Axes Femme global shop & dress - review

At the start of October I saw @go.kishi on Instagram promoting a jumperskirt from Axes Femme, that I sort-of instantly fell in love with. I couldn't be sure that it would fit me nicely at the moment because of my pregnancy but I weighed the chances of this showing up second hand later and me liking it so much and decided I will buy it new. I never ordered from Axes Femme before, even though they have an global online shop in English, so I was excited and decided to write a review as well for anyone who is thinking of ordering from their global shop.

About Axes Femme

Axes Femme, as you probably know, is a Japanese brand/shop that sells elegant and 'kawaii' clothing that are very close to the elegant lolita fashion, mostly towards the classic style. It features frills and bows, with a bit of a vintage look. I have visited their physical shops several times when I was in Japan and that one time when it still was in Paris. Although sometimes their clothes don't fit me (either too wide on my waist or too small on my bust seeing as I have a hourglass type body), some of it does and I really like the style so I often also check second hand things at Closet Child. 

Second hand, their clothes are very cheap and affordable, but I guess that also says a little bit about the quality of it, although it may be a hit or miss, it is still some kind of fast-fashion I think (or semi?) and their prices reflect that, although new it is not as cheap as H&M for example, but it is at least about half the price of some lolita brands, nowadays even a lot cheaper. I already own some shirts, a cardigan, and once modified a dress from them to fit me.

Buying from the global shop

Anyway, back to the shopping. The global online shop works basically like any other online shop: you browse through a category/style, choose an item its colour and add the item to your cart. I have noticed their stock photos are different in quality. For the dress I bought, the modelling was done in a non-natural light and not high resolution so it looked actually like someone took photos for instagram and put those on the website. The stock-photos themselves were made without petticoat and with less light so it looks actually darker than on the model. I wasn't really sure about the colour because of this and since what I saw on instagram was a lot lighter, but I liked the print anyway.

The size was listed including length, bust, shoulder width and waist and I think that is very convenient for Western people also to check if it might fit or not.

I put it in my cart and after some browsing I went to the cart to check out. There it showed that not everything was translated. The top of the cart still is in Japanese kanji since it is an image, not text. The list itself is in English though. The price is in US Dollars, but tells on the item page that it is actually calculated from Japanese Yen, so if you are going to pay, you pay the price in Japanese Yen (to whatever it converts in your country).

Now when I wanted to check out, it became a bit weird. I already took the effort to create an account just in case I could check what I ordered or wanted to order something again, so my address was already filled in, but it did not calculate the shipping costs at all, so something was off. I refreshed the page a few times but it didn't change. Then I tried closing my browser and opening one up again and try again and now it did work, luckily.
The shipping price calculated was ¥3350, which is about 27 Euro. I think it is a standard price if you order a package from Japan. The cheapest method isn't available at the moment because of Covid-19. On the website it doesn't tell a lot about the shipping methods, only that it is delivered either by EMS ot International parcel. Since it got here within two weeks I think EMS was used.

Then the next hurdle came: paying. The website states you can pay with either Paypal or Creditcard. I use Paypal a lot, so I opted for that but every time I clicked it, it gave me an error, which was pretty annoying. So I had to use our creditcard after all. I filled in the details and that also gave an error, but at least it said something was wrong with what I filled in. Turned out they didn't want to use the dots between the letters for the (pre)name. After that everything went alright and it was ordered!

Shipping

I got a mail with the order information, shipping address and item details (without photo though), it was simply a confirmation of the order. Then one day later I got a mail with a "notification of shipment", that included a tracking number which means they had shipped it out. It didn't give a link how to track it but luckily I know you can just fill it in at the Japanese post website. One day later it already arrived at the airport, and three days later it was dispatched overseas. It arrived (or was registered) in The Netherlands five days later. I filled it in in our national post app on my phone and it showed that it would be shipped to a post office (or parcel center) the day after that (so I can pay my customs, sigh). Anyway, shipping was very fast and I'm happy with that!

It came in a coloured/patterned Axes Femme box, the jsk was wrapped in plastic and a simple print-out of the order was attached. Some extra buttons were attached to the jsk and the waist-ties were seperately packed in plastic as well. I didn't know about the wais-ties (or forgot about them) so I was happily surprised with that.

Summary for the shop(ping) review:

Online shop experience: ★★★✰✰ 3/5
Although the shop is easy to browse, there was the hassle with checking out and the payment (method). You also can not choose your method of shipping, but that might also be because of Covid-19. I also think they don't state a lot of details/info in their FAQ or mails, making it a bit untrustworthy-looking for foreigners perhaps. It feels almost like that part of it is like a small person running an online shop for the first time, not thinking aout the client experience.

Shipping: ★★★★★ 5/5
It was shipped out the next day and arrived within two weeks, which is very quickly, especially if you compare it to the state of shipping because of Covid-19 (I still did not receive my dress from Canada after 1,5 month..)

Quality of the dress

Of course the jumperskirt was a bit wrinkled from the package, but that is normal. I know Axes Femme is a bit of a cheaper brand (jsk was ¥6900, which is about 56 euro) so it didn't surprise me that the dress is totally made from polyester fabric. Because of this at least they lined it, else it would be way too thin. At least what is nice about polyester is that the print is very crisp. 

I compared it with the dress I bought from them two years ago, but the fabric is even thinner unfortunately. And while the older dress had a nice trim on the bottom of the upper layer, this one just had a normal seam (sewn a bit too tight even I think as you can see a bit of wrinkling here). The bottom layer has a soft tulle ruffled trim to it, which I think looks nice but also is prone to rip easily, I would have been happier with chiffon instead. I also found some loose threads near the gathering of the fabric near the waist. Not that that is uncommon (when I sew things myself it happens often), but it least they could have cut it more neatly. So it feels a bit cheap, the quality went down in total.

The top part fits me nicely even with my bigger cup size now because of pregnancy, so I was very happy with that. That is because the back is fully shirred, it is quite comfortable to wear because of this. For people that are small in size I can imagine it might even be a bit too loose, but hey had a different version of this dress anyway (another one was an OP with a casual plain-colored top. I really loved the buttons for the waistties and the lacing/ribbon on the front. 

A bit of a downer though is that they didn't really consider the placing of the print on the top, as you can see I have two keyhole-elements of the print on the left side of it, one is even right next to the lacing/ribbon. Would have been better to just only have the fleur-de-lys pattern on it. I kind of like the small tule trim of the front seems and upper bust part as I don't see that often in jsk's, but when I wear it, it does poof forward a bit and doesn't stay neatly 'attached flatly' to the fabric so to say. It doesn't bother me too much atm, maybe it would stay flat with a smaller cup-size.

What I really liked and bought this jsk for is of course the print and the lacing on the top and that is neatly done. The color is a bit darker than I expected, the photos show a bit of a true color (at least on my monitor), while in the modelled picture it looks like the red/purple goes a bit higher, which I would have liked more, but I still really like the print anyway. What is also good to mention is that the shoulder-staps are adjustable in height, for those who are a bit taller. 

Summary dress-quality review

Quality of material/sewing: ★★✰✰✰ 2-2.5/5

Unfortunately, it just looks and feels a bit cheap, even considering the Axes Femme is not a major quality brand like AP/Baby. They have done things that are better for the same price. Considering the price though of 56 euro, I guess that reflects it fairly, but because I know some of their older things are better, I did not expect it.

Overall dress look/cut: ★★★★✰ 3.5-4/5
The full shirring, waist-ties, adustable shoulderstaps and the lower print/cut itself make me still like this dress a lot. I think I'll just have to be careful while wearing it. Here is an outfit I made with it for the online Summer Tales Boutique halloween meet:

I hope this review was a bit useful for anyone who considers buying from their global shop, I wonder if their Japanese shop is the same or not. I still consider Axes Femme a nice brand to buy from once in a while, especially for their shirts and cardigans, but I know now what to expect from their dresses in the future. 

Lolita Fashion and being pregnant

 As I've mentioned in some posts before: we are expecting a little human (boy!) at the end of January 2021! At the moment I am in week 19. For your information: pregnancy takes about 40 weeks, so that means I am almost half-way there.


Why I wanted to write something about it, is because I have never read something about lolita fashion and being pregnant before. My guess that is because either most people decide to leave the fashion at a certain age or don't have time for it anymore after having a kid. I will probably discover that later, but I can at least talk about pregnancy and a growing body while still in the fashion. That said, the things that I say do apply to me myself and I can't speak for every body (literally for different body types) because everybody develops differently during pregnancy and your size might not even have a lot of influence on it. I think your health and spirit do though. So keep that in mind please!

So here I was, discovered I was pregnant and (we are) happy about it, but thinking I can not wear lolita fashion for the coming year. Eh well, that apparently went differently. It is possible to wear lolita fashion still, yes!  

In general the body will start to grow visibly later in the first trimester, so after week 10 or so. A lot of pregnant women have a hard time in the first months because of nausea and hormones, and only start gaining a bit of weight later on.
Okay, it does depend a bit. The growth of the body during pregnancy is different for everybody. I heard from people that went a lot of sizes up from the start as well. And usually if you're pregnant for the 2nd time it tends to go faster. But even then, it is still possible to wear the fashion. Why?

• Lolita dresses have a sort-of hour-glass shape already, so that means that a bigger belly is not going to be a big problem, especially under layers of petticoat. For the bust and waist, some extra shirring might be useful at a certain point. 
• There have been a lot of options for larger sizes in the last years. Besides full (back) shirring, western and chinese lolita brands (and not forgetting Bodyline) have been offering sizes that go up to XXL for example.

I've been thinking I couldn't wear it, until I decided to try what I could fit and what not. Some of my handmade dresses are made with a bit more space than the usual brand-dress, or with fabric that has some stretch to it. That already helped.  My skirts don't fit anymore. That is because those usually sit around my natural waist (a bit lower than the dresses), and that obviously doesn't work anymore.

Can you see I'm pregnant here?

I still fit in a normal jsk with half-shirring on the back though! I did pull out the lacing-ribbon for more comfort (one could of course just extend it as well). But that is just a regular Angelic Pretty jsk for you. It says on Lolibrary that it has a bust of about 91 cm, but I can assure it was bigger here 😋.

Of course probably a lot of lolita's that are not an S/M-size know this already, so it is no news. I am glad though that it still stretches up a bit.
The same counts for petticoats, they usually are fully elastic, although I would not wear them the whole day (especially after dinnertime my stomach feels like a balloon haha).

During pregnancy what also might happen is that legs and feet get a bit bigger because the body saves water there in some cases. That could possibly be solved by wearing stretchy tights instead of otks. The stretch is better in some socks anyway, so it depends. For me at the moment it's not a problem yet. Tights of course can't be worn higher up on the waist at a certain point, but there are ones existing for maternity. Sure, they might be of a plain color, but you can't have it all. My opinion: don't let one thing hold you back.

For blouses, the ones with shirring are usually still good to go for a while. I have the luck that I bought some of Chinese brands in "L" size. Which is not a western L per se but do still fit me. There are also Chinese shops that sell very elastic crop tops that fit a wide range of sizes. Same here is with tips for people that are larger in size, you can also try western lolita brands like Lady Sloth or main-street shops to search for blouses that are "loliable". On the photo I am wearing something I found in a local thriftstore and has frilly accents, I got lucky!

All in all, pregnancy until now means I can not wear one-third of my wardrobe, the other two-third I still can. And I think that is fine. I don't wear it daily, but if I would wear it more often I'd definitely go purchase more items that are wearable for bigger sizes. I already did buy one dress that I can probably still wear for the months to come and looking forward to it!

Negatives?

Aren't there any downsides then? Well..there might be. this depends on how you feel about it and about the situation.

• Some people don't really feel well as much because of hormones and because 'growing a baby' costs quite some energy. Some days you feel tired a lot and just want to wear comfy homewear. Yeah the lolita style is not the most comfy one, that is true.
• Some people have a hard time adjusting their body-image or feel like they lose their identity because of clothes they can't wear and a body that so quickly changes. I can imagine that if you used to wear it daily, it is a bit of an adjustment, temporarily.

Other than that I can't really think of something. Above points have the emphasis on "some" though. And as you could read earlier, there are quite some ways to go around it so that you can still wear it. Buy clothes you like that do fit and don't let it get you down if you can not wear one or two pieces of clothing! 

And I guess indeed, a healthy body-image and mindset around a changing body in combination with your 'identity' is really an important thing. I know lots of people struggle with this and that is understandable. I've never told a lot about it, but I had an eating disorder about 13 years ago and I've gone through stuff and in the end learned to have a better relationship with my body and a healthy mindset around that identity is not just material/visible things. In some way I am glad I got through that so I don't have to deal with it now mentally. If you ever have troubles though, please go see a counsellor or therapist, your mental health is super important.

The one thing I was actually more frustrated about is the limited range of styles and flavours within maternity clothes here in the Netherlands. Even when looking second hand, a lot of it is like the usual standard middle-age women style or just plain boring (probably so it caters to 'everybody' so they can sell it better). It's okay for now, I wear normal clothes during working days anyway, and I might look up some bigger sizes stuff online that is more cute-looking. Also, wearing cute accessories helps a lot too. And luckily it is all just for a limited time. Of course I know that after having a kid, getting back to your normal size takes a while, and that is okay, but then at least I won't need space for a melon around my waist, haha.

I'm happy baby clothing is at least cuter than the choice in the standard women-department

Until then I am all taking this in positively. I mean, isn't it amazing we can grow a little human 'ourselves'? And how the body changes and makes that possible? I think it is pretty damn special, even though yes at times it might be hard (and I know it is easy to say for me as I did not have complications until now except for some nausea and some rare times I almost fainted because I did not eat enough before going for a walk, oops). The time we went to see the first ultrasound was a-ma-zing and every time after that was so cool. I know getting/having a child it is not for everybody, and that is totally fine, but I'm a happy mom-to-be until now. Having a baby is the best reason to look up and buy all kinds of cute baby and kid stuff! Not that you need a reason for buying cute stuff anyway. 

I hope that this posts will encourage any woman that is wearing lolita fashion and wishes to become pregnant, to not throw aside the idea to still keep wearing it as long as you can 💓!

Japan Trip 2018 - Part 7: Osaka, Kyoto and going home

This is where the memories fade a bit or start overlapping eachother in my head. I know in Osaka we had booked a different hotel than our friends, I am not sure why, maybe it was my husbands preference or possibly we were actually too late with booking, but what was funny is that when I looked up the location of the hotel it was at the same location as our hotel in Osaka the last time we were there. Yet the hotel had a different name. I guess it got a different owner (?) and they totally refurbished, it looked stylish inside but we were still happy with the 7-11 convenvience store across the street to buy our breakfast at.

We met up with our friends, ate dinner, did shopping on multiple days, had fun in Amerika-mura. Highlights were the pinball place with a huge selection of pinball machines and a retro game cafe where they dare to serve cocktails next to old game consoles. I tried on a dress in Closet Child but Nick didn't seem to be convinced by the fit so I didn't buy it. 

You definitely need to check out this place if you are in Osaka

Trying out a fancy dance machine.

We had way too much fun in arcades and found a nice restaurant where they served the most tasty crossover of yakisoba and sukiyaki. Also we somehow got free alcoholic beverages at one of the convenience stores, wut, in Osaka they want to get you drunk.

Delicious Sukiyaki for the 4 of us!

What was also funny is that it became November and you know what, the music played around the shopping areas suddenly changed to...can you guess?...christmas songs. Okay Japan I get that you like western holidays but this is maybe a bit too much. But yeah I didn't mind spotting some cute christmas items in the Pokemon Center though. I got a special discount since it was close to my birthday!

Minoo Park and cake

On the 4th of November, my birthday, we went to Minoo park which is a pretty forest valley including a waterfall at the end of the path. Remember that Japan had some natural catastrophies that year? Well it was certainly visible around the forest as lots of trees had fallen down. We also came across an interesting snack that I believe was sold here: fried maple tree leaves. Apparently you can eat them, we tried some, it wasn't bad actually. When we were back in Osaka my friend Sanne found a nice place to eat some cake for my birthday, yay!

 

  

Birthday cake!

Kyoto and going home

The day after this Nick and I went to Kyoto just to get a bit nostalgic again and walk around, it is still a very nice place where you can see traditions mixing with 'the new'. We took the chance to buy some souvenirs for our family and friends.

I am not telling a lot about Kyoto because we already went there in 2015, but I only wrote blogs in Dutch then. Because we only went for one day now, we did not visit any pretty shrines.

Visiting the Kyoto Pokemon Center of course. Still making use of my birthday discount!

The day following that we would go to the airport again to fly back home. The train to it felt a tiny bit scary because of the typhoons the bridge had just been repaired and because the KIX airport is basically on an island outside of the land you have to go over the water. But we got there safely of course. It was fun seeing if we could spend our last Yen on something we liked. I also spotted a very small Pokemon shop as well.

Finally after our long trip, back home, we made a picture of all our purchases. It was so much, I am almost embarrased but yeah seeing as that lots of these things can only be found in Japan, it's also great to be able to bring a lot of fun stuff home, that now decorates our house.

Later on I also made a canvas to hang our keychain collection on, since this is one of the easy and affordable souvenirs from Japan, but then again some are just too pretty to use in the end, haha.

In the end the three weeks were still pretty long, I think the ideal time would be around 18 days or so because I do think that some days were just filled with shopping that was not 100% necessary and maybe also because we already went to the major sights before. It definitely was fun though and I am happy we planned some overnight stays outside of the cities, that was really worth it. After a while Nick was making jokes about how many times we would visit Japan in our lives, as I had said that after this I had enough for a while but then that 'while' also seems quite short if you feel like returning one year later haha. Although we can afford to go it is not always easy to plan multiple weeks if it is during the normal academic year because we have to work. Also, because we are expecting a baby in January, I think that it probably will take a while before we will go on a big trip again, but that is alright. We still feel like Japan is our favourite country to visit for holidays. There is just so much to see, the nature is great, the taste in items/hobbies is matching ours and Japanese manners are still very nice, so I think we will go back one day, but I don't know when. Let's see!

Japan Trip 2018: Part 6 - Hiroshima & Miyajima

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From Tokyo we traveled per airplane to Hiroshima. Why with the plane? Well it was actually cheaper than taking the train and the experience of taking a plane in the same country was also one we never had before. It was quite a small plane of course and a bit bumpy at the end of the flight, but overall a nice experience. 

We ended up in Hiroshima just around dinnertime and it was a bit stressful finding the right bus and busstop. Also it was so much more quiet/less crowded than in Tokyo. We looked for a restaurant near our hotel but a lot seemed already closed as well. We found an international cafe that also served dinner so it was convenient to go there for now.

The next day was the one big day we had in Hiroshima. Of course we first went to the Peace Memorial and it was impressive and also good to see/learn about everything that happened here. The impact of an atomic bomb is...well let's just say we never ever want that to happen again. It makes me sad to think that some countries even have atomic weapons still to begin with, nobody deserves that. The memorial park was quite a big place and different things to see so we took the whole morning for it. 

After that we did some walking in a still quiet city compared to Tokyo, which was nice for a change but felt a bit weird somehow too. We did some shopping of course and I had some luck as well at the lolita fashion stores there as there were some amazing discounts (like 70% off some accessories...I almost felt like buying more than I wanted just because it was so cheap). And we walked around to see some cool places, even though it was late in the evening. 

Now that is a convenient souvenir.

Hiroshima Castle

When you are in Hiroshima you need to try Okonomiyaki. Of course we already know that dish as it is one of my favourite Japanese foods. There is the Okonomiyaki 'town', which is basically a big building with all kinds of Okonomiyaki restaurants. We just chose a random one and it was a nice experience to have your dinner see being made on the plate before you and eat from it too.

Not sure how you would choose one but it is nice they have English descriptions!

Miyajima

One of the reasons we also went to Hiroshima is because the famous Miyajima (or Itsukushima) is near.  Miyajima means 'shrine island' and it is known for its famous big torii (gate) in the water that you see featured in so many articles about traveling to Japan. So we wanted to see it for ourselves.

View from the boat on the land side

Instead of just spending the day we also planned a night there in a ryokan near the shore.You can travel there by boat, and there was one leaving pretty close from our hotel in Hiroshima so it was very easy. It also gave us an amazing view of Hiroshima outskirts and Hatsukaichi and the other islands on the east side.

View on the different islands

After dropping our suitcases, we went to see the Itsukushima shrine first. After petting some of the cute deer of course. Just like in Nara they roam around this island as well (although we mostly saw them around the first piece of town when we arrived).

 

It was low tide, so no cool pictures of the whole shrine yet. We continued walking to the Momijidani park, which is famous for its read maple leaf trees. Although it was still early in fall, we have seen some red leaves indeed. After that you can continue to 'climb' up the mountain but of course we took the ropeway which is much easier and gives you more exciting views. Although I have to say that, in the second part the gondola can be filled up by 15 people or so and it felt like a crammed bus high up in the sky, which was a bit weird.

Some kind of pretty tea house

The famous red bridge in Momijidani park

We printed an outside canvas of this photo for our garden!

Up in the mountain there are some small shrines and there is a walk you can take to them which was in my memory quite exhausting, but totally worth it as you can walk all the way to the top and get a stunning view on the ocean/islands.

Once we were back the tide got higher so it was nice to walk around the shrine. I think that actually there was a wedding or feast being prepared so we saw some traditional shinto costumes! I think this shrine is really unique so I am definitely very happy that we visited it.

Of course, because of all the visitors, there are lots of tourist shops to see. Funny was that there were a lot of middle school pupils walking around looking for stuff to buy but when evening came they were all gone, because people usually just only visit during the day and then leave. It was so quiet after 5pm. After looking in the shops we decided to go back to our ryokan to see our room and it was really nice, with a view of the ocean/shore! We ate some momiji cakes as well with our tea, as Miyajima is famous for those leaves you can find the shapes back in lots of items.

During night the path along the ocean was very pretty and serene to walk down and gives you a even more unique view on the famous torii. Of course our ryokan had a small public bath as well so we took use of it, slipped our yukatas on and went to sit down near the window to enjoy the rest of the night. Waking up with the view of the shoreline was definitely very nice. 

I don't mind waking up seeing this

After that we checked out and went to the boat that should bring us to the train again. I really loved going to Miyajima, we even said it might have been nice to stay two nights instead of one, but it is really worth going if you are in Japan.

Read part 7 here: http://dreamsweetie.blogspot.com/2020/08/japan-trip-2018-part-7-osaka-kyoto-and.html