fairy goes to lady gaga concert

Dear fairies,

I'm still catching up on things that have happened! I had college courses over the summer so that really took it out of me.

The second week of July I went to go see Lady Gaga! She is definitely a bit of an idol for me as far as her want to carve out her own unique niche in the fashion world. This was my first Gaga concert. Interestingly enough, the person who took me to go see the show was my stepfather XD He is actually a huge Gaga fan and he was the one who wanted to go see her in the first place.

This particular concert was ArtRave: The ArtPop Ball for her newest album. The overall theme of it was generally a rave as there were "raver" types of things on sale for the show like light up dreads, bows, seashell bras, and glowsticks. At the end of the concert, Gaga even donned an adorable raver costume.

When I knew I was going to this concert I just knew I needed to wear something awesome. Unfortunately, as school got nearer and nearer to finals weeks, I didn't have time to even begin thinking about what to wear. By the time finals were over, however, I went to Australia for a month. I then rested for a couple of weeks as I was seriously exhausted, and before I knew it, the concert was only a day away!

So, in the end, I woke up super late the next day and only had about 5 hours to bleach and touch up the color on my hair, eat lunch, take a shower, get dressed, and put on makeup >.< Crazy enough, I find the outfits I put the least amount of real thought into turn out to be some of the nicest ones. While I was rushing to get going, I quickly chose all of the things to wear, put on only the basics, and bagged all of my accessories so I could put them on when I was on the train. I even didn't have time to think of my makeup. In one hour on the train ride to the concert, I just improvised something and tried to make it look fabulous. After my makeup was done I put on all my remaining accessories. Also, because this was a "ball" I decided to wear long white opera gloves haha

Once we arrived at the center where the concert was being held, there was an amazing bit of diversity amongst ages and walks of life. There were people there like my stepfather who were relatively "normal" folk in their 50s, to those who were dressed in hardly anything but short shorts and some platform heels, to very young girls who were about 7 years old.

The outfits and costumes of those who went all out were also varying from extremely fabulous to extremely questionable. Either way, it was nice to see all of these wonderful people together in one place, completely comfortable towards the fashions that everyone was wearing. Almost all of the people who were dressed to kill had photos taken of them by others in pedestrian fashions. I even had quite a few pictures taken of myself even though my outfit was far from some of the crazy Venus goddess inspired costumes a lot of other people were wearing.

 The atmosphere was great and friendly as it seemed everyone was comfortable with talking with one another. I talked to quite a few people and took some pics with them ^_^ A really awesome addition to this concert was this free photo booth that Lady Gaga's foundation provided at the concert. There, we received a free button and elastic band while we waited in line to have six pictures taken of ourselves that were printed out for us to take home. It was wonderful to have three free small souvenirs to take with me instead of a $40 concert T-shirt.







This particular concert opened up with a K-pop band, Crayon Pop. I had never heard of them since I'm not big on K-pop myself, but they are a cute and cool little girl band. They were wearing pink Polo shirts with white pleated skirts, white leggings, and these white helmets with pink stripes on them. I'm not quite sure what the deal was with the helmets, but who am I to judge what the performers are wearing at a Lady Gaga concert?? I suggest checking these girls out, especially if you're a big K-pop or even J-pop fan.

After Crayon Pop was Lady Starlight. I have never ever heard of her as long as I've been a Gaga fan, but apparently for those who are really into her know who Lady Starlight is. If my conjecture is correct, Lady Starlight is a sort of improv DJ who creates music onstage with a sort of sound/music board thing. I was told by some of the people I was talking to at the concert that she was weirder than Gaga and that one time she just drank a bottle of whiskey while onstage! She has been great friends with Lady Gaga for a long time and the two are both from New York. Her beats were cool and interesting and though I will admit to a bit of boredom after a while and just wanted to get on with Lady Gaga.

Finally Gaga arrived onstage in all of her Gaga glory. All I can say about Lady Gaga is that she has a great stage presence. She is able to create an atmosphere and command an audience very well. Gaga is great at bringing the audience together as she said that everyone in the room were people who were non-judgemental and that we were all advocates of love. The concert, as intended, definitely felt like a huge party. I had no shame in dancing and singing and cheering. I loved the general production design and effects such as confetti cannons. I also thought it was great that the other performers onstage besides Gaga were somehow able to be noticed as well. Everyone on the stage was superbly talented and great to watch and listen to.



One of the things Gaga is most famous for is her personable approach to her fans and audiences and her generosity towards the people she works with onstage. She made a recognition to some of the members in the band playing the music and her dancers were often showcased in front of her in costumes just as wild. At a few points, she talked about her personal life and her views and gave a bit of her own knowledge of what she's learned. One thing I remember her saying is pointing out a man in the audience who had on a hat that said "I love haters" and she said that haters are weak people who try to bring down those who are strong.That rang very true to me and it made me feel better to think about it that way. People who bring you down are trying to bring you down because you are stronger than they are.



Then, near the end, a whole bunch of fans started throwing stuffed animals at her onstage and she then proceeded to pretend to fall to the floor and said something like "death by stuffed animals!" She then found a Hello Kitty plush with a wedding veil on it and she took the veil and put it on her head. Next, she took a note which was attached to the plush and read it out loud to the audience. It was two girls who lived in a small town and said that they have always been different and fans of the "avant-garde" and that they found courage to express themselves in such a place because of Lady Gaga. It was a pretty nice and touching moment and Gaga invited the girls to come meet her backstage after the show. Furthermore, she picked two people out of the crowd to come dance onstage with her that she thought dressed awesome. The particular song they danced with her was a bit odd ("Swine"), but it was cool nonetheless. One of the fans had on a light up silver leotard style suit that lit up and the other was wearing something similar to a Harajuku style with a large bow on her head, overalls, bright colors, lots of accessories, and huge deco platform sneakers. Ironically enough, Gaga asked the girl with the platforms if she could walk in them ok and the girl said yes, but when she took her first steps she actually fell! It was weird though because Gaga either didn't know the girl fell or was ignoring her, which wasn't a good thing, but at least one of the onstage performers helped her up.



All of her costumes on this tour were wonderful and had great variety. My favorites were the one in all white and the raver outfit. She was so elegant looking in the white one with a train and flowing white wig, but very cute in the rave get-up with fuzzy legwarmers and twin ponytail dreads. One very interesting thing she did when she put on the raver costume was that she actually changed onstage! She was stripped by a wardrobe team in nothing but a thong and two tape X's on her nipples and then was put into a clear plastic top, a plastic green and white skirt with a fuzzy blue trim, colorful fuzzy arm and legwarmers, and a multi-colored dreadlock wig. I thought this little stunt was not only revealing, but also provided more intimacy with the audience and sort of showed us that Gaga isn't this magical being who can just turn into whatever crazy costume she wants.










Overall, this concert was great and a wonderful experience. I would definitely tell everyone that they should go to one of her concerts at least once if they like her music. She seems like a really cool person and knows how to entertain and is definitely worth all the money you pay. I will say that it was almost two hours before she even came onstage, but it was great to go talk to people before the show and go to the photo booth. Another nitpick is probably her skimming over her past hits when she performed them. I understand promoting Art Pop, but I would have liked that she picked fewer of her hits to perform fully rather than taking all of her past hits and then performing them as one long medley. Otherwise, I had a great time ^_^




 What I Wore

Fluffy Star Barrette: handmade by me

Pink Tulle Clip: handmade by me

Blue Bead Necklace: Thrift

Retro My Little Pony Dress: Iron Fist

Cream Pengoir: 80s Vintage Thrift

Tutu: Hot Topic

Ruffle Cuff Socks: American Apparel

Custom Shoes: Reebok

Long White Gloves: Offbrand

Purse: 6% DokiDoki

If you've read all of this, congratulations! I hope you enjoyed~

~Sparkling Ga Eul

Faith, Trust and Fairy Kei Dust!

fairy shopping meetup

Dear Fairies,

About a week ago, I planned my first "official" fairy kei meetup. I planned to go back-to-school shopping. Although only one girl, Jazmine, could make it out of the group, but we had a lovely little time ^_^

First off, we went to a thrift store to see what we could find. Jazmine bought quite a few things including a very cute 80s retro sweater in pastel yellow and pink with ribbons on it. I had seen this sweater on the rack first, but I decided to give it to Jazmine since she's new to the fashion and needed something super cute to add to her fairy wardrobe. As for me, I only bought two tops. One is an 80s/90s purple floral blouse with a cute scalloped collar. The other was a handmade shirt made of a sprinkles fabric which I liked a lot and decided to use as a reconstruction project.

Next, we decided to go look around a bit and saw two other resale shops. I didn't find anything I wanted to buy at either place, but Jazmine bought three sets of cute pastel hoop earrings in pink, purple, and blue as well as a bag. Of course, every place we went into people were curious about our style XD

While driving to the thrift store, I saw a frozen yogurt place which looked interesting, so I proposed we stop by and have a bite. It's a local frozen yogurt company called 

Monster Yogurt. 

 

When we walked in, all the walls and the floor were lime green. Also, while the yogurt and flavors were pretty standard, I had never seen so many toppings to put on frozen yogurt before! Not only was there a standard bar of toppings, there was a wall and a half of candies, nuts, and cereals. The picture below is about 2/3 of

 the toppings that were on the walls. On top of that, there was not a whipped cream can but a whipped cream machine.

 I got a lovely strawberry yogurt and topped it with white chocolate chips, strawberries, whipped cream, strawberry and cherry syrup, a heart gummy, and the perfect touch was some really awesome chocolate sort of things that looked like pearls. I brought Prize Popple with us too~

The yogurt here was very good, had an awesome selection of toppings, and the price was perfect! I only wish there was a Monster Yogurt in my area. I got a little photo of Jazmine with Prize and my new Hello Kitty bag.

Our last stop for the day was a little cosplay shop that just opened in a new location called Cosplay N Charm (click for their webshop!). We ended up getting a bit lost before actually finding but we made it!

 

Cosplay N Charm is more than just a cosplay store. Not only do they sell cosplay costumes, but anime merchandise, cute accessories handmade by the owners, and clothing/accessories from Korea and Japan. It was quite a cute little store with a wide variety of things from the fashionable to the anime geek. The quality of the items seemed to vary from brand name to offbrand/unknown. There was a Baby Biscuit lolita bag which Jazmine told me was definitely a real name brand item. 

Although I'm mainly fairy kei, I sometimes dabble in classic lolita, so I looked through some of their lolita style clothing and found a cute, good quality offbrand blouse from Korea to go with a lolita skirt I'm going to get soon. I went to the dressing room to try it on. The dressing room was super cute I had to take a picture. I just loved the drapes and mirror.

 The blouse was lovely, so I decided to buy it along with another sale item for only $8: green colored contact lenses!The shop sells Magic Color contact lenses. This was the first time I have bought colored contact lenses. While we were there, one of the owners was working on sewing a little panda plushie. She said that she will soon make it into a vampire panda complete with bat wings to sell at an upcoming anime con.

Although I didn't buy a whole lot of items, I had a lot of fun with Jazmine, was lucky to find such good deals on stuff, and we discovered a couple of cool places.

So, onto what I actually bought! At the thrift store, I bought two shirts. The first is a cute retro 80s/90s blouse with cute little machine embroidery flowers and butterflies on the collar for only $1. The collar is also slightly scalloped on the edges. The second is a handmade shirt made of a cool sprinkles fabric for about $1.50, which I thought would be good to reconstruct.

At Cosplay and Charm I bought green Magic Color contact lenses on sale for $8

 

I also got a Korean offbrand white long-sleeved lolita style blouse with clear sparkly buttons on sale for $10

This is great quality for offbrand as the fabric is nice, there is careful detail including darts down the back and front for a good fit. I just adore it!

 

AND a bonus My NeighborTotoro button! Cosplay N Charm was having a promotion where they were giving free anime buttons to customers. This was definitely a lovely cherry-on-top. The button is a little bigger than an inch with a good quality plastic backing. Ideally, I'd like to start accumulating more Studio Ghibli merchandise since they are the pinnacle of anime.

 What I Wore

Silver Sequin Bow: Claire’s ~ $1

Bow Clip: <$1

Rhinestone Studded Glasses: Claire’s ~$3

Han Solo Shirt: Urban Outfitters (on sale)

Petticoat: Hot Topic (full price)

Black w/ Silver Polka Dot Tights: Target (full price)

Socks: Target (full price)

Shoes w/ Beads added by me: Keds (gift)

Bracelet: made by me

Popples Button: bought on EBay (gift)

~Sparkling Ga Eul

Faith, Trust and Fairy Kei Dust!

confession #5: i think fairy kei shouldn't have to be expensive

Dear Fairies,

Yes, fairy kei can be and is much more cost effective, practical, and efficient than many other alternative fashions. This is one of the main reasons I love the fashion~ The 80s/90s kitschy aspect of fairy kei makes it easy to get clothing from thrift stores, vintage stores mainstream stores, and DIY.

Although many have tried to make excuses as to why they could never afford a fairy kei wardrobe, I beg to differ. While there are brands and stores that sell fairy-esque clothing and accessories that can get a bit pricey, they are by no means necessary in creating a super kawaii fairy look. This is similar to the “lolita on a budget” argument, except likely less expensive, with a wider scope, with more possibilities, and maybe with less leg work.

Think about a veteran street fashion like punk. Vivenne Westwood may be the most awesome punk clothing, but punk thrives on being a fashion that is solely DIY. My friend, who’s a glamorous punk doesn’t know how to sew but DIYs and thrifts like a beast and she looks amazing all the time. Only when it’s on sale and a must-have item does she splurge on Westwood.

I love shopping for vintage and thrift finds that are inexpensive online and in-store. Also, when I hit up the mall or any other mainstream stores, I always head to the sale racks for any fairy kei-able pieces. I love getting crafty and creative in designing and making my own accessories with inexpensive fabrics and odds and ends. To me, finding more ways to save money actually lends itself to the very kitschy little girl look. I love the fact that fairy kei is quite easy to shop for and doesn’t have to cost over $100 for a single outfit. I have learned to trust in my abilities to create my own look creatively on a budget. Not to mention, fairy kei is also easy to sew things for. A simple skirt or tutu with an elastic waistband or a simple empire or shift style dress could do the trick in many cases with the right fabrics.

Basically, I just love that getting “cheap” makes me think outside the box by look for fairy kei pieces in places like antique shops, flea markets, dollar sections, young girls’ sections, and even my mom’s old clothing! But remember that inexpensive doesn't have to mean lower quality. I always try to find good deals on good quality items. I don't buy inexpensive items that look like they will fall apart anytime soon. It's generally better to find good quality items with a good price than something that is both "cheap" in price and quality.

Because of all the possibilities and wide scope of fairy kei, it makes it easier to find pieces on a budget. Check out this post I put up last for a little list I compiled for “cheap” fairy kei links.

This is a typical fairy kei outfit I might wear on a given day which is comprised of items I bought from several different places. Not including the price of shoes (which are usually the most pricey items I own), this outfit cost a little less than $40 altogether (Including shoes, it comes to about $100). A Japanese brand shirt alone could cost $40 or more!

What I’m Wearing:

White Ribbon Bow w/ Pink Trim: Antique Mall <$1

Ponytail Holder: <$1

Rhinestone Studded Glasses: Claire’s ~$3

80s Pink and White Sparkly Sweater: Thrift Store ~$4

Tutu: Hot Topic ~$14

Tights: Target ~$6

Cuff Socks: Target 4 pairs~ $5

Old Shoes: Asics ~$60 (on sale)

Bow Shoe Toppers: Made by me ~$2

Necklace: Made by me <$1

Scrunchie: Made by me w/ old fabric ~$1

Princess Ribbon: Dollar Store $1

~Sparkling Ga Eul

Faith, Trust and Fairy Kei Dust!