Peace Now, Inc.
Last month, Japanese fashion brand Peace Now, Inc. (Peace Now, Black Peace Now, Black Peace Now for Men, Gadget Grow) filed for bankruptcy. I’m sure you heard about this already, but it was very unexpected to see one of my favorite brands close its doors.
Peace Now/BPN had such a very nice variety of designs ranging from very casual and punk to very elegant and formal. My favorite elements of BPN clothing are the asymmetric cuts and use of chiffon. Their shoe designs were very unique, too. Perhaps it was too much of a variety though. Some items had questionable quality and not worth the retail price, but others were amazingly constructed and definitely worth the price. Their main webshop did not offer international shipping nor list have every item available in stores. The webshop only listed a handful of pieces from the latest collection and only stocked 1-5 pieces of each. Restocking was also very inconsistent. Overall, BPN was very hit or miss.
The Japanese store closures were very sudden. I haven’t seen any mention of store closing sales, so I’m not sure where the remaining stocks went. Peace Now USA still has some stock left, but after it’s sold out, that’s it! You can definitely still find a lot of their items secondhand in places such as egl_comm_sales, mbok, and yahoo!japan. The demand for Maybe one day one of the designers will come back as a different label like Banana Fish returned as Black MiQuri.
h.NAOTO San Fransisco
h.NAOTO‘s physical store located in San Fransisco also closed its doors. h.NAOTO will still continue operations in the US such as visiting conventions. You can still order items through the international webshop.
Baby the Stars Shine Bright San Francisco
Finally, there is some good news! After being open for 3 years, BtSSB San Fransisco has finally opened a webshop! It’s definitely more convenient than having to ask about their stock through e-mail or facebook messaging.
Frill By Affrilliation – A Japanese Fashion Convention
Frill By Affrilliation is the USA’s very first lolita and Japanese fashion convention. 2013 will be con’s second year and they’ve added a lot more programming. Currently, they are looking for a princely gentleman model, so if you’re around or can head to Atlanta, Georgia, check it out! See the details over on this post. They have added a Cravat Club this year, so they are definitely trying to cater more to the ouji and aristocrat crowd. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend, but I look forward to seeing how it goes!
Lolita Vietnam
Lolita Vietnam has also contacted me saying they wish to translate my blog. It will soon be available in Spanish and Vietnamese now! If you would like to translate this blog into any other languages, feel free to contact me. I definitely want to spread the ouji appreciation around the world, so please look forward for my future posts!!
