2013/02 Brewery meetup in Pilsen

I decided to get to know fellow Czech lolita fashion enthusiasts this year, and jumped right on the chance to get to Pilsen meetup in February! The meetup in Pilsen was organized by Venea. We tried to do a jumping group photo but failed miserably! Everyone had different reaction time so our group jumping looked more like a gang of fleeing rabbits and this is the only decent photo we managed! How do you get people to jump at the exact same moment anyway?

Favorite outfits of the day. Left is RabbitHeart in a handmade JSK. I swear it looks like
Innocent World made it, its gorgeous! Right is Venea in a real Innocent World dress.

This is what you do when your only meetup photo has a snowflake
falling in front of your face! Argh.

Undoubtfully the best photo I took that day. Simply gorgeous.

Since Pilsen is renowned for its beer production, we went to a guided tour into a brewery. They are very well prepared to handle visitors. We saw a visitor center with infographics hanging everywhere, an exhibition showing a step by step how the beer is produced, walked through the factory itself and also through the storage cellars with kegs of beer, concluding the tour with tasting of an unfiltered beer. Wheew! Most of the places were poorly lit though, so we could take little photos to remember the tour by. Here is some! 

Pilsen Brewery

Beer packaging line, where the bottles are filled and labeled.

The real packaging line.

Watching the mesmerizing tangle of tubes and cables in awe.

Huge copper containers in which the beer is brewed.

Entering the underground storage cellars.

The cellars incorporate kilometers of passageways.

Finally, the beer degustation!

   
You can also read about the meetup on Rabbit Heart's blog.

2012: My first frilly year

I've a contemplating mood latedly. Looking back, I realized my style is far from where I started, but a lot like what made me fall in love with lolita fashion. So this is a story of my beginning days... a diary to keep track of how far I've come.

I was a tomboy before I discovered lolita, so when I bought secondhand my first brand dress and a skirt, I realized they were first feminine clothes I ever bought.

I had to get stocked on some essentials (like shoes! :D) if I wanted to wear them! I made, back then for me, HUGE Bodyline order, consisting of an OP, JSK, short sleeve blouse, long sleeve blouse, printed OTKs and shoes.

 
I wanted to be part of the community, so I started to take photos. It didn't go well at all. My old camera and Garmin GPS device (I get lost so easily I need to carry GPS with me, lol!) didn't do. Theres no wonder I ended up filing the images away to never look at them again. Nowadays I take much better photos than these, here's some tips how!

Then in November 2012, I attended my first fashion meetup!

I got to see prints first time in person on the meetup. I hopelessly fell in love with them and my first sweet prints followed in second package from Bodyline: Magical Cosmetics skirt and Love Jewelry skirt, along with first bolero..

Bodyline really needs to get better stock pictures.

In the end I didn't wear these and 4 years later it still sits in my closet unworn... because I fell in love with Angelic Pretty. Although wonderfull to look at, I consedired the pastels and frills of Angelic Pretty unattainable goal. Maybe I wasn't bold enough? Who knows. But the game changed when I got my first Angelic Pretty dress at September 2012.

The amount of ruffles and bows and lace is incredible, yet it still looks pleasant and well balaced! So sweet, baby pink color like a cotton candy I'd bet it gives people diabetes.

The last few secondhand purchases of the year were an Innocent World cutsew to match my Florence OP dress, a random blouse which end up having a stretched out elastics, and a cute dusty pink bag. 

You can tell I'm so far sticking to pink / dusty pick / cream / white colors, to be able to combine the few fashion items I have freely, but that is going to change next years as I build up my wardrobe!

2012/11 My first fashion meetup

 
I have read lolita fashion guides, and browsed brand store pages. Bought my first brand dress and put together my first outfit. What comes now? First meetup!

A lolita fashion newbie meetup was organized in a nearby city by the small local community, so I put on the frills and ventured forth! The meetup was held in a quiet underground tea shop, which made it very had to take pictures.

In the black Bodyline jewelry skirt is the host of the meetup, and beside her is my friend Kiki, really chatty and fun person! I tried my best to look decent in my first coordinate.

Most people were dressed in black or black combined with jewel tones. I was dressed in classic lolita coordinate with Innocent World's Florence OP and Bodyline's blouse, shoes, and OTKs. There was also an adorable sweet lolita Anko with BtSSB Merry Sweet Castle Print Heart JSK and An*Tai*Na shoes. 

In the end, although the meetup was nothing like the fashion images I found on the internet, it was ours, we got to chat and enjoy an evening together and we loved it!