NYCC/NYAF '10 Recap: Day 3

Wow it's been a while since I did the last update of this convention. Here's the third and last installment. Hopefully you'll all forgive me for taking my sweet time writing it up!

I started my day out sleeping in/oversleeping and then catching a cab down to the convention. I did a little bit of early morning wandering around before the convention opened and then headed down to the fashion show line to wait. I met some really nice lolitas in line and then got a really good seat at the fashion show. Unfortunately, my camera REALLY didn't want to cooperate with me during the show so my pictures aren't very good or numerous. I've long forgotten many of the designers names but I really liked the more regal fashions that there were. I want to say it was I Do Declare who was the designer. If I'm wrong please correct me! I saw a lot of pieces that reminded me of h.Naoto and other punk/goth labels. There wasn't much that I wasn't fond of. I'm posting here a few of my photos that came out that I liked.

This was my favorite piece of the show!

After the fashion show, I decided to check out Takamasa Sakurai's panel and the lolita panel he participated in afterwards. I hate to say that I found his panel to be terribly boring, but he did the panel with Kanon of An Cafe, who was quiet and reserved but fairly adorable. The panel focused more on cosplay from the headline series of anime. I'm not into cosplay like I used to be and I was really expecting the panel to be more about fashion. The other panel, which I believe was something along the lines of making lolita work for you, was a little more interesting. I have the same criticism for this panel as I had for the Day 1 lolita panel I went to. It was nice, but the panel seemed to be more geared to newcomers to the fashion, although they did have a few cute and original coord photos to show off. They also had a giveaway which was nice. I'm a big fan of giveaways at panels even if I never win anything XD.

Me with Sakurai ^ ^

After the panels and fashion show, I came back to see Eric, who in my absence, had finished the mural! There were a ton of people checking it out and the finished piece was quite lovely. Unfortunately we did not get to hang it this year which would have been awesome, but it's not always possible since the conventions don't really have the fixings for it. We've always had to improvise in years past with the equipment they could provide us last minute. Regardless, the final piece was quite awesome.

We decided to wander the floor a little bit afterwards and had a convention volunteer valiantly guard the piece. We visited a bunch of different companies but hurried back to the mural out of fear of some unfortunate event such as children running under the bars or a spilled cup of coffee. On our way back, I saw a really nice Master Chief cosplay. I've always wanted to wear a Spartan suit myself, so this one is a favorite from this convention.

Lastly, I wanted to post a few of my favorite lolita coords again. I loved meeting all of you! You all looked great!

You can't go wrong with Vampire Requiem!

Pink and red seemed to be the color of the day!

Rocking AP Fantastic Dolly in mint!

A nice display of the variety that can go into sweet lolita ^ ^

Hope you enjoyed all the recaps even though they were quite spread out. It was a great time and I can't wait till I can go to another con. Its a wonderful excuse for me to dress up and treat myself to some new goodies. You'll hear from me again real soon, I promise!

As always, check out Eric's work at Pepperink.com!

NYAF/NYCC '10 Recap: Day 1

Well... NYAF/NYCC is over. It was a really good time and equally exhausting! All three of my days start with getting up super early so I could catch a cab with Eric down to the convention center. I wore lolita all three days so I had to get up even earlier than I normally would so I could be ready in time. We got to the convention center around 9am but ran into a couple minor issues involving our badges, but things got fixed fairly quickly and easily. Eric ended up starting on his piece around noonish. We had to wait for electricity and all our other typical fixings to arrive which led to a bit of a late start.

Being the lolita shopping addict I am, I wandered away from Eric fairly early to scope out the dealer's room for any lolita related goodness. I was fairly disappointed. Kinokuniya had some stuff from Baby that seemed to be mostly leftovers and were a little overpriced in my opinion. I did buy a bolero coat because I had been looking for one exactly like the one they had. I was lucky/misfortunate enough to have the h.Naoto booth right by Eric's work. I was lucky because I hate having to search for booths when I like to keep visiting them and unfortunately because they had a lot of awesome stuff I really wanted to buy. I liked seeing the Hangry and Angry mascots keep walking by.

I imagine it sucked to wear them as I assume they were blind since they had to be led around while wearing them. On a non lolita note... I did buy a Squishable T-Rex. He's very bright but I need a name for him. Any ideas? Once the convention had been open to the public for a while, I did head down to the anime Artist Alley. I checked out Lolitas and Cream and bought some really cute stuff from them like a broach and a huge cupcake ring. Every year I see their booths at conventions their stuff looks better and better!

I eventually came back to check in on Eric (I am supposed to be assisting him after all) He had gotten quite a bit done on his mural, but as Eric always does, he was stressing about finishing on time. In reality, it looked great and he finished perfectly on time because it's Eric and that's what he does. Most people were really pumped about the subject of the mural being YuGiOh. I personally am not a fan but it was fun to hear all the people yelling out things and almost reliving their childhood. I think the best part was when a younger kid (probably around 8 or 9) got upset on the last day about the mural stating that it is the 10th year anniversary of YuGiOh when the copyright dates that were also in the mural said that YuGiOh was created in 1996. He was pretty pissed off and immediately went to Toonzaki to question them as to what the hell that was about. He was on a mission, but since Eric was really just recreating the art we didn't have an answer for him.

I also went to the Lolita panel on Friday. It was a little bit boring, but it was really aimed more at girls who were just starting out in lolita. I met a few other lolitas who were really nice at the panel though and they did have a giveaway. They gave away a ton of stuff and I thought that it was quite nice that a lot of newer lolitas seemed to be the ones winning the prizes (even if I didn't win anything XD)

While the panel was a little bit uneventful, I did get to see a lot of lolitas on day 1. They were all dressed quite wonderfully. I figured I would just post a few photos here of some of my favorites. If you see yourself and you'd like your username posted or a blog linked, please let me know in the comments!

Frozenmotion9 making AatP look stunning. This was my favorite coord. hands down. I would love to have that whole outfit XD

This girl had so much poof under her skirt. It was pretty amazing!


A girl from Tokyo Rebel. I loved everything about her outfit.

A really awesome mostly offbrand coord.

A really nice handmade DBZ JSK. Fantastic!

I did also run into a few nice cosplays that I took photos of. Same policy stands here though, if you'd like me to link to you please let me know in a comment!

I love seeing Utena cosplays ^ ^

A really HUGE Chewbacca!

The Queen of Hearts

A fantastic Captain America

Probably the best cosplay of the show!

All in all Day 1 was great. I met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun. I'll be posting Day 2 and 3 recaps ASAP so please keep an eye out for them. And please check out more of Eric Maruscak's work at Pepperink.com!

Pre-NYAF/NYCC Blog

I'm quite excited for the upcoming NYAF/NYCC this year. I plan on wearing lolita all 3 days of it and am looking forward to the fashion show (even though I didn't make the modeling contest T_T) and swap meet. Most of all I'm excited to be going with my friend Eric Maruscak who is going to be doing what he does best... Chalk art! I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a surprise or not so I won't talk about the piece, but I'm hoping it will be a hit just like every other year has been.

Now, I know I said I was planning on wearing lolita for all three days. I just need to decide what to wear. I've got a couple of ideas I'm throwing around, but I don't know for sure what I want to wear yet. I think I'm gonna try to wear my newer dresses that haven't gotten much love yet. I'll be sure to make a post once I know how I'm gonna coordinate them!

A Trip to the New York Renaissance Festival

Yesterday, I went to another Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, NY. This was my first time to this festival and aside from some terrible parking, it was a very enjoyable experience. There is a decent walk from the parking lot to the actual festival, but if you want, you can take the shuttle bus. We decided to walk it. I say we, but I really mean Travis, I wanted to take the shuttle because I was wearing my new shoes and didn't know whether or not they would be comfortable for the entire day. Luckily, they ended up being decent walking shoes.

I was surprised that at the entrance someone recognized my JSK immediately as lolita and asked me if it was Angelic Pretty. Another girl later correctly identified it as BTSSB. Usually when I meet someone who is familiar with lolita, they comment that they recognize the fashion. It was pleasant to hear people recognize that I was wearing an actual brand. We went from the entrance accidentally headed right to the joust. We had good timing as it was just about to start.

The joust itself seemed a lot less planned out than the ones I've seen at the Sterling Renaissance Faire. I'm not sure if this was for the better or not. Both shows are quite nice. I noticed that the commentary and the lines from the knights (whether scripted or unscripted) were a bit more adult oriented than the ones at Sterling. At one point, one of the knight's horses threw him, but the horse also fell backwards on top of him. I'm not entirely sure it was a part of the show, but the knight got right up and continued with the show like nothing had happened. What a champ either way, I can't imagine having a horse land on you is fun.

After the joust we wandered around a bit and just checked out the vendors. I liked that this festival had a very large number of vendors. It seemed to also help keep the prices down as well since there was more than one shop selling most wares. They also had a little pathway where there were a bunch of psychics to do tarot readings, palm readings, and other divination. The games section was also pretty large too. We stood and watched the tomato man for awhile. He was way better than the one at Sterling this year but the one that was at Sterling last year was the best.

After wandering for a bit we went to the food court area to get something to eat. I got a pickle and something to drink and then we did some more wandering. This place is huge. There are a lot of shops to see. After finishing my first pickle and wandering even more, I decided I wanted another pickle. We lucked out and ran into another pickle guy. He told me I had a pretty smile and should wrap it around a pickle. XD As creepy as this pickle dude was, the second pickle was just as awesome as the first. After some more window shopping, we found a shop that sold "dragons" which was kind of cute. They were actually geckos, since, you know, Dragons don't actually exist.

After we felt we had sufficiently wandered the faire, we decided we'd head out. We walked the hilly path back to the car and then found that the cars had been parked three deep. Luckily we were on the edge and were able to get out without much difficulty despite having a car parked next to us on all four sides. I really enjoyed this festival. I hope I can get back there next summer. It was well worth the 2 hour trip. I'd recommend you go!

Now for the quick outfit rundown!

JSK and Bag: BTSSB

Socks: Meta

Shoes: Montreal

Everything else: Offbrand

A Trip to the Sterling Renaissance Festival

Today I went to the Renaissance Festival in Sterling, New York. We had a great time. We got up early and got ready and by we I mostly mean I since I had my hair to do. I got my friend Charity to wear lolita clothes with me which meant for once I wasn't the only lolita walking around. We got to the festival a little early but made our way straight to the "stage" for the jousting match.

The jousting match was a little bit different from last years, but all in all it was pretty much the same show. I think I enjoyed it better this year since I wasn't sitting in the hot sun though unlike last year. We wandered around and found some really nice things. I really wanted to get one of these amazing eye patches made from real animal bones. I am a bit short on money at the moment but I will definitely be hitting their Etsy (Dry Bones Studios) up soon. I need to come up with a neat coordinate for it first though. ^ ^ After a bit of wandering we went and watched the tomato man for a bit. He was funny but I preferred the guy from last year since his insults and jokes were way better.

After getting some pickles and salt potatoes and wandering a bit, we went and saw the sword swallowing magician. It was an amazing show! We talked to the guy for a bit after too and he seemed like a pretty cool guy, as if swallowing swords and knives didn't already make you a cool guy.

As I said in a previous blog, I've been pretty excited to actually get to wear my AatP Gathers Frill jsk. It was a bit hot but I was really happy with how everything went together. I got a lot of compliments and quite a few people asked to take my picture! I also heard a lot of comments on my rocking horse boots. People can seem to understand how we manage to walk in them XD.

Coordinate Details:

JSK and Tote bag: Alice and the Pirates

Blouse: Rakuen

Socks and Ring: Metamorphose

Parasol: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Necklace: Vivienne Westwood Replica

Shoes: Montreal

All in all, I had a great time this year! I can't wait to go again next year and I'm hoping I'll be able to make it to the show in Tuxedo as well later this summer.
Photos by Eric Maruscak