Event: Grand Trianon

Tonight was an event touted as a girl-exclusive, Marie Antoinette-themed party, Grand Trianon. While not specifically a lolita event, it certainly had lolita potential. I received an online invitation to this event from one of the staff last week as a result of my being a member of the Nagoya lolita community on mixi (a Japanese networking site not unlike Facebook).
The website mentioned several cute items of interest: tea time, performances, and a “meeting system” that was divided into two categories– you could send message cards to other attendees and the color of the card you sent suggested your intent (blue for “friendship” and pink for “interest”, and keep in mind this is a girl-only event).

Anyway, the theme was flowers and if you had flowers as part of your outfit, you got 500 yen off the entry. Flowers aren’t exactly the hardest thing to work into a lolita outfit so of course that wasn’t a problem!

I couldn’t resist wearing my new jsk, but I wore a flower corsage so it was ok!

Despite all the promises of being cute and unique though, it unfortunately wasn’t. Neither of the two themes (or gimmicks) were held to– the Rococo inspiration was tossed in favour of a normal club atmosphere and the girl-only idea was traded… well, for boys, lots of them. Not that I don’t like boys, I just think that if you make rules you shouldn’t go changing them at the end.
I think MOST of the attendees were pretty confused though, actually, and it was a pretty awkward situation. The event was hosted by… um, hosts. Or hostesses, if you will, as they are crossdressing girls (they are SO cute though, I really want to go to their cafe now!), and they were very active and friendly– one even forced me to dance, which was pitiful T_T. Outside of the gogo dancers (whose outfits were ridiculously adorable to make up for the fact that they weren’t such great dancers) and hosts though, most people were like me– too shy to do anything. There were some really adorable people though, so they were fun: the shy crossdresser that was a salaryman by day, the guy with the metal light-up suit. Entertaining at least.

About halfway through, after the “tea time” that involved no tea (but a lot of alcohol, if just around my table), we saw a few acts. The first was a creepy stop-motion animation video with dolls, which was weird (I hate stop-motion animation), but the dolls were cool and were handmade by one of the night’s attendees. A dancer performed and was quite good. After that I was forced to dance again, we sat through a HORRIFIC performance of an American song that I can’t remember (thank god) and another dance, and then decided to call it a night before we risked missing the last subway. Another performance was starting then but I really was about to fall asleep so I guess it was time to go.

All in all, it wasn’t a BAD event, just not what it should have been. I think if they had stayed with their themes, it would have been more fun, or if they’d abandoned the themes altogether it would have been more coherent. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone was really sure what the main idea was, so it was kind of a waste of a good idea. Hopefully they’ll get more organized as they go. This was just the first time, after all

Ask not what you can do for your brand (3)

In this part I’m going to talk about fukubukuro　(福袋), widely known as “lucky packs” in the Western world. Like novelty fairs and sales, fukubukuro sales occur for several occasions, and also like fairs and sales, they can depend on the specific shop or be nationwide.
Some brands release “special sets” along with their “lucky packs”– these aren’t really fukubukuro because you know the contents and the value of said contents before purchasing. Regardless, most people think of special sets as being a kind of lucky pack– maybe because they come in big bags too? I don’t know.

Fukubukuro from lolita brands are usually available for the basic prices of 5,000 yen or 10,000 yen, plus tax, and of course content varies by price. Some brands will release cheaper accessory packs. Kera shops carry fukubukuro from a number of brands usually, from Suppurate System to Marble, depending on the brands that particular store stocks.

Of course the most famous time for fukubukuro is New Year’s day (or the days just after, if the store is closed on New Year’s. Just about every store in Japan is having a huge sale (many with fukubukuro) on this same day, so you usually have to choose which brand you want and forsake all the others. Because the Lolita brands release such limited numbers of fukubukuro, it’s unlikely that you’ll get one if you don’t line up early. Because the winter sales are a widespread event, fashion magazines usually devote at least the news section of their December/January issues to listing special events by stores, including specific lists of what day (and time) fukubukuro will be released, so the smart shopper can plan well in advance.
The second most popular time for fukubukuro is in mid-summer, along with the summer sales. It’s less likely that special sets will be released at this time, or that special fukubukuro-only items will be produced, so the packs are likely to be full of a selection of items from the previous season.

It’s important to note about fukubukuro that, while the contents are (usually) worth significantly more than the price of the bag, these contents are also often items that didn’t sell particularly well in the last season, hence the availability of these items to be sold so cheaply. One should be wary of lucky packs released immediately after long sales periods because the contents are almost assuredly things that didn’t sale in spite of ever-lower prices. The value of the pack is usually posted somewhere (in a magazine, or sometimes right on the pack) but this does not reflect the “sale” value, of course. You might have saved money had you bought the items on sale instead of getting a fukubukuro!
Along with this consideration, of course the buyer has to understand that the contents of the pack are random, though most brands attempt to put together a coordinate or at least a similar color, and there is no guarantee that the things are going to fit or be flattering if they do. You would *think* that putting things that fit a wide range of sizes into the bags would be the natural choice, but as I have known people who got something as specifically sized as shoes in a pack, that’s not the case. Buyer beware

Along with other promotions, brands will sometimes have fukubukuro to celebrate other occasions, and these are usually advertised only in blogs or on the brand’s website– less likely in magazines. For this reason it’s important to keep your eyes open!