Ouji Make-Up Help Request

Now, I am usually quite good at coming up with my own make-up ideas, especially if they are of a more dramatic sort, but I am struggling to work out what sort of make-up to wear with this sort of outfit. I don't want to go for my usual dramatic look with the foliate swirls and heavy black eye-shadow, but to do something more in keeping with ouji ("prince") style of Japanese fashion. If anybody has any links to good make-up tutorials that are accurate to what is usual with ouji fashion, I would love to know.  

Tricorn hat + Ouji fashion

I have applied mascara and a bit of kohl, with concealer over a couple of reddish bits, but that is it for make-up in this photo. The rest of the outfit is a slightly off-white (but very, very nearly white) blouse by Meta, a black velvet waist-coat (vintage Marks & Spencer's), knee britches from Bodyline, and diamond patterned black and white socks, with black brogues with a silver buckle. The jabot shown belongs to my partner, and is hand-made and bought off the internet, but he can't remember where. The tricorn is a plain hat I bought and then altered (I will show-case it properly at a later date) and has pleated chiffon on the underside of the brim, a large brocade bow and some other details. I have interchangeable ribbons for it depending on what colours I might want to wear with it.

Any suggestions as to make-up are requested. Please send me your suggestions!

5 Style Lessons I Learnt From Lolita Fashion

Lolita fashion, when done well, can be incredibly elegant and beautiful, and over the years, the Lolita community have been very good at putting together information that helps newer Lolitas join the fashion and learn how to put together some really amazing outfits. I've learnt a lot over the last couple of years (and still have more to learn!), and I've noticed how there are things I have learnt from Lolita fashion that carry over to Romantic Goth and other anachronistic and ornate fashions. Here are a few of those things.

Photo from autumn by Raven of Chance Photography

 ♛ Wig: eBay ♛ Head-dress: Alice And The Pirates ♛ Blouse: Zanzea  ♛ Necklace: Restyle.Pl 

♛ Gloves: Accessorise♛ Skirt: Restyle.Pl ♛ Tights: H&M ♛ Shoes (not visible): TUK 

1) Bad lace can ruin an outfit, good lace can make one. 

Good quality lace can make an outfit look really special, add lovely layers of detail, and really be something wonderful in an outfit, bad quality lace can make it look like you are wearing something from a halloween outfit, and undermine the effect of the rest of your outfit. 

If you are going to wear lace, try and get the best quality lace you can afford. Cheap, scratchy lace - often poorly made, or cheaply made raschel lace is something that seems very costume-y, and tacky. There are several Lolita sites which have guides to lace quality - it's certainly worth googling. A lot of Goth fashion, even the more expensive pieces and brands, often use cheap and scratchy lace, and it is something that frustrates me - especially when I find a design that is nice and otherwise well constructed, but is let down by the quality of its lace.

Stretch lace can often fray, and is also often best avoided if you are wanting something with longevity - the elastic threads within the lace tend to snap, or fray at the seams, and you end up with little threads of elastic poking up everywhere... If I particularly like an item, when this starts to happen I will pick out every last elastic thread until the stretch lace has become just lace, with no stretch, but that is a very obsessive and time-consuming labour of love, and I would not recommend it!

2) Get the right petticoat or crinoline for your skirt or dress

In Lolita, the main skirt types are A-line and cupcake, with some empire waisted dresses and tea-length dresses in the mix, and in Romantic Goth, there's a lot more variety. Whichever fashion you wear,  if it incorporates skirts that need pouf to work, it is important to get the right sort of petticoats, underskirts and under-pinnings. I've seen too many otherwise beautiful outfits where the drape of the skirt has been interrupted by the hoops of their crinoline as there's not enough layers between the outer-skirt and hoops, or where their petticoats are too short for their skirt and the skirt has changed direction part way down, or where someone has tried to stuff too many petticoats under a skirt that just wasn't accommodating to that much pouf.  There are tutorials and information pages on the internet picking the right ways of getting your skirt voluminous for all sorts of skirt styles, whether you are into re-enactment historical accuracy, or picking a good bell-shaped petticoat for a cupcake skirt.

3) Think about visual balance

In Lolita, which has puffy skirts, curly wigs, and often chunky shoes, balance is important - in fact, the curly or voluminous wigs and chunky shoes are often there to counterbalance the visual effect of skirts with considerable pouf. This is codified into the 'rules' of Lolita, and this balance is an integral part of the fashion.

This concept is easily applied to Goth and its hybrids as well - if you are wearing, say, Cybergoth hair extensions, then the fluffy leg-warmers and chunky boots help balance this out, if you are wearing a big bustle-skirt, a fancy up-do for your hair and plenty of hair-ornaments can help balance that out, etc. The basic idea is that if you wear something voluminous at the top of your body, you need to balance it lower on your body, and vice versa. Chunky boots (from the platform Mary Jane heels I wear with Lolita to big stompy New Rock boots) can really help with this balance. 

4) Accessories can radically change an outfit

I have seen outfits based around the exact same dress that look radically different because of the choices of wig, tights, jewellery and other accessories. As Lolita fashion has a focus on specific prints and dresses and these are often tagged and/or labeled on people's 'outfit of the day', I have become accustomed to noting when the same dresses come up even when they are styled differently, and have started really noticing just HOW different an outfit can be even if it includes a few of the same items as another. 

I would suggest experimenting with different accessories and layering with a few key pieces to see the different looks you can create.  I think this is a good way to keep variety in a limit wardrobe, or to create variety on a budget. 

5) Use small splashes of contrast to add to the coherency of an outfit.

This is often done with the use of a complimentary or contrasting colour to the main outfit colour - for example gold with a pink and white outfit, or white or blue on a black outfit - something that both stands out from the main colour(s) but looks good with them.

For example, a Lolita might be wearing a pink dress with white trim, white socks, white blouse and pink head-bow with white trim. In this case, the main colour is pink, the accent colour is white, and it would be the use of white trim on the dress, white socks, and white trim on the bow that create the visual coherence. That dress, though, might have a print with gold on it, and to make sure that gold doesn't seem out of place, the Lolita might chose to wear pink shoes with gold bows, some smaller gold-coloured and pink hair decorations, golden jewellery, and a golden-blonde wig. The little touches of gold would then be giving the visual coherency to the outfit.

This can be achieved in Goth just as easily. If you are wearing a black jacket with red trim, you could wear a cuff with the same shade/hue of red on it, or red and black boots - just little touches of red here and there in the rest of the outfit. If you are wearing say a dress that's mostly black and silver but with touches of purple, you could wear accessories that include both silver and touches of purple, such as a black velvet choker with silver pendant, but with a small purple stone. 

Being Fancy Everyday

Here's an outfit I wore out of the house a couple months ago - one of my more "put together" ones, for lunch in town with friends, but not considerably more elaborate than many I wear. 

I am a pile of frills and lace, I admit it!

I'm wearing a pouf of a skirt, all layers of in-built and extra petticoats with flock and gauzy layers, a fancy shirt with oodles of ruffles at my neck, a waistcoat clasped with chains and ornate buttons (my own modification), lace gloves, fabric flowers in my hair, silver Gothic jewellery, iridescent sunglasses, and Gothic eye-makeup. Not visible are the plum tights I was wearing to match my hair flowers, and the long black "granny boots" too. Quite fancy, quite ornate by modern standards, but other than the "shiny" and fancy fabrics, not much fancier than many Gothic Lolitas and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat fashion followers wear regularly. I'm rooted in European expressions of the Gothic, but I am a big fan of darker Japanese fashions, so it should be no surprise that my outfits are heavily inspired by followers of those styles too. 

In Lolita fashion, there are plenty of 'Lifestyle Lolitas' - those who wear the fashion everyday, and tie the aesthetic into other aspects of their life, the same as there are plenty of members of the Goth subculture for whom the aesthetic and the mindset colour their entire lives, but with Goth, I see more who wear the more casual embodiments of Goth as everyday wear, and reserve the fancy for special occasions, whereas with Lolita it is more a sliding scale of "relatively fancy" for everyday, to "really, really fancy!" for special occasions. There are, of course, Lolitas who only wear Lolita to conventions and meets, those who wear it sometimes and wear other fashions other times, etc. 

Goth being less fancy does make sense - the original Goth fashions grew out of punk, and were full of stuff like ripped tights, skinny jeans, pointy boots etc. and not of the fancy Romantic fashions that grew out of it later, and there is nothing "un-Goth" about wearing, say New Rocks, skinny jeans, a Sisters of Mercy t-shirt, spiked collar and trench-coat instead of say, a bustle skirt, pointy boots, fancy black tights, corset and ruffle shirt with lace gloves. However, is wearing Romantic Goth fanciness too much for anything other than events? 

To be honest, I think it depends a lot on what you are wearing, especially fabrics - if what you are wearing is made of the very luxurious fabrics and styles that are mostly reserved for 'evening' and 'occasion' wear in any century or locale, then you're probably too fancy for just shopping in the supermarket (after all, such things are expensive and delicate, and everyday life will probably damage them), which doesn't mean you can't wear them shopping if you really want to, only that it's probably not practical or sensible and would be a lot like wearing a ball gown to the supermarket, just a black one from several hundred years ago. 

Totally hipster pose... argh!

Hang on! In these pictures I've got synthetic satins for my blouse and skirt, and there's flock on the skirt! Yes, and this outfit is probably good party wear for a more casual party (and I'll be wearing it to one tonight!) or, when it was originally worn, for a Saturday lunch with friends. I made the outfit more day wear than fancy party with a matte fabric modified business waistcoat, matte purple tights, and 'day' Goth makeup rather than fancier evening makeup. If I wore the exact same cut garments, but made entirely of cottons and other matte fabric, then it would look a lot more like anachronistic day wear. I could have easily made it into more 'special' party wear by swapping the waistcoat for a fancy brocade bolero jacket or an ornate shrug, and the tights for patterned lace tights rather than block colour tights, and the granny boots for fancier shoes. 

This is where I think Lolita's and Aristocrat's influence comes in for fancy everyday wear - a lot of the cuts are full of ruffles, full skirts, and rather fancy designs, but they're usually made of lined heavy cottons, and occasionally velvets, rather than satins, brocades, silks and flocks. The've often got prints on them too, which always seems more casual than woven-in designs, and therefore offer a good balance between having a pattern and not being too fancy for day wear. They have plenty of details such as bows and lace, but bows are often of the same fabric as the dress, and lace the same colour, or a complimenting one. Altogether, and despite being a lot more colourful than a lot of Goth fashion, Lolita and Aristocrat manage to be both fancy and able to be worn everyday.  These aspects can easily be incorporated into outfits that are Goth rather than Lolita, and allow those who want to be fancy out and about, to be fancy without looking like you're going to a party or a masquerade ball. 

My tips: 

♣ Wear cottons, wool, lace and matte fabrics for day wear, and brocades, jacquards, flock, devoré and velvets as occasion wear. 

♣ Prints can add fanciness without stepping up the 'occasion' level, and come in everything from kitsch and rockabilly designs of neon zombies to ornate wrought iron gates. 

♣ Accessory choice can make an outfit more or less special-looking.

♣ One or two 'statement' pieces can be made of fancier fabric and be more detailed without necessarily making the entire outfit more of one for a special occasion.

♣ Sometimes less is better - don't heap on the accessories - one bracelet or cuff can be enough, one necklace, one hair accessory/hat, etc. Wearing too much can look cluttered. 

Clothes, Make-Up and Me Being Vain

I've realised I've not actually put many pictures of me up here, and apart from the one on the "About" page, there is only one of me being wearing the braided wig in an outfit that does not really typify my style (even if I think it is one of the better photographs that have been taken of me). Anyway, to remedy this, I am posting a few pictures of me taken on my laptop's webcam. Yes, they are suitably badly lit and grainy! These are pretty much my favourite things in my wardrobe at the moment. Not really that many self-made items in this outfit. Oh well, I shall have post some future ones that contain a lot more of my makes and mods.

I love wearing frills! 

Not that flattering when it comes to my face, but outfit visible.

Lots of lace!

Manuscript inspired make-up... 

Here is another photograph of the make-up, a bit closer, to try and show the silver detailing. 

A better view of the make-up

The makeup started of as abstract swirls, and then became more elaborate foliate designs. It is only one the one side. Unfortunately the poor quality images do not really do the makeup justice - each leaf is actually silver detailing on black, to the point where it is almost silver outlined in black, done in silver eye-liner over black eye-liner, with the black brushed on and the silver drawn. It isn't one of my best designs, but I quite liked how the silver worked over the black. For good designs and how-to on foliate/swirl makeup designs, checkout the tutorials of Adora Batbrat on YouTube. 

Where the clothes are from: 

Brocade frock-coat is from H&R and bought in Camden market. It laces up at the back. The buttons that came with this coat, and a military jacket by the same company keep falling off because they are poorly made and have burrs on the back that sever the thread keeping them attached - I am forever sewing the buttons back on and at some point will simply buy replacement buttons, but as buttons are getting expensive and both jackets require an awful lot (buttons at the cuffs as well) that will be sometime in the future. That said, the jacket is really gorgeous - the material is nicer than some later editions of this jacket that I have seen, as they seem to change the material once in a while. The lacing at the back means I can adjust the coat to my corseted and non-corseted figure, and the sweeping cut of the back is wonderful.  

Leather corset is from Leatherotics. I love the buckles and halter-neck. I wear this corset as much as possible! It is my favourite corset. It becomes part of Romantic/Aristo outfits and part of mostly-leather "Stompy Goth" outfits and is very comfortable for an under-bust corset. I have worn this corset an awful lot, and it has shown a few signs of wear, but nothing I could not mend simply and easily and with little impact. It has been quite resilient considering the amount I wear it. I like the fact there are almost "cups" to the top of this corset, as I do not like straight-across under-bust corsets as I think the harsh horizontal unflattering to many figures including mine. 

Black waistcoat with ornate buttons and chains is one of my own designs. It started off life as a rather business like waistcoat a size or two too small for me, and I altered it into something that is almost a cropped waistcoat (it has a high waist, at least) that deliberately does not close at the front, and instead has chains between ornate buttons. 

White frilly shirt is Gothic, Lolita and Punk, Camden Market. While I love how it looks, it shrinks every time I wash it, but not to a point where I can't stretch it back. It isn't exactly the same cut as when I bought it though, but this is not terribly noticeable when worn under a corset, waistcoat and jacket! I have learnt that it is better to wear plain white shirts (blouses) with jabots and detachable cuffs, especially as even cheap white shirts tend to retain their shape fairly well. 

The wig was a present from Raven. I have no idea where it is from, but I know it needs some routine maintenance at the moment, mostly dealing with ends frizzed by wearing it and some locks near the front that I accidentally overheated while trying to re-curl. Heat and synthetic wigs do not agree! In the words of the meme comedy community: Learn From My Fail!

I love mixing and matching from various historical periods, but things I like trying to incorporate into my looks include buckles, chains and ornate buttons in silvery metals, brocades and damasks, black lace and white lace, corseting, details and layering. Quite a few blogs already include outfit posts, and I am not sure if doing these myself would be of any benefit, but welcome reader feedback on this. I do not want to be the bloggery equivalent of one of those people who endlessly uploads photographs to social media, and this is not primarily a fashion blog, so even if I do post future "outfit posts" this will probably be an occasional thing.

This is also generally the style in which I dress everyday. Right now I am wearing a medieval-inspired dress that laces up at the bodice with a long velvet waist-coat-type-thingy (costumers and renaissance faire types can probably elucidate me on the name) that does up with frog-clasps, black stockings and black slippers, so slightly less layered than above, but still distinctly Gothic and definitely leaning to the Romantic and fancier ends of Goth. I only dress down for occasions where I do not want to cause trouble by my appearance, or for work, especially the conservation work, where I'd ruin fancy clothes rather quickly. I dress like this even when I do not intend to leave the house, and do so partly because I enjoy getting dressed into all these layers of anachronistic finery and adorning myself with make-up, accessories, wigs and jewellery.