You Should Watch Theses Videos Because They Are GOLD

This is the FIRST EVER time I will be doing something like this post you are about to read, so as usual I will start this off with a back story!

Paint the scene...

Avril Lavigne's Hello Kitty video just came out and I am on tumblr watching in fascination as people start tearing this video apart... And as usual I am over come with curiosity of what everyone was talking about so I tried watching the video.
TRIED being the key word here, I couldn't get through it at all!

Mainly I didn't like the song, but I also didn't think Avril's look was cute, in fact it reminded me of when me and my friends would go to the mall and "dress like Harajuku girls like Gwen Stafani". We were sophomores in High School and weeabos for sure and seeing Avril a grown women doing what I did six years ago bothered me.

Here is the thing, I grew up in those six years and realized that what I did as a Sophomore in High School was wrong, not because I hurt anyone in particular with my actions but because I realized that this Harajuku fashion is a part of the Japanese culture. That it just wasn't throwing on mismatched layers of clothes and some accessories and calling it Harajuku fashion, that it was a deeper realer thing that included many other sub styles that originated there and how it fitted in to Japan's culture.

Since then I have learned much more about J-fashion, seeing as I am a Lolita! What I have learned is that most people from Japan want to share their fashion with us! They go out of there way, like hiring Kawaii ambassadors and having over seas TV about Kawaii fashion, to include all of us to what is unique to them.

What Gwen and Avril did is take a country and their fashions and rip them off to make some fast money, and once again its not like Japan doesn't go out of its way to share there street fashion culture with us anyway so it's not hard to do it in a nice and "correct" way (like actually showing their fashion instead of showing your own version of it to millions of people). Correct meaning a way to show off Japan's culture rather than just ripping it off to seem edgy.

You can click this link to read more about Avril and her Hello Kitty disaster

So knowing all of this I am going to show you some video's that blew my mind which deal with the same category.

As always you can click this to watch the video on YouTube

After you watch the music video I would highly highly encourage you to watch Elleanor's video on Tokyo Fashion if you haven't already!

Watch it on YouTube here if you would like

DID YOU WATCH THEM?
DID YOU REALLY?
Because if you didn't this next part of the article is going to be mighty weird and you might not understand it at all...

Okay! On ward we go!!

First, I did not link Avril's video so I hope you are well versed in what had happened...

Second, I would like to point out that I will be talking about why I like Lionhearted and how this is a giant step forward from Avril's Hello Kitty video this is by no means the end of the line, it can still be a problematic piece of work (and probably is)! Here I won't be highlighting this so much as explaining why it takes these steps forward from Avril's video.

Okay for real let's break this video down!

Elleanor is contacted by Porter Robinson, he has reached out to her because he loves Japanese fashion and just Japan in general. This is not surprising many people feel the exact same way from Lady Gaga to Katy Perry to Avril! 
He has asked her to come to LA to be the costume designer for his new music video, he has explained to her that he wanted REAL Japanese fashion to be a feature in the video rather than a carbon American copy made to duplicate it. He asked Elleanor to come out and do this so that real Japanese fashion is featured because Elleanor is an actual Japanese street snap girl who is often featured on Tokyofashion.com.

How this is different from Avril? Well.....

This is not any Japanese street or main stream fashion that I can think of, the closest it comes is to the bittersweet Kawaii trend that happened when KyaryPamyuPamyu became popular in 2012 which is not as popular as it used to be and if it is suppose to be this it does a very bad job of it. Random "kawaii" stuff and a black shirt and stockings does not make a actual Japanese street fashion outfit, it is half baked and looks like it, not to mention the clones in the back ground, and the set. I believe they were trying to go for a 6%DokiDoki atheistic, or a KyaryPamyuPamyu atheistic since they are both designed by the same person, and that even looks half done. It looks like they literally just grabbed all this stuff at party city right before filming.

Japanese fashion in Lionhearted...

These are screen caps of the ladies chosen to get dressed up including Elleanor. The hair, the bright tutu skirt, the masks, this is real street style atheistic straight from Japan.

Next we can talk about the weapons! Traditionally weapons equate power. That is what they symbolized here, these women dressed in Japanese street fashion's power. This one way this is so different from Avril's video! These women while in the back ground and following the lead guy's order (for right now) are given SYMBOLS OF POWER and violence. The masks also show conformity and they are literally covering up a part of them selves, they are repressing themselves. In one part of the music video THEY TEAR THESE OFF. THEY RIP OFF WHAT IS OPPRESSING THEM. (They do this near the very end of the video though)

Once again here they are agian, wearing masks running around, they walk around and anything they touch changes and becomes different. Which I can say is what Japanese street fashion does for a lot of us.

Also notice the Porter Robinson isn't super kawaii'd out, he is just in simple clothes that many Americans see on the street every day. As the video starts he is using these girls as his extension to change the world. These are his accessories.
When they rip off their masks they are acknowlegding that they are not his to boss around, he does not get to opress them. They are their own people and not his accessories!
 So much different then the back up dancers in Avril's video, no emotion there at all even though this pop song is suppose to be about their home land, we assume so but they could have hired anyone.

Near the end of the song now, we see him in a building looking at all the things he has changed with his kick ass team, and you see their silloutes, then they come closer and

They kill him, they take over what is theirs and blow up the building he is in.
I think this is sending very clear messages to the people like Avril who used this culture as an accessory.

It takes her video, in my mind, and sets these stereotypes free. It says that this isn't your accessory to make a buck on, these are real people and a real culture people all around the world take time out to do the right way, you as a celebrity should do so too cause you have no excuse. Other wise these girls will mess you up because the whole sweet Asian girl thing is a stereotype, it is by no means the truth.

These girls literally start this video going along with him, to being pushed around wearing masks by him, to tearing them off and killing him... this is such an important music video. With the weapons they have to symbolize power the take their power back from the guy who was using them.

If you don't think that is cool there might be no hope for you.

Till next time,

Cookie

Bouns pic because I love Elleanor

How to Make Bodyline Even Cheaper

You might have read in my earlier post about my tips and tricks I had learned of a way to make BODYLINE (Yes... you read that right, you can make Bodyline cheaper than it already is!) cheaper!

You ask how? You ask why?

Before I tell how I should address why. Recently I have come to realize that some Bodyline or all Bodyline items have become more and more expensive.
Now to some this isn't a problem, they are still reasonable priced considering all that goes into making a lolita dresses.
But to others it is money they can not afford to waste.
And more importantly what I have been learning is that what some lolitas say is true! If you save up a little more you can afford second hand brand. There is many second hand dresses out there that are almost the same price if not a little more expensive than what Bodyline charges for some of their dresses.
FOR EXAMPLE:
I just bought a dress for only $20 more than the most expensive Bodyline dress! 

This article is not about a discovery I made, it is about making sure you have seen what someone else discovered.


 HERE IS THE ARTICLE CLICK HERE TO SEE IT, DO IT


But if you don't want to click the link pictures bellow!!

So that's it! Shop smarter and better my friends and save some money!!!

Cookie

Birthday OOTD

If you have been checking my Tumblr then you might already have seen the outfit I am about to show you. But I highly doubt that you all have been checking my tumblr! (And this is going to be more detailed anyway!!)

SO HERE IT GOES

May 19th was my birthday, and if you are Jamie you already know this story so you can skip this part.

I decided to wear my new Starry Night of Mother Goose Jsk by Baby the Stars Shine Bright in a coord that I had made on EASTER.
You might be wondering why I wrote Easter like that??? That is a good question, and one I will answer.... right now. For Easter my Mom wanted the whole family to go to church, and basically I figured if I have to wake up sinfully early to please her I will wear lolita to make the day better! (Not to displease my mom, she was actually really looking forward to me wearing the dress for Easter.) Okay, so than Easter Sunday comes around and I wake up only to find out we have to leave in 20-30 min! I figured the night before I could squeeze in a hour to get ready (seeing as I stayed up late setting everything out to be efficient), but I could not get dressed in full lolita garb in 20 min!!! So I skipped getting loli-ed out...

And was not happy because we were ridiculously early for the breakfast (we where some of the only ones in church and they didn't start feeding us until 30 min after we got there) and I could have used that time to get dressed up! But don't worry my readers, it only soured my mood till I got some food, I think the worst part was not that I didn't dress up, but that everyone knew what time we were meeting up but didn't tell me and than acted like it was my fault for not waking up in time to get dressed up. I'm over here like, "you didn't tell me when we needed to leave! No one told me, so how was I suppose to know that we would be leaving 30 min earlier than I had planned!!!!" ( F@$%#) It just really irritated me.

TL;DR
I ended up not wearing it for Easter so I wore it for my birthday instead!!!

The only thing I ended up changing was the socks, because I got new socks in the mail! So it all worked out~  

So with out further ado, here is my birthday Lolita Outfit!!!

I know its surprising that I am past 20 and still take crappy mirror shots, for this I am sorry

Outfit Rundown:

Jsk: Starry Night of Mother Goose by BtSSB

Blouse: Angelic Pretty's Candy Sprinkle Lucky Pack Blouse

Pink Flower Accessory: Metamorphose Temps De Fille

Headbow: Metamorphose Temps De Fille

Socks: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Shoes: Angelic Pretty

I tried to make this coord more interesting than some of my earlier ones. 

I liked the striped red socks and how they make the red in the bottom of the print pop out, however I would like to add more red accessories higher up in this outfit. I also used bows as a texture up through the outfit for more dimension but of course you can't see it in this pic, I did this by echoing the bows that are in the jsk print by using bows in the shoes, blouse and ultimately the headbow itself. The jsk also has a lot of flowers and musical notes in it, I chose to use my pink rose clip which matched the color of the dress very well to bring out the roses!

But it's not a bad lolita coord, since the last time I wore lolita was for Christmas! I also tend to do more simple outfits, I am still improving and my accidental year off didn't help! 

Next is a... Selfie!!!!!

Here you can actually see more of the smaller details up close, like the rose and the bows on the blouse!

 Ah! Yes, my face... I chose to go for as my brother called it a creepy clown/doll look. I made sure the face was clean and used powder that matched my skin tone for a flawless face like that of a doll, with blush placed high on my cheeks for a sick look. Than I used pink and brown eye shadows to make my eyes appear bigger, this was helped by white eye liner near my tear duct, on my water line, and smudged under my eye lashes next to my water line. Than I actually applied false eye lashes! Which started coming off even before the party was over. And just regular chapstick for my lips!

So that was my OOTD! I hope you enjoyed reading it! If you have any questions or seggestions don't be afraid to drop a line in the comments!!

Hope you are having a great day!

Cookie

BONUS PIC!!

This is the Disney watch I received as a last min. present from my parents! It is a vintage Winnie the Pooh and Piglet watch! They gave it to me because Piglet is one of my favorite Disney characters!!