Maleficent Movie Lolita Meetup

Last month, I organized a meetup for my local comm to attend the movie Maleficent. We started off the meetup by eating at our local Cheesecake Factory. I decided to try the "Incredible Grilled Eggplant Sandwich" which was delicious though a bit messy and so thick that it was hard to keep in its burger shape. I had never actually eaten at the Cheesecake Factory before, and I wish the portion of the main course were smaller so that I could have also enjoyed a piece of cheesecake with my meal without being wasteful.

I decided to center my coordinate around the idea of fairy tales, so my Infanta high-waisted skirt was a natural fit for the occasion. I was in a rush the day of the meet, so I sadly didn't grab my Evil Queen tote and instead went with my Day Dream Carnival mook tote which has proven to be a resilient companion for daily use. Below is a photo of me outside of the restaurant with another member of my comm who is wearing a blouse and bow set from Elegy and the Candy Violet Patisserie high-waisted skirt.

My Coordinate:
Blouse: Fanplusfriend
Bonnet, skirt: Infanta
Wig: Arda Wigs
Tote: Angelic Pretty

We preordered tickets to guarantee we would be able to get tickets on the opening weekend of the movie. While I can see the movie's predictable turns being boring for some movie viewers, I was in love with the dark fantasy vibe of Maleficent next to the radiant life of Aurora. The tale of broken love felt like it could have been written to flow better, but I still enjoyed seeing Maleficent overcome her emotional struggles throughout the film.

Beautiful movie art, ie, I forgot to take a picture of the movie promotion cut out when in the theatre

After the movie, we walked to the nearby Steel City Pops for a great selection of gourmet popsicles. I tried out a coffee popsicle to great effect, and I left the meetup in a good mood. That's all for my nontes on the meetup and the movie. What movies has your comm made meets for? Did you happen to like or dislike Maleficent? 

Dollish Dreams: Jun Planning Ai Doll Nerine Unboxing

With my childhood obsession with articulated figures re-emerging with a vengeance lately, I've been getting more and more into ball jointed dolls. I recently got a Hujoo Freya from Junkyspot, but I also wanted a human doll added into my tiny collection. Whether or not the doll was resin did not matter in my decision as I just wanted to get another budget level bjd to gauge my interest in the hobby while still being a doll I'll hopefully still love and adore years from now. After much research and scouring the internet for reviews, I finally settled on getting an Ai Doll from Jun Planning, the previous makers of Pullip. The tiny doll is adorable and comes with a full set of clothes as pictures, eyes and a wig for only around $30 USD plus shipping on Amazon and with a number of ebay sellers. I debated between two of the dolls in the line, Nerine and Primula, both of whom enchanted me with their darling outfits featuring bonnets. Nerine won out in the end as I liked the slightly mischievous expression on her face though I may purchase Primula in the future also. I've rambled on for a good while now, however, so let's get to actual unboxing photos! 

Stock photo of Nerine

Sorry for the blurriness

5 Keywords That Describe My Lolita Style

I had to actually thinking decently hard about the above prompt. Even in an age of digitization and keywords which condense down to describe our lives, what keywords describe my personal style, crystallize its essence? Though my conclusions may be rough and inaccurate, I do think I've better distilled what makes my style mine.

Casual

A large number of my outfits never actually make their way onto my blog. Why? I tend to wear a large amount of casual style lolita outfits that straddle the border of being formal enough to be considered full lolita coordinates. I wear lots of casual style when I'm not feeling the sheer efforts of makeup and wigs that goes into my put together looks or when I'm wearing lolita to work where I never wear wigs or OTT types outfits. Even though I still see continued debate on whether or not casual lolita should be even considered lolita, I find the style to be one of substyles with the great amount of diversity and exploration of what base elements really make a lolita outfit.

Offbrand

I love to wear accessories from non lolita stores such as Forever 21, rue 21, and Claire's. More mainstream stores rotate in trends more quickly than lolita brands tend to absorb variety, so I like being able add in different elements of more popular fashion that I like at a much cheaper price. Bodyline is also my go to place for so many lolita items, and I'm hoping to add in more pieces of Bodyline even now to pad out my wardrobe with my solid everyday wearable lolita dresses.

Bittersweet

I'm not quite as into sweet lolita in the black colorway as I used to be, but I still really love the way that the substyle looks. I'm a sucker for the contrast of the pastels against the black background which makes seeing the print much easier. I also personally like seeing other lolitas in the subystle as I can more easily get a look at the detailing of their print and the shapes without having to get within an eerily close distances to observe their clothes.

Wigs

When I do pull myself into a more formal outfit for a lolita meetup or just a really nice evening out on the town, I wearing wigs so incredibly much. Even right now, I'm mentally going back on forth on whether to place a wig order when I know that my wardrobe expansion would be better served by more shoes. I really don't like how hard my natural black hair is to work with, so I've just taken to keeping my natural hair in a small puffy afro for everyday use then covering my hair with my slowly increasing variety of wigs which can instantly match the look I'm going for that day much better than my natural hair ever has.

Kawaii

Oh come on. My blog is named 'Beyond Kawaii'. I just HAD to put that as a keyword to describe my style. I do truly love kawaii, the Japanese style cute which lolita absorbs into itself so perfectly with sweet little characters and darling elements. I feel like I actually tend to vastly fail on being truly kawaii instead of just incorporating regular style cute, but I do try to always think about and add sweet elements to my life and style.

The above post idea was originally from F Yeah Lolita's original list, Lolita 52 Challenge. 

Lolita Blog Carnival: Anime Inspired Coordinate

I was really excited about doing the Lolita Blog Carnival theme for the week: an anime themed coordinate! I mentally debated between a number of magical girls such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, the uniform designs of K-ON! and Lucky Star!, or even something Rozen Maiden themed (of course not realizing that Innocent World had already done a collaboration). Finally, I had to settle on my all time favorite anime character: Saber. She was the primary protagonists of Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero while also appearing in other Nasuverse works such as Carnival Phantasm and Fate/Hollow Ataraxia. I've always had a thing for chivalry, and I even cosplayed the suit version of Saber at Kamicon 2014.

OP: Atelier Boz
Underskirt: Fanplusfriend
Circle Lenses: PinkyParadise
Shoes: Vivienne Westwood

Beside the obligatory bow in her hair, I really struggled with coming up with accessories. I actually want F Yeah Lolita's 'lolita armor' fake trend prediction to come true in this instance. I also found a lack of silver lolita shoes. Though gold seems to have become rather popular with even Bodyline promising a pair in the near future, I had a hard time finding a pair of nice silver shoes to go with the coordinate, but I did eventually settle on the pictured pair of Vivienne Westwood heels.

Thank you for joining me as I created a coordinate around Saber. Please be sure to check the other Lolita Blog Carnival links below to see more anime inspired lolita fun. 

A Heart's Sound * Masquerade Doll * Sparkling Girl * A Little Bit of This... A Little Bit of That Too * Rainbow Star Candy

Quick Blog Updates

Hello, all. Just a couple of quick notes for the upcoming summer months!

• Typically, I let the blog go dormant during the summer months since I try to mostly focus on original content, and I tend to not wear lolita during the summer because the American South is just gets too unbearable with any degree of layering. However, I hope to explore some different content types in the upcoming summer such as profiling cutesy games or talking more about my increasing interest in dolls, so be aware some of the content may shift until the weather starts to cool again. 
• While speaking about content scheduling though, I'd like to apologize since I may slack off during the month of June. I'm working with my comm to participate in the Sukoshicon Montgomery lolita fashion show on June 21st in Montgomery, Alabama. If you're in the area, I'd gladly invite you to attend the one day con as we've been consistently planning for the last few months ranging from outfits to song choices so I'm pretty pumped about seeing how the show turns out. However, I'll be attending a practice session for the show then doing the show itself, so my weekend time to write posts is going to be taken up for a while by the event so content on Beyond Kawaii may slack for a bit. I also have a website I'm developing on the side in addition to my full time job so writing may have to go to the wayside for a bit.  

Anyway, thanks for reading. I really do appreciate your continued views and comments. I hope that the end of graduation season and beginning of summer has been good to you so far, and I'll be writing more again soon.

DreamV Dress Review + OOTD

I've talked about the DreamV Plumprimo released, but I only recently took the plunge and actually placed an order with DreamV in a group order with friends to save on shipping costs. I wanted to do a quick review and recap of the dress I received. <3

Shipping: Since I was ordering with a group of friends, I had to wait a bit longer for the item to ship out since they had items which were on pre-order. As a note, DreamV will sometimes delay the release of pre-order items past the announced date, so don't be shocked if the ship time pushes forward. Once the items actually shipped, they arrived within a few days via EMS shipping. 

Accuracy of description: I ordered the Alice in Wonderland themed jumper skirt with the words 'Dear My Love Princess in Wonderland...' written in lovely script across the bodice. The item is from DreamV's Dear My Love collection which features items that lean closer to a sweeter, princess feeling than some of their more gyaru centered lines.

The dress I received was nearly exactly as seen from the photos on the model. The lettering was just as crisp as shown on the modeled dress and slightly raised. My main qualm was with the way the bow at the center of the dress has a tendency to hang when worn. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with that as I'm very used to detaching the middle bow from lolita dresses when I can't get them to sit correctly, but the bow on the Alice dress is not detachable. The waist ties are also not detachable which is a feature I would have preferred but having them be attached isn't a deal breaker for me.

Quality: I don't have any real issues with the quality of the dress. While having little special touches like lace detailing around the shoulder straps would have been nice, I find the quality to be great for the price of around 40 USD. 

Fit of the item: While ordering, I was concerned that I would not appropriately fit the dress as the listed measurements are below mine for even the 3L which is the size I ordered. Knowing how Japanese vendors tend to list the minimums, I decided to take the plunge and order anyway, encouraged by pictures of full back shirring. 

The fear was real.

My worried were quickly allied when I actually tried the dress on. I was really pleased with the overall fit on me and had no struggle getting in or out of the dress. The fabric is somewhat thin, however, so having raised buttons on my blouse caused a bit of odd wrinkling on the front bodice, so I would recommend wearing the dress with something smoother like a cutsew. The length was also very appropriate, leaving me without the worry of my skirt barely covering my hind side. 

My actual ootd for the piece.
Dress: DreamV
Wig: l-email
Tights: The Snow Field
Blouse: offbrand unknown
Shoes: Shoe Carnival

Would I recommend the item? Definitely. The piece is great for days when I want to feel a little fancier but without the full effort that goes into a lolita coordinate.

Mail Post: What I'm Waiting For Right Now, May 2014

With Anime Weekend Atlanta coming up in a few months, so many cool brand releases like AP's Crystal Dream Carnival and IW's Lotta re-release coming up, AND my increased determination to actually save up for my wedding, I actually bought a good deal less than usual in the past month. However, I do have a few things that I'm currently waiting on in the mail of interest so I'd like to share with you below.

HEARTSREVOLUTION is an indie band which I found out about after Esther Kim mentioned their latest album on her instagram related to the #memyselfieandi gallery. I've liked what I've heard of the music so far, but I won't lie that the main attraction of the album to me is the interesting cover art complete with a hot pink crayon and coloring book. I'm a sucker for interesting packaging, so I actually ordered a physical copy of the CD instead of just purchasing Ride or Die on iTunes.

Even though I don't own Krad Lankrete's dress which would match perfectly with these tights, I had to have a pair of R-Series' Luna in the Sea tights. Above is my photo which Taobao Spree provided me with as proof before shipping. I love the jellyfish motif which continues on both sides of the tights along with the mysterious waning moon down the other side. I actually placed a pre-order a long while ago for them, but they're just now shipping in late May.

My interest in dolls is continuing to flair up after my recent Toy Parade Byul purchase. The above is a Jun Planning Ai doll, Nerine. Jun Planning before going bankrupt released an adorable set of floral named ball jointed dolls cast in plastic rather than resin which makes them much more affordable, coming in at $30 plus shipping for many of the dolls on Amazon right now. The only small annoyance is that since her line wasn't a major one, I doubt I'll be able to fit her into many pre-made clothes so I'll likely be stuck sewing on my own for her if I ever want to change her out of her set or finding a rare Hujoo baby outfit since that line seems to be the closest to her sculpt from what I've seen perusing Flickr. 

Finally, I am waiting on a cat faced zip pouch from ebay to arrive... still. I actually ordered the item in late April but the item has been stuck on "Origin Post is Preparing Shipment" for about two weeks. *sigh* I'm glad that it's at least not an imminent need for any coordinate I was planning, or I'd be more rustled at the postal system. 

Do you have anything interesting you're waiting on in the mail? I'd love links to other blog posts or recent Youtube videos. Also let me know if you're interested in a review of any particular item I have coming in the mail at the moment.