The Great Lace Recap: Journey to Chicago

The Great Lace was a J-fashion event that took place March 29-30, 2025 in Chicago, IL.

I first took notice of The Great Lace’s advertising in 2023 because I was surprised they started marketing the event so early. It has been awhile since the US has had a major lolita fashion event of a grand scale. The venue looked nice and my brother moved to Chicago recently, so I decided pretty last minute to attend! It was my first time visiting Chicago and the Midwest in general.

Day 0: Houston to Chicago

We landed on Friday and decided to chill with my brother on this day since I wasn’t sure if how long things at the event would take. I was reunited with my niece Sushi and met my nephew Soba for the first time!

If you’re a Chicago local, he runs Homebody, a matcha pop-up concept, so make sure to try his stuff. I was his inspo for getting into matcha, hehe.

There were a few foods I was interested in eating. Pizza isn’t really my thing, but y’know that’s what Chicago is known for. I’m not into pie either, so the idea of a deep dish pizza really didn’t appeal to me. My brother hyped up Pizz’amici for tavern style pizza. Tavern style is apparently what real locals eat. Well, it was really good! I like thing crust pizza better in general, so tavern style was perfect. The crust was somehow still crunchy even with all of those toppings on. Pizz’amici, you will be remembered.

After having dinner with my brother and his friends, we checked into the Palmer House hotel and picked up our badges. The art for the main promotional illustration by Katie Goldberg was really beautiful!

We were impressed with how large the hotel was on our first walkthrough. There were so many hallways and rooms. We don’t really have a hotel of this scale in Houston to compare to.

Day 1: The Great Lace Begins

We woke up incredibly early to try a local cafe before the day’s festivities began. We ended up at Metric Coffee and ordered a cortado and a flat white. One of the baristas also happened to be from our area of Houston. What a small world.

Now back to the Palmer House. There was quite a line to get into the vendors hall.

When I got inside, I immediately headed over to the Neant Glass table hoping to get one of the new brooches.

Of course, I was way too slow to get one. But it was finally nice to meet Kei in person! Her coords are always so cool.

The vendors hall was filled to the brim with booths and attendees.

Dandy Puppeteer’s designs are always so fun. They had samples of their Carnival Puppet collection on display. I like the stripes.

Iris wore the new Haenuli x Atelier Pierrot collaboration dress since Atelier Pierrot was also a guest. I remember watching their collaboration come into fruition at one of the tea parties back in Texas a few years earlier!

The Black Ribbon table had a variety of goods and familiar faces.

Some attendee snaps as well!

Mossbadger also let me hold an EGL relic. I can’t believe I laid eyes on the infamous Dearie biscuit brooch. Even to this day, I don’t think Dearie did anything wrong.

After a quick walk through the vendor room, we proceeded to scope out the room for the fashion show early.

They had a four string quartet for the runway music which was so elegant!

I ended up taking some extra photos for Atelier Pierrot.

The attendees quickly filled the room and the fashion show featuring Atelier Pierrot, RinRin Doll, and Harajuku Hearts commenced. You can see my runway photos in the posts below!

For the last event of the night, we attended the Atelier Pierrot panel about manufacturing lolita fashion in Japan. A full house of attendees also came to watch.

We planned a Mini Corset Dress group, too!

After the panel, we ended up meeting my brother and co. at Tortello for pasta. We also ended up getting ice cream at Margie’s Candies. It was totally unplanned, but we ended up at a lot of places featured on The Bear which I thought was funny.

Day 2: Swap Meet & Tea Party

Day 2 of the event started with a quick breakfast down the street. We took a short walk to the bean since it was nearby! I always wanted to see the Cloud Gate. We have the Cloud Column (what I call the “rice grain”) in Houston, but it’s not as fun as the bean.

After sightseeing, we returned to the venue and briefly glanced around the swap meet.

in the next room over, RinRin Doll was conducting a meet & greet session and signing. My friend Ann got an autograph and photo with RinRin.

Then it was time for the major event of the day, the tea party. The tea party was huge with over 300 lolitas attending! I took as many attendee snaps as I physically could! See them in my tea party report post.

I also remembered to get photos with people! I always seem to forget at big events, but not this time.

By the end of the tea party, my feet were so dead. It was a lovely time getting to see new and old faces in the lolita community! By far, The Great Lace was the largest fashion event I had ever attended!

Although I was not able to attend The Great Lace 2026, I hope one day I will attend this lovely event again! Until next time, Chicago!

Read more about The Great Lace

Atelier Pierrot Fashion Show

Harajuku Hearts Fashion Show

The Great Lace Tea Party Report

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