May today become the day

♫ Winter's Verge – Old Man's Wish

...the first day of the rest of my life, nothing more fancy this time. I'm sorry I've been silent here, I cannot even say I've been busy, just lazy. And my actual posting ideas have been lacking a bit of this and that, so if you were looking for some interesting content... keep waiting. :D

I'm only updating to whore out myself some interesting bits of my style. And to try out some new ways to arrange photos in my entries, let's see if I can make these look good or even different to begin with. The process to renew and constantly improve my blog layout is, well, never-ending.

I thought about creating one of these funny reflected image collages, but then I ended up taking the easy route! This, because I have been photoshopping enough today and I'm going to work tomorrow! In order to gain an extra day off...

Anyway, the outfits! First, the one on the left – I had been looking for such a skirt for ages! I wanted to find a skirt with an underbust waistline, but it didn't turn out easy at all. Eventually I put up a message on a gothic flea market on Facebook, and much later one kind person offered their old skirt to me. The skirt had originally been the size L, but the previous owner had made it smaller to fit the size XS. Perfect! I had wanted one such skirt because I figured it would flatter my figure, the long back which doesn't always need to seem as long as it is. Last Sunday we went to see some dance performances (it was International Dance Day!) and I wore that skirt with a *gasp* red shirt. The shirt is not new, but I haven't been wearing much color lately.

And on the right I'm showing off my outfit of the day, what I wore to work today. I have a shirt and a skirt, not a dress, but I like those extremely simple and comfortable clothes quite a lot and feel good wearing them. The shoes I'm wearing in both photos are pure love as well, I just recently got a chance to start wearing them again after the winter. These photos don't flatter the shoes unfortunately, the heels don't even seem as high as they are.

By the way, someone could teach me to pose. I didn't know whether I should have laughed or cried when I transferred the photos from my camera. Uh-oh, one day at work my colleague jokingly introduced me to some guy (possibly a photographer) as "our graphic designer with a model's body" (this, because they were both men and shorter than me when I was wearing those shoes). (And in fact I don't have a real model's body either.) I just cannot seem to pose for photos without either standing too still or seeming to be overdoing it. :D And I assure you, I picked out the least ridiculous ones.

I've also purchased a new piece of ear jewellery. It's a dragon tailbone wrapping around the whole ear. It's quite funny, though it's shaped in such a way that you have to get a different piece for the left and the right ear. I only got one because my other ear has several piercings. Too bad I tend to wear my hair somehow covering that ear most of the time! :D Yet I guess that piece is for special occasions and special hairdos. I feel a bit bad for not choosing the octopus tentacle piece though! It would have been pirate credible, but I thought it didn't look as nice as the dragonbone. :x I feel I'm a bad pirate. So long!

P.S: I couldn't provide any interesting content to go with the topic, which is Sentenced's song. But then I figured Evil Masquerade's song "A Great Day to Die" would do here! Unfortunately, I couldn't find it on Youtube. I'm not sure I'm going to die today either, I would need to hurry up anyway, only less than half an hour left of this day.

Finding fashion in virtual wardrobes

♫ Freedom Call – Starlight

I've been thinking of making a blog post about my extremely girlish online hobbies, and now I got the ignition to do it. At first I'm going to introduce you to Poupeegirl, which is a Japanese fashion community and game, sort of. Basically, it has two purposes; showing off your clothes by posting photos of them and commenting on other people's photos; and dressing up your own poupee, your avatar, which often tries to represent the user behind the vector doll.

Meet Raphael ragdoll, my poupee, whose looks are loosely based on mine (yeah, I've dyed her hair when I've dyed my own) and whose clothes are based on what I could imagine wearing in real life if I had the chance. Part of the fun is dressing up your avatar once a day and taking a snapshot of it – one of the actions which earns you some virtual currency which you can waste on poupee clothes.

A screenshot of my poupee home page UI. This is actually not the profile page view, but you can go to see it here. I've been using poupeegirl quite long – for a bit over four years, I think. The site is five years old. I would have checked out when I actually joined, but their calendar system didn't work properly. To be honest though, the technology behind the service (*cough*Flash*cough*) is quite shaky, so... No wonder.

Yet the service is still quite fun to use, although I've been somewhat lazy lately, yet still taking snapshots. It's become a habit, sort of. If some of my readers are already using poupeegirl, feel free to add me as a friend there – however, please drop me a message, I don't add everyone back by default.

The pros and cons of the site:

+ Most of the content is in English these days as well – yet you can amuse yourself with some occasional Engrish. Would you like to see my "race-up" boots?

+ A vast variety of different alternative styles is represented in the community, yet it may be difficult to find the goths among the gyarus.

+ Users have very inspirational styles.

+ The avatars can easily be dressed up in alternative fashion as well.

– Most of the brands listed in service are either Japanese or particularly popular in Japan. However, one can enjoy the service without browsing the listed brands.

– Poupeegirl staff is (or at least was) known to be strict and probably difficult to communicate with in English. The rules regarding photo posting are strict, which is also good, but you gotta be careful not to post copyrighted material, photos showing people, items in wrong categories... 

– Most users leave boring comments such as "♥".

Today I found another fashion service on the internet; Dressipi.com. It's not a community like poupeegirl, but rather a personal tool for finding fashion items which might be perfect for you, based on your preferences, color choices, body type etc.

I wanted to give it a try although I had a feeling it might not have much to offer for someone like me who's not into high fashion but strongly into alternative stuff, and to some extent I seem to have been right. I started out by letting the service know this and that about me; my height, weight, body type, eye and hair color... And then I answered some extremely difficult questions about what kind of styles I might be interested in. It was easy to choose the option "I work in a creative industry" rather than "I'm a stay-at-home mum", but choosing my favorite brands from their lists was difficult since I didn't even know most of them! However, they have listed different types of brands; both in style and price, but nothing for those interested in dark (=gothic) subcultures (naturally, a few brands are swinging somewhere close). But otherwise they had brands from H&M to Vero Moda and from Alexander McQueen to Vivienne Westwood and DKNY.

The site would suggest which types of clothes flatter my body the most; it also tells me what to avoid. And then... it lists items from the brands I might want to wear and suggests them on the "Perfect for you" page:

I felt almost like a killjoy clicking "dislike" on most things it suggested. :/ The service is supposed to learn more about my taste the more I use it, and especially if I purchased something. Well, having gone through a bunch of suggestions I had seen a few truly interesting pieces, but nothing that I'd really really need to have.

The pros and cons:

+ The site seems like a very good tool for those who really are interested in fashion, especially the newest trends.

+ Easy to use.

– If you are strongly into alternative fashion and indies alternative brands, you might not find anything to your liking.

But I'll probably continue using Dressipi for a while to see if I can find anything truly interesting there. I'm so picky about clothes, especially if they're expensive... I'm into original and particularly imaginative designs rather than well-known brands! However, how do you, my dear readers, feel about clothes in general? Are you the type who might like a lot of different styles, but who would refuse to wear most of them anyway? Or would you wear anything that you like?

Personally, I'm the first type. In a way my taste is quite broad; I can easily like styles which differ from mine, I may enjoy fashion images... But no matter how nice a certain fashion item might be, I wouldn't wear it myself so easily. I'm picky; I have quite a clear idea of what kind of clothes and accessories tell those stories that I want to convey with my style. I'm not sure if some people consider it strange; perhaps it might seem like I followed some strict sub-cultural rules, such as those of the lolita fashion. However, I certainly have written my own rules, and I don't feel confined, I truly wouldn't feel comfortable wearing just anything although I considered the same clothes absolutely stunning when worn by someone else.

Yet I cannot deny it; being picky and particular about your clothing makes it difficult to find anything nice to wear. I don't have favorite brands or shops, and I can usually find at least some minor details in any piece of clothing that are not to my liking! Especially in alternative clothes; so many goth clothes have too many different details, in my humble opinion. I think quite many gothic brands end up making clothes which seem cheap due to being too over-the-top. A sad situation for someone who's both picky and absolutely all thumbs with a sewing machine...

So long!

Fears run rings – monthly theme post

It's time for another theme post campaign by Sophistiqué Noir! February is all about rings! Although I like rings, I don't have remarkably many to show off here. I've fallen victim to too many cheap rings in my life, and all those strangely brass colored pieces are barely worth photographing.

I have a few rings in everyday use, and a few which I wear whenever I remember to pick them up from my jewellery box. Anyway, I don't have fancy and huge rings because I'd probably find them impractical even if they were beautiful. I don't own any of these joint rings, and none of those meant for multiple fingers either. Some of them are very pretty, though. However, such rings which would best suit festive events don't usually end up in my collection, especially if they wouldn't look good with gloves. When dressing up, I prefer gloves to fancy rings. But now, onto my rings!

"Serpents and the tree"

– Waves Under Water

I think this ring is from some trip to Greece, but I cannot remember when I bought it – I've been to Greece so many times after all... This serpent looks best, in my humble opinion, when worn on the thumb. In fact thumb may be my favorite "ring finger", and I rarely wear anything on the actual ring fingers (especially in the left hand – I'm not engaged and wouldn't wear a ring there "for fun"; however, "self-defense" in a very tricky situation might be another thing).

"Stand your ground behind the times
and refuse to follow fashion"

– Skyclad

These two plain rings are my everyday pieces. However, diverging from the photo, I wear them in the right hand. I'd like to find similar plain rings for the rest of the fingers in that hand, and it wouldn't be difficult if I just popped to a jewellery store. Anyway, nowadays I only accept silver or stainless steel and not just some crappy... bronzecopperpewterglassshit with a silvery surface.

"Golstar come!
'Cause I can't resist here in this castle"

– Derdian

I'm quite sure I bought this one in Greece as well, but possibly not at the same time with the snake ring. In fact my preferred finger for this one is the thumb as well, unless I'm wearing it together with the snake one in the same hand.

That's it, I suppose. I only have a few rings worth wearing anyway. And apparently, rings are perfect for fingering when you're getting frustrated and need something to do. :D So long!

P.S: Good morning February! Today I realized it's no longer dark when I go to work in the morning! Spring's coming although it was –20°C.

A kind of magic

♫ Saint Daemon – No Man's Land

At the beginning of January I ended up online-shopping again, this time at Marty Magic. It was quite a... coincidence, I suppose; a friend showed me a photo of an ear wrap which was "so me", but the photo was not on the designer's website. A bit of research, and oops, I had ordered an ear cuff...

So, yeah. Marty Magic is the web store of an individual jewellery designer. The piece my friend showed was obviously this, but I didn't purchase it. Instead, I ended up buying quite a small ear cuff, and I got a dragon cuff thrown in as well! Yet the piece I bought was made of sterling silver, whereas the giveaway was pewter.

I don't think it's particularly easy to find such cuffs, but it was nice to find an individual designer who makes such. Supporting such designers is cool! I also think the prices are reasonable – however, I didn't want to buy one of those more expensive pieces because I'm reluctant to purchase expensive stuff from outside the EU... Don't want to pay customs. :/ But I can point out that the merchant had marked the value of the parcel to be only 2/3 of the real value.

It took the parcel quite long to arrive, however, it was quite promptly shipped. I'm also satisfied with the products; the silvery piece is easy to put on, it doesn't pinch and it hardly comes off, it seems. The pewter one is more loose, but I doubt it'll fall either. I suppose these pieces saved me from another piercing since I had wanted to wear something at that part of the ear cartilage, but well... Since my piercing has been sore for over two months now (I know it can take half a year for it to fully heal), I'm not too eager to prolong my (and others') suffering. :D

In other words, if you're looking for some fine jewellery, check out Marty Magic. The selection is perfect for goths, princesses and pirates! So long!