two, and I'll definitely be posting something about the costuming process when I'm done, but posts will be rare until after the show gets done.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. I’ve got a lot of birds to feather and a lot of characters to bring to life.