I've got a bone to pick. This Anarchy torn skull shirt (above) is punk-cute beyond words, but it has two major shortcomings. h.NAOTO's online English store lists the tee at $123 and stamps it with the scarlet letters: SOLD OUT.
Remember that ditty: "the head bone's connected to the... shoulder bone"? Surely I remember enough from AP Biology to make a DIY version!
You'll recall that I've embarked on a major spring cleaning. I found a ratty long-sleeve black sweater that was a cast-off from my older cousin. As with my Punk Loli project, I cut off the sleeves and made two rows of giant holes down the front. Appropriately, I slipped my "ribcage" over a Roca t-shirt that announces "I Will Not Lose." (I picked up the shirt for free at the Magic tradeshow in Vegas.)
I bloodied the outfit with unmatched red and white striped socks, and Lolita-fied it with a Betsey Johnson vintage skirt ($10) puffed out by a petticoat. The miniature hat with lace and ribbon tendrils is by Spider.
I safety-pinned my Hell Kitty VooDoo Baby to my sleeve (the red matches my lips and knee socks). A plastic children's necklace forms a bracelet. The fraying sweater material works well with this look, don't you think? My mom said I looked like I was dead - and I took that as the ultimate compliment!
h.NAOTO Anarchy also offers this cheerfully morbid shirt, described in "Engrish" as: "Skull ripped open to say hi!" Dig the extra-long sleeves, which you can push up or leave dangling.
I cackled in the face of the shirt's $110 price tag and Sold Out status. I dragged a ribbed black sweater from the depths of my closet (it's so old that the label has vanished). Tore out a skull face. Slit the arms from the elbows downward. I kept the outfit simple with an H&M skirt, Victorian ankle boots, and polka-dot leggings from the streets of Hong Kong.
Now I've got literal skeletons in my closet to keep the figurative ones company. ( Just ribbing. Hur hur hur! ) My neon t-shirt (worn under the sweater) is - believe it or not - HYOMA. He's the kawaii mascot of Masahiro Nakagawa's infamous Tokyo shop and avantgarde brand, 20471120 (as seen in Fruits). The t-shirt is from a Hong Kong boutique; it's one of my proudest finds.
I have one more money-saving DIY project up my (ripped) sleeves... next time, we're taking on Black Peace Now!
I did a massive spring cleaning and fought the urge to bury my head in the sand when I came across some of my old clothes. Three words: Club Monaco sweatshirt. Or how about six: pastel blue Old Navy tank top. These 90s fiascos are on the way to the Salvation Army - but before yelling sayonara, I had to heed the call of two irresistable words: "Fashion Challenge." With only a pair of scissors, could I turn my lame clothes into something worthy of Kera Magazine?
I immediately recalled a ripped-up Mar Jour t-shirt (above) that I saw on Refuse to be Usual (the eBay store that sells Gothic Lolita/Punk/Visual Kei wear). The cutsew looks like it's falling to pieces - and it's listed at a whopping $100. The Punk Lolita response? DIY!
I started with a white, longsleeve Nordic turtleneck that I wore to ski lessons years ago. I chopped off the neck and the sleeves at the elbow, and giant horizontal chunks out of the sleeves and front. I slipped the Swiss cheese remnents over a black/red/white Sex Pistols t-shirt, securing it with safety pins over Johnny Rotten's eyes.
To accessorize, I added Vertigo and Batman buttons, a Warrior Princess-style leather corset bracelet, black mask, and mis-matched red striped/skull-printed knee highs. A Gloomy Bear plushie is safety-pinned to my Lolita petticoat-poof from Spider. Not a bad replica - and it didn't cost me a cent.
My next look was inspired by the I-got-stuck-in-a-car-door-and-dragged-fifty-feet jeans often worn by Harajuku punk boys. Think Sex Pot Revenge, Sexy Dynamite London, or HellCatPunks.
I gleefully tore strips out of old Club Monaco dress pants, leaving the pieces to hang from the sides. I picked up the disembodied sleeves from my white Nordic turtleneck and gave them the same treatment. Voila - punk armbands!
I wrapped one leg of leopard-print leggings around my left leg, and one leg of cherry-red tights around the right. My dad's white tie is twisted into skinny scarf/noose. The "ninja top" is from Kunpado, a stall in London's Camden Market. What do you think?
Coming up next: I turn rejected sweaters into deconstructed masterpieces inspired by h.NAOTO's latest collection!
La Carmina - both the blog and the Goth chick - have come a long way since stuttering onto the web last September. Posting has increased to near daily, page views and media mentions have risen... and we're not about to take two Valium and curl up for a nap. No siree-bob. The syringe is loaded with amphetamines, and the site is getting a shot in the arm.
First: the photos are about to triple in quality. I am now the lucky owner of a Sony DSLR-a700 professional digital camera with Minolta auto-focus lenses. Expect more original photography and how-to style shoots... starting tomorrow!
Second: I'll introduce more website features and interaction. Thanks for the fantastic response to my goofy Cooking Cute video. If you have suggestions for the blog, do let me know.
Finally: I have several exciting projects in fruition... stay tuned and I'll announce them shortly. Hint: 'tis to do with fashion and writing, and possibly travel.
† Name/URL: Amelie-Christine † Age: 22 † Location: Bielefeld, NRW, Germany. † How were you introduced to Gothic Lolita fashion? When I was a child I was a big fan of Sailormoon, Digimon and things like that. I started to draw and to listen to Japanese music and when I was about 16 I fell in love with MaliceMizer and Mana. I found the page "animexx", the biggest online community in Germany for fans of Japan, cosplaying, jrock and started to write in a forum which was for fans from Moitie and the Gothiclolita-fashion. Short time later, I bought my first dress and visited my first jrock-concert and met a lot of really nice persons, who are good friends of mine until today. † What do you find appealing about GL style and culture?
I love the Japanese mentality, the exchange of culture and tradition and modernity. I love how fast you can get new friends, that you can visit conventions and can look at all these beautiful dresses and people and the fun they have. Also, it is always exciting to see people that you know for a long time from the internet in real life, in the first moment it's a really strange feeling. The negative aspect is that you have a lot of firends who you can only see a few times in the year, because they are living to far away (at a German meeting for example, there are often Gothic Lolitas from the Netherlands or Austria, also). It's a very special feeling to be at meetings and to be a "Golo," a cross between nostalgia and surreality and I really hope to keep it for a lot more years.
† What are your favorite GL clothing brands? Moi-même-Moitié, Victorian Maiden, Juliette et Justine. Millefleurs, from time to time Metamorphose. † Any other comments? There are a lot of different ways to be a golo, some people say it's only a fashion-style, others say it is an attitude to life. Some people adhere strictly with the combinations of the clothes, others do it as they like and so on , and the only community that we all have is that we're thinking our way is the only one and the right. Because of this, especially for novices, it's really hard to become a solid part of us. So, instead of judging and disregarding them, everyone of us should try best to help them. Everybody knows how hard his own start probably was.
If you would like to be the next Gothloli of the Week, please read the submission instructions here.
Get ready to squeal kawaii. The talented Count3D directed/edited a video (starring La Carmina and Count D) in the style of a silly Japanese cooking show! I demonstrate how to make a cheeseball that looks like a Super Mario puffer fish, similar to those adorable character bento boxes from Japan. Please watch, comment, and spread the word!
"You may have seen Japanese school lunches decorated like Hello Kitty or Pokemon. I like to think outside the bento box – so I’m going to show you how to make an apple, walnut and blue cheese cheese ball. But we don’t want it to look like something your grandma made – so we’re going to turn it into a Nintendo-style blowfish."
Ingredients: 300g white cheddar, 250g cream cheese, 125g blue cheese, 2 Granny Smith apples, 1 cup walnuts
Chop up the apples and shred the cheese. Mix together the cheddar, blue cheese, cream cheese, and apples. Shape the mixture into a ball. Cover it with wrap, and refrigerate overnight. The next day, take out the cheese ball. Roll it over a plate of chopped walnuts.
"Now let’s turn this lump into a Nintendo baddie."
Ingredients: 4 heads of endive, 2 radishes, white cheddar, fresh tarragon, dried apple ring
Cut off the root of the endive. Arrange the spears on the cheese ball to look like spikes.
To make the eyes, slice the cheese about a centimeter thick, and cut out circles or semi-circles with the help of a shotglass. Add expression by pressing on fresh tarragon leaves. You can also use strips of other herbs or seaweed.
Use two slices of radish to give him rosy cheeks. You can turn the extra radishes into baby mice. "Kawaii! Oishii!" ( Cute! Yummy! )
A dried apple ring forms the blowfish’s mouth. Serve the cheeseball on a platter along with crackers and apple slices... and pray that you don't keel over and die!
For those who can't get enough of tranny-chan J-rockers, Madelaine sent a sweet tip: Maru Music is releasing Visual-Kei DVD Magazine Vol 2 this summer. She writes: "You will not believe who will be in it. He wears blue, has a band, and has a fashion line." The answer is - you guessed it - Mana of Malice Mizer and Moi dix Mois!
This volume is hosted by an androgyne (Miku, vocalist of Antique Café) and a coked-up, dubiously feline puppet (Biju). As in the first DVD, there will be over an hour of exclusive interviews, live video clips, and behind-the-scene glimpses at the hottest Japanese Visual Kei bands (Smile, chariots, SuG, SaTaN, Himeichigo). There's even an educational component: a history lesson of the genre and a tour of legendary concert venues such as Rock-May-Kan in Tokyo.
I can't wait to see the footage of Mana-sama's side project, Mana's Not Dead. He talks about his love of punk music and plays drums on a song by The Star Club... while wearing a ripped-up costume made of gauze and hair spiked six inches high. (See photo above left.) Oh Mana, I bow to thee.
The trailer for the DVD gives me butterflies in the stomach! You can pre-order Visual-Kei DVD Magazine Vol 2 from Maru Music's web store (which also sells Miyavi merchandise, drool.) The DVD is in Japanese with English subtitles, region-free, over an hour in length, and costs $12.
VooDoo Babies are the cutest little undead serial killers you'll ever meet. And boy, are these charmers versatile: my five Goth-lings have hung out on my keychain, my big white purse, the brim of my ridiculous black Kentucky Derby hat... the sky's the limit!
For yesterday's nightcrawl (which went on until 7AM), I turned three of my wee minions into an eye-catching, morbid-adorable necklace. I tied a thin black leather belt around my neck; using safety pins, I strung Freddy Krueger, Voodoo Me, and Hell Kitty at different lengths. The red accents match my lip color and create a popping contrast to the black corset.
Above are some of my favorite VooDoo Babies, most of which are from the "Halloween series." (Don't you want to pinch Count Dracula's cheeks and tug on his lip rings? ) Each retails for about $10-18.
Can you think of other imaginative ways to turn these creatures of the night into alt-fashion statements?
