2024 is over. The year went by pretty quickly for me, oddly enough. I had spent a little less time on the computer, so I was struggling to update the blog as often. Even though I was quieter on the digital side, I think I accomplished and experienced a lot of lolita fashion related events!
Events
Starting at the beginning of the year, I attended the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright fashion show at New York Fashion Week! When I received the invite, I booked a plane ticket as soon as I could. It was certainly a surprise. Attending NYFW was not something I ever fathomed experiencing for myself.
On that same weekend in New York, I got to finally visit a Sebastian Masuda concept! He designed the interior of Sushidelic, a colorful sushi restaurant in NYC. It was really delicious, especially for being a themed restaurant. I’m still working on the post for it, so look forward to it!
In August/September, I attended the dual event of Okashicon at San Japan. It’s always great to support Okashicon since it is currently the largest J-fashion oriented event in Texas. Okashicon 2024 hosted Metamorphose as their fashion guest from Japan. During the convention, I was working at Fake Star’s Atelier Pierrot/Hyper Core/Gloomy Bear booth. To my surprise, Gloomy Bear is back. Trends really do come in cycles.
In October/November, I finally visited Japan again! The last time I was able to go was in 2020, so 4 years had passed. This visit marked my 4th visit overall and I actually packed lolita clothes to wear. I only wore ouji on previous visits, so packing a petticoat was pretty annoying. It worked out though! We had lunch with Royal Princess Alice’s designer one day. I met Chiitan on another day. We also met up with Connie for a little bit. More things happened on the trip, but I’ll save it for the future posts.
In December, I went to San Francisco for the first time. Finally, after 15 years it has been open, I stepped foot into the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright San Francisco shop! I also stopped by Angelic Pretty USA and Harajuku Hearts. We also had brunch with some of the Bay Area Kei staff. It was great to finally meet people I’ve been following for years and to make some new friends.
Throughout the year, I hosted 2 in-person closet sales in Houston and Dallas. 3 if you count the swap meet in San Antonio. I’ve been a little lazy to list items for sale online, so these in-person sales have been great to move stuff out of my closet.
Overall, I traveled more than my average amount this year.
General Happenings
My closet slowly grew, I think. I haven’t made a wardrobe in quite a few years, but I think it increased a little bit even with selling some stuff. After playing Like a Dragon: Ishin, it unlocked my desires of being a samurai; I finally started buying wa pieces. I also discovered the brands Sou Sou and Misamaru which have been nice additions to my J-fashion closet.
I’m still archiving things over on Lolibrary. We’ve had a lot more submissions this year, so processing them has taken quite a bit of time and patience. I expect to keep doing that.
Since Twitter is taking a nose dive, I also made a Bluesky account @buttcape.stephano.me. The only annoying thing is that I’ve been stuck with an invalid handle for awhile. I’m still on Twitter though if you would like to follow there @buttcape.
Not much has changed. Looking forward to 2025!
