Experiments in Ouji: Leakey's Bookshop

This is more content from last year that I should have uploaded then, but didn't have time to do. It's a fashion post, and I guess analysing my outfits probably won't be of interest to everyone, but I'm trying to chart my journey as I improve at Lolita, Ouji, Aristo and other Japanese street fashions, which are a bit more structured and have a degree of expected polish that I'm not quite achieving yet. 

[Last year] My friend Luna hosted a meet up for the local Lolita community as part of her birthday celebrations, and I thought I would try wearing Ouji. For those who don't already know, Ouji is the more 'masculine' twin to Lolita fashion, with the name Ouji-Kei meaning 'Prince-Style'. I find this a little more comfortable and practical to wear than Lolita as it doesn't involve skirts with lots of petticoats. I'm wearing

☠ a cheap wig from eBay*

☠ 'Blood Moon' pendant from Alchemy Gothic (second-hand)

☠ Punk Rave jabot

☠ Punk Rave waistcoat 

☠ Bat lapel pin I bought second-hand

☠ Spin-doctor blouse

☠ Fair trade velvet wrist-warmers from 'FarFetched' in Inverness

☠ Red & black lace gloves (can't remember where I got them)

☠ Alchemy Gothic bracelet, can't remember the name of the bloody thorns set. 

☠ Belt from a charity shop 

☠ Vintage Marks & Spencer's trousers

☠ Boots from a charity shop.

☠ Nemesis now dragon cane. 

*bought cheap so I didn't feel bad messing it up with my first attempt at wig styling.

Not a vampire, not a library!
First set of photographs, taken by my Lolita friends.

There are two sets of photos, one set taken on the day, but which suffered from poor lighting as the book-shop is deliberately a bit dingy to make it less glaring for shoppers, and the second set taken a little bit later, when I was re-working the outfit. I asked permission from the chap who runs the shop if I could have photographs taken on the upper gallery, where there's usually fewer shoppers, and is a quiet and aesthetic part of the shop. Please check ::here:: for a pos tshowing the interior of Leakey's as a whole, and ::here:: for the Leakey's FaceBook page.

I changed which jabot I wore between the two sets of photographs - I liked the volume of the large Punk Rave one I wore in the second set better than the smaller hand-made one I wore in the first set. 

Second set of photographs of me at Leakey's

I definitely like where I am heading with the clothes, but I think it is my hair and make-up that is letting me down. One thing I have struggled with quite a bit for Ouji is my hair and make-up. It's quite a different style to that which I'm used to, and I can't use my 'natural' hair for Ouji because the bright green hair and purple fringe doesn't suit the aesthetic. I tried wearing a short-haired wig. The wig was a bit cheap, because I wanted to have a go at styling it, and I haven't styled a wig like that before, so I didn't want to spend a lot of money only to ruin it. If you look between the two sets of photographs, you'll see that for the second time I wore it, the wig started to slip off the back of my head - my natural hair is long and voluminous, and it was too much hair for the wig, and my natural hair was pushing it off. I didn't realise this until after the photographs were taken, sadly. I have two short term options: re-dye and re-cut my natural hair into something more ouji-friendly, or get better wigs, and get someone who knows what they are doing to style them for me. The long term option is to learn to style wigs better myself, which I intend to do, but as I don't wear wigs very often, I probably won't get regular practice. 

I think this shoes the problems with the wig best

I asked for some advice on an Ouji forum, on hair and make-up - and the other criticism (and a valid and constructive one) is that my eye-makeup could have been better blended; I agree - I did it in a bit of a rush, and it's quite different to what I would normally do, so I should have taken more care and blended it better. I also think the contouring I did the first time around was something I should have done again the second time around. The wig in the photo-above is very much awkwardly sat on my head, with the bulk of my natural hair sitting under it awkwardly. I'm getting my hair cut a lot shorter in summer, anyway so perhaps my wigs will sit better on my head then. 

I like how the outfit turned out. The blouse with the gathers midway down the sleeves and slight puff at the shoulders sits nicely with the waistcoat - I'm quite happy to have found a combination of cuts like that, where the waistcoat is just narrow enough at the shoulders to let the puff of the sleeves stand above them. I'm not completely sure how much I like that specific jabot with that blouse, as the jabot really requires a collared shirt to look best, and the blouse I was wearing actually has a neck-bow under the jabot instead of a collar; I left the bow undone to avoid bulk under the jabot and tucked it into the shirt, which was a bit awkward, even if not outwardly visible. The waist-coat originally had crosses on it, but I don't feel right wearing crosses as just a fashion statement, so I took all the cross  charms off the chains and replaced them with bat-charms and skull beads ands suchlike. The boots didn't originally have trim on them, I just got two types of upholstery trim and glued them to the turn-downs at the top of the boots.

The cane is from Nemesis Now, and is a lovely dragon - he has one red eye because I chipped the handle and the eye was damaged, so I put a little glass gem in the damaged eye. It's pretty, but it's not the best support because the handle is brittle, and I think if I had to lean on it too heavily, it might crack or break. I have anterior ankle impingement, partly caused by my hypermobile ankles, and partly caused by my over-wearing of very high heels (and falling off them, partially because I'm dyspraxic and thus really clumsy...), so often if I'm walking around a lot, I'll have a cane because my ankles can really hurt sometimes - effectively my shin bones and ankle bones are pinching. I've been told to wear completely flat shoes (hence the boots) and I've got physio exercises to do at home, but I'd like to save up some money to get physiotherapy privately and regularly. Anterior ankle impingement apparently can get worse to the point where you get bone-spurs or a kind of arthritis, and I don't want that! I'm probably being a little too paranoid about making it worse, but I'd rather be paranoid and overly careful than get careless and make them significantly worse.

One thing that was mentioned on Closet of Frills was that straight legged trousers is more Aristocrat than Ouji, and that puffy shorts are more suited to Ouji - in summer, when the weather is warmer I will definitely be wearing such shorts! 

Vampire Prince In The Lost Garden

Or at least that's how I was imagining myself in these photographs. In reality I'm neither a prince nor a vampire, and this is actually that meadow close to my current apartment that I love posing in because it's such a pretty meadow (and I am such a vain Goth!). 

I will be moving soon (very soon) and will no longer have this lovely meadow to pose in so near by, but I am sure I will find somewhere equally pretty in my new location. All the photographs are by my partner Raven. The meadow is especially pretty now it is summer and the grass is long and the flowers in bloom. I specified this part of the meadow because of how much I like the shrubbery there.

Photograph by Raven

It was a day bordering on dreich; cloudy, overcast and dull, but not quite as damp and drizzly as a truly dreich day. The skies were grey and leaden and I like how Raven capitalised on that dreariness when it comes to both the photographs and the editing. I am really grateful to Raven for his photographs. 

Photograph by Raven

I am especially happy with my make-up this day. I did deep purplish red lipstick fading out concealer close to my skin tone for an effect I have seen done beautifully both on humans and on well-painted art dolls. I think I could have done even better had I made my lips dewy with some gloss, but as it stands, it still seems quite successful to me. I think I was a tad heavy-handed with blusher and contouring, but I am still new to it. The eye-shadow was in shimmery pinks - a completely alien concept to me - and I was aiming for a look that was somewhere between natural and a bit fey. 

Photograph by Raven

I really enjoy dressing in Ouji and Aristocrat fashion - with a Gothic take on such things, of course! Most of this outfit was second-hand; the trousers are from Primark originally, and I bought them in a charity shop for £2, the pirate boots were bought secondhand on eBay, the waistcoat is vintage Marks & Spencer and I bought it secondhand on eBay, the blouse is from ZanZea and was a Christmas/Solstice present from Raven - as was the cane (which comes in useful, what with my coordination disorder), and the only things I bought new were the necklace and the gloves, both from Claire's and the Jabot. The jabot I bought earlier this year, and I know I ordered it online, but I've actually forgotten where. I have a feeling it's handmade and either from Etsy or Ebay. 

Androgynous Aristocrat

It would, if you went by how I dressed in most of my blog posts, be an easy assumption to make that I am always very "feminine" by the traditional gendering of fashion. While I always love frills, I don't always go for skirts, corsets, long hair, and usual staples. I am actually quite fond of a more "tomboyish" or "androgynous" version of Romantic Goth fashion.  I love brocade trousers, waistcoats 'vests' to my American readers), frock-coats, pirate boots and ruffled shirts - the branch of Romantic Goth fashion that is derived from historical male fashion. It was not a very big step from that point to become interested in the fashion worn by the more Gothic-looking Visual Kei bands, Aristocrat fashion, and Ouji; the same aesthetic inspirations coming through in Japanese alternative cultures. There is a great overlap between Romantic Goth fashion and the Gothic Japanese street-fashions, and as I am someone that basically likes things that are frilly, anachronistically inspired and Gothic, I draw from both and mix and match. 

Selfies by HouseCat

I quite like looking somewhat androgynous. Since my late teens I have been quite curvy, which is not the most androgynous-looking shape, but I try and choose cuts and underwear that will to some degree make it less immediately apparent. I like playing with that androgyny because I don't actually see gender (the psycho-social aspect) as part of my identity. I have no particular dysphoria about my sex; I just see it as utterly irrelevant to who I am as a person, and not really part of my identity as a person on any fundamental level. but the rest of the world does not work like that; for as long as I can remember, I have had others try and define me and their expectations of me according to my sex and gender. This is one way I like play with, and try subverting those societal categories. 

Selfies by HouseCat

Being heavily made-up is probably a strange choice when deliberately aiming for androgynous, but the appearance I am seeking is something akin to more everyday, casual version of the styles worn by members of bands like Versailles Philharmonic Quintet, Moi-Dix-Mois, or Blood, and a little bit of Dave Vanian, Peter Murphy, David Bowie and maybe a small hint of Sharon Needles. I love seeing make-up on Goths and Gothic types of all sexes and genders. I think I end up looking more like an older teenage boy than a woman in her late 20's! I have a relatively angular face, which is useful in that regard. Any advice on make-up techniques like contouring to try and achieve this sort of look would be greatly appreciated.

Selfies By HouseCat

I wish I could post a full-body photograph of this outfit. I am wearing a long pirate-style coat by Dark Star which originally belonged to Raven, but as he began to bulk out more, it no longer fitted him, so I ended up with it and had it tailored to fit me a bit better. I had black brocade trousers on, and knee-high pirate boots. That is not my real hair, of course (that is still turquoise for now); it is a wig that was originally Raven's but I end up borrowing it far more than he ever wears it! I will try and get more photographs of me in Ouji and Aristocrat and whatever the Western equivalent in Romantic Goth fashion would be called. 

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!