The day was finally there! We stood up early to prepare, two of my roommates were models so they had to be there even earlier than the gold ticket holders. It all went pretty well in the end, as two others also had a silver ticket just like me so we could travel together (in one of those cool red buses)!
The coordination
Planning my outfit for the Dream Masquerade Carnival main event took a while. You probably remember me buying Toy March, and I thought it would actually be a pretty good choice for the theme (although it has nothing to do with a masquerade, it is a bit dreamy (stars/moons) and Carnival-ish, because of the festive march on the print. That, and I think because Angelic Pretty was the main guest, I wanted to wear AP dresses on both days. However, it was a bit of a challenge to create a good coord, because it's hard to find the right hue of blue and red. This is how it looked in the end
(outfit photo was taken by Poppy I believe, thank you!):
The red shoes I bought quite quickly after the dress got here, I thought they were the perfect color and are also a bit more mature looking (in comparison with my other sweet shoes). They were on sale at a 'normal'
online clothing shop, happy I bought them! For the socks, I bought some diamond/checkered socks first, but the blue was not matching at all. Lots of dark-blue hues in clothing have a green-ish undertone instead of the royal/purple-like tone. I found these AP socks with golden crowns/bows on it at a Japanese auction website and took a shot, and they are a bit darker, but at least the right sort of blue, yay!
Then I needed a short-sleeve red blouse to match it. I made a long-sleeve red blouse some years ago for a christmas outfit, but it was quite wonky, so I made a new one. Every time I make a blouse I get a little bit better at it, but it is still a challenge. As you can see it's not perfect, but in the end I was pretty okay with it.
The matching wristcuffs and headbow were made by me as well. To be honest I wanted to do something more impressive for my headpiece, like tiny felt animals that look like the characters on the dress, but as said I was ill for two weeks just before we left, so I just had enough time for the other things to be finished.
The event
It was time: a lot of lolita's lined up next to the Institute of Directors, right in the heart of London. It was so exciting to all wait together, see familiar faces, do hugs and chat until we could go in. What do you do when you have one our extra shopping, and everybody wants to buy the prettiest items?
Well, some vendors interested me more than others, so I went to those first. I walked around to see what was where and arrived at Tokimeki Teikoku no Momoiro Gabriel's table first, that one artist who makes cute artistic raisin jewelry of animals and such. Last year I bought a bunny necklace at Under the Sea from them, but after staring at everything for a long while I just couldn't decide what I wanted.
Next to them was Triple Fortune, and oh their creations are gorgeous! But actually I don't wear bonnets a lot (I just bought one this year from Meta to try it out, but haven't worn it yet). Their tights are pretty too but I wouldn't know what to wear it with. Then, actually I had really hoped they would sell those new fairy-themed dresses (see the photo on the left, it was published in MELT). I showed them to my husband before and there was one he really liked too, but it wasn't there unfortunately (maybe it's not even out yet? If anyone knows please tell me!)
So I quickly walked to the other rooms, finding Angelic Pretty & Kira Imai in a crowded corner. And yay, they had something I liked! Otk's from AP (yellow easter-themed, matching with the Happy Garden jsk I hope). It was waaay to crowded at Kira Imai's table so I headed to the Bring-and-Buy room. I found some pretty nice (and cheap) blouses that I loved so I immediately took them with me. At the remote vending table I found two brooches that I wanted for a while, the wine & cheese themed ones from and
Mulberry Chronicles! You might not know it but I like wine and brie quite a bit :P, however I was too late to buy them online, I think I was quite lucky finding them at DMC! Later I also bought a new AP blouse at the Bring-and-Buy, but it was wrapped in plastic. It said to be from their last lucky pack and I searched for the size which looked okay, but in the end it was from a different pack I think and it was just too small for me, so I'm selling it again.
It took a while to pay for everything at the Bring-and-Buy (because it was via PayPal and one by one, so I missed the Q&A with Maki and Asuka. I think it was okay though, and luckily
someone filmed it too! I walked back to the Kira Imai booth to look and buy some things. I'm going to be honest, from the start I was not always a fan of her work. It's very well-made and detailed, but a lot of her art don't have that 'kawaii' feeling to me, sometimes it is even a bit creepy, so it's not 100% my taste. Over the years I started to appreciate it a little more though. I already bought some of her work in Tokyo (at
Fewmany in Marui Annex, Shinjuku) and it was really nice to meet her too.
Then I saw the amazing photo props/place next to it and Maki (from AP) was taking pictures with/from people, so I asked her too and she took a photo of me as well, how nice! I think Maki looks really sweet, I wish I was better at Japanese so I could've talked to her. Then after a drink and lovely piece of cake (for lunch, haha) I went to see the fashion shows, which were awesome.
Afterwards came another round of shopping, and taking pictures with people and then I chatted a bit with the other Dutch people there, there were really quite a lot more than last year, it was fun!
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A selfie with the cute Liv and me
while waiting for the raffle to start. |
After that it was already almost the end of the day. It was really fun seeing the 'Fashion Fix' and also the 'Ten years of lolita' fashion show with old and new Angelic Pretty pieces, very nice. We were quite tired when the raffle started. to my surprise my number was called in one of the first minutes, but then it turned out there was another person with the same number. Apparently there were two different series, one with a border on the paper and one without. I didn't win anything after all. Then after some more minutes they discovered that there were very few people getting prizes because of the 'bordered' series and then they gave some people different tickets so everyone had a better chance.
After some speeches and a big thank you, the saturday of DMC ended. We were tired but walked through the city to another vegan buffet place. I was so happy to finally get some food and after that some delicious frozen yoghurt. It was quite late when we arrived at the hostel again. It was a wonderful day, but I was happy that the Sunday would be a bit more relaxed.
Here are the hings I got (the silver tickets also got a bag filled with presents) or bought:
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Amazingly filled bag with a mug,
coloring book and small DMC/AP mirror <3 ! |
The second day of Dream Masquerade Carnival was for the tea party of course. Luckily we had a bit more time to prepare, but I still managed to be the slowest one because of my hair T_T.
In the end I chose the Sugar Pansy jsk. I still love that one a lot, it makes me feel very pretty, because of the wide tiered skirt and all the lovely lace around the neck. I matched it with some princess-sleeves for an even more dreamy, flowy look. The flower headband I already made 1,5 years ago, and the yellow shoes I bought in Japan last March. They are a perfect matching yellow! Just like during the Easter tea party I attached some bows to it to make it a little less plain.
