Secondhand lolita clothing shops: Boon or Bane?

I confess, I love Closet Child. Whenever I'm in Tokyo, I always hit the three Closet Child biggies which is Harajuku, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro. I haven't gone to the one in Yokohama because, well, I've never been to Yokohama. But now that mintedroses has posted about her daytrip to Yokohama for lolita shopping before and it looks relatively easy to get to from Tokyo, I shall try it on my next visit!

But I digress. Closet Child, much love and not only because they are a secondhand lolita clothing shop with excellent pricing for still relatively good to fair condition items but also because they stock things you don't normally find on the online brand websites.

If you're not physically in Tokyo to experience Closet Child, there's always the online secondhand clothing shops that's been springing up here and there. The most known and popular ones are Closet Child's own online store, Alice Fururun, Fairy Angel, Clothing-Drop, to name a few.

So I went on a secondhand buying spree lately...maybe due to post-holiday blues (shopping therapy is always horribly enjoyable and horribly heart-attack inducing when the bills come). And my loot arrived yesterday:

I asked for the package to be delivered to my office to avoid a trip down to the post office to collect.

 And everything's nicely wrapped up! I love seeing lolita clothes nicely wrapped up XD

Left to Right: Emily Temple Cute, Angelic Pretty, Innocent World, Millefleurs

The ETC and IW dresses fit nicely! Unfortunately, the Millefleurs OP doesn't fit well so I will be selling it off soon. As for the AP dress...it was definitely an impulse buy, especially after my decision to do a more age-appropriate lolita style! I don't regret getting it as it's gorgeous in person, the lavendar colour is just perfect but it's a tad too short for me and plus, while trying it on, it made me realised I really can't do sweet AP style anymore. It just looks....weird on me, lol. So, it'll probably go too.

Ah well, shopping for secondhand dresses online is hugely enjoyable but there's always the danger that the fit isn't good or it's not quite right on one. Still, I'll continue to buy from reputable secondhand shops as you really can find some gems there at fantastic prices. So for me, they're more of a boon than a bane!

Coordi shot

Quickie coordi shot from last Saturday's meet with the girls! Taken in the toilet, lol. Hence the very lacklustre tiles on the floor and the background.

OP: h.Naoto Gramm

Scarf: Marks & Spencer

Bag: Cath Kidston

Boots: Offbrand

I'm not sure if I'm going the way of the mori loli and even if I was, this ensemble would fall short for an example of that genre style! But it's simple and easy to wear and I felt comfy in it the whole day ^^

Back from Bath, London and Paris!

Ahoy! Back from the vacation and suffering some majorly post-holiday blues right now. It's just so nice to get away from everything and not have to work! But in order to afford nice holidays, one needs to work and therein lies the irony, lol.

England at this time of the year was lovely! The weather was sometimes cloudy, sometimes sunny and never went above 18 degrees celsius. Sooooo niceeeee.

Bath especially I loved. Not just because of the heavy Jane Austen influence there but the entire city is just really delightful and has so much history to it.

There was a hiccup to the early part of the trip when dum dum de dum, the airline lost my luggage and I practically arrived in Bath with the clothes off my back. Worse was I had to skip the Jane Austen Promenade Walk on the first day of the festival as my Regency dress was in that luggage. I was pretty crushed for the first and second day then. But such is life and the vagaries of the economy airlines that one decides to take =( The luggage was finally found and delivered to my hotel in Bath on the evening of the third day but in the end, I still missed the Jane Austen Festival in its entirety.

However, I couldn't leave Bath without wearing my Regency dress and bonnet and taking some photos!

Photos taken at The Kennard, which was the hoteI stayed in during Bath and which really was the prettiest little place as well!

The rest of the trip was spent in London plus a day trip to Paris. And, I did manage to find the BtssB store in Paris when I was there! I am rather proud of the fact that I managed to successfully navigate the streets of Paris, armed with a map, to find the store on Ledru Rollin, heh!


The store was empty when I entered but the shopgirl greeted me with a smile which was encouraging since one does sometimes hear about rudeness at the Paris shop offshoot. Dir en grey was playing in the background as well when I was there, lol. While I controlled myself and didn't purchase anything from the store (I was tempted though!), I was pleasantly surprised to find the store stocked with a good array of items. The shop is located in a rather quiet suburban area of Paris and the nearest Metro station is Ledru Rollin so it is slightly off the beaten track. But if you have some time to kill in Paris, I recommend tracking down the shop for a visit. Also, located near enough to the shop is Jardin des Plantes, which is a beautiful botanical garden with a museum and lovely for photos in loli finery as well =)

More on the sights of Bath and daily outfits worn in next post!

Ramblings plus an As and When Alice photo

Sorry for the intermittent postings for the last few weeks! I don't want to be one of those one-hit loli blogs that one sees so often popping up and disappearing within a few months although I can understand why that happens. Real life just gets in the way A LOT plus it takes effort to write as well. And write interestingly and well.

For me, it's a lot of real life going on. I'm buying a new apartment that hasn't even been built yet. The apartment flat will be built and ready in about 3-4 years' time. While I'm looking forward to a new house one day, this means the spending budget will be tight as the cash downpayment for the new place needs to be settled soon. Hence, no new lolita purchases since a few months ago and for the next few months as well as I've been madly saving.

Between a new house and loli dresses, I would naturally prioritise the first without much thought into it! But ah, it was still a little hard though, to go through the summer sale period and not be purchasing one or two brand-new dresses on discount.

Besides the new house, the trip to UK is finally approaching! I fly off to merry olde England next Thursday. The UK trip will include a one-day trip to Paris and I'm still considering whether to make a visit to the Paris BtssB store for fun. I don't know if it's worth the effort though as I'm only doing a day trip and I've heard that the BtssB shop person isn't very welcoming to tourists (but this is hearsay and I really don't know the veracity of snooty Parisian shop people at Btssb).

And for London, I definitely want to be hitting Camden Town for the second-hand clothing shops!

I won't be bringing any loli to wear during the trip. I will be bringing a few Naoto Gramm dresses to wear but that's it. Mostly due to the fact that I'm actually rather nervous of drawing attention to myself in loli in London. I would be more confident of wearing loli in Tokyo since yes, I've done that before and not to mention, Japan is the birthplace of loli fashion, lol. But I'm leery of being a foreigner, wearing loli in a Western setting and therefore, the chance of drawing unwanted attention...

Anyway! To make up for pelting boring aspects of my life at you, here's another Alice in Wonderland inspired photoshoot! The photo showcases an Alice inspired dress from New York Couture, an online shop that specialises in one of a kind outfits. While not loli, they do have some rather cute dresses up on their collection page.

I  love how the 'I have cramps' model-esque pose is now associated with couture.

Ye or Nay?

This could go either way. It probably all boils down to how one wears it and how it's accessorised with...so here I present Meta's latest Ye or Nay?

The Meta Dot Tulle A-line Dress (in pink, navy and cream)

The navy blue doesn't look half-bad and I'm always for the brands to come out with a-typical lolita dresses that isn't the standard cupcake form. However, the pink colourway is just so...shiny while the waist ribbon looks like it was last year's Christmas tree decoration. Not to mention, only those with slender arms could possibly carry off that sleeveless shift look. The dot tulle material, upclose, is pretty though but overall....more nay than ye for me...