Fernopaa at Studio Alta Shinjuku, Amihamu, Spiked collar & cuffs

Last November when in Tokyo, I visited Fernopaa for the first time in Studio Alta Shinjuku – see my post “New Rock Gyaru store FERNOPAA

Well, returning this time, I found the gorgeous Amihamu there, seen here with me, and the store layout much as it was…but with a BIG Halloween theme (as seen everywhere in Tokyo)

me with Amihamu from Fernopaa, Shinjuku

And even better is the photo of both the beautiful shopstaff:

Fernopaa girls Amihamu

On my first visit this time I saw a great black spiked bra that’d be fab for clubbing, but when I went back, it was sold out! I grabbed a spiked black satin collar instead:

spiked collar from Fernopaa

If the tag and lettering remind you of tutuHA, aparently the designer of  tutuHA is now the Fernopaa designer, and hence the name change to Glavil by tutuHA. (And btw, there is now a pre-order Glavil by tutuHA page on Facebook – go check it out!)

Last year I bought a pair of exquisite cuffs that are modelled on the human spine, that I failed to post before now:

spine jewellery from Fernopaa

So you can see from the pics that Fernopaa is very much a rock gyaru store, with a lot of gothic crossover. Although there remain certain elements I wouldn’t wear in the store (like the babydoll dresses, hotpants etc), there are a lot of items I would buy and wear. The accessories especially, are right up my goth-rock alley!

For more info and inspiration, see the following links:

Fernopaa Official Shop Blog

Fernopaa Snaap (pics of shopstaff & customers)

Ami’s Blog

Fernopaa Tumblr

There are a lot of tumblrs dedicated to gyaru fashion, shopstaff style and Amihamu in particular, that could keep you browsing for hours! Let me know what your faves are, along with shop staff blogs you like the most.

Gothic Lolita hair & skull print dress

On Saturday night I attended a Haunted Housewarming with a dresscode that said ghouls, ghosts and old school goths.  I decided to try out the Gothic Lolita Hair Rope I bought in Marui One recently, to get that spiky goth/anime look.

Just what is gothic lolita hair rope, I hear you ask? See exhibit A, at left. It is hair attached to a central cord, which you then drape or wrap around your buns, to get that messy updo look. I also bought some that had curly hair instead of the straight, which gives a sweeter,  more wavy/curly ladylike look.

Prisila, a company which has the charming catchphrase “No wig, no life” (teehee),  offers a huge range of wigs, hairpieces, fringes, buns, hairbows and accessories for every lolita, gyaru and Japanese fashion enthusiast.  They have stores in various places in japan, but Marui One in Shinjuku is a very central one.

Check out the website as there is so much there to drool over (hint: use google translate, if, like me, you can’t read japanese).

So, back to the product. How do you use it? Basically, you put your hair into ponytails, wrap your hair around itself into buns, then take each rope and wind itself around each bun. I started off in the middle of the rope, winding both ends around the bun and crossing them over each time, securing with pins as I went. Then when finished I just teased out a bit more for an artfully messy look and hairsprayed the ‘do.

Anyway, enough of the explaining; here’s the result:

As you can see, it is a little Robert Smith/the Cure like. Great on a hot summer night when you just have to have your hair up.  Bones hairclips just add to the old-schoolness of the look. Of course, I should dye my fringe a darker blue/purple to match, which I now have 🙂

I will also include the ubiquitous cab-cam shot, showcasing the circle lenses (CircleLens2U), and cobweb fake lashes (from La Foret). The outfit shot displays the fab skull dress I snaffled at Studio Alta on my last day in Tokyo, worn with a gothic lolita skirt and Deadlygirlz corset.

Only today did I discover that Prisila have a great “how to” page with lots of helpful videos. Here’s the one using the curly rope wig with a single bun:

And the dress? It is from Aleara by JurianoJurrie, which is on level 2 of Studio Alta.  The  Aleara brand is more gothic, sexy and underground style (so they say), with lots of black, white and red. Another one I wasn’t aware of previously, although the JJ brand is well known, being featured often in Jelly and Nuts.

The dress can be purchased here, and below is the dress on a lither model. It also comes in the off-white with black print, and as you can see, looks good buttoned up so the ruffle shows.

More new brands and purchases to come!

New Rock Gyaru store FERNOPAA

On this most recent Tokyo trip, I discovered a new gyaru store in Studio Alta on the 5th floor, called Fernopaa.  How exciting!

It stood out to me immediately, amidst other retro/bland stores, on account of its rock/glam look – very much like tutuHa. There were lots of spikes and skulls, crosses, metallics, leopard print, stripes, black, splashes of red and fuschia, cool hats..all the things I love 🙂 I really like that there are totally wearable items in there, alongside over-the-top, costumey, for clubs and parties type wear.  For my money, there is more here for the average girl to wear than in tutuHa. But enough babbling, see the store:

This one is not my pic…it shows the store’s layout quite nicely.

The glamorous girls in the store looked familiar…and it turns out they’re ex-tutuHa themselves! Unlike some stores, the girls not only welcome photos, but they take pics of you for their microblog Fernopaasnaap!  I went there in the first few days of my trip, and returned on my very last day to get some more goodies 🙂 The day I last shopped, unfortunately I had no make-up, lenses or lashes on and looked disgusting, but  agreed to pics (oh, I could DIE!).   But it was so cool that they recognised me when I returned and made a big fuss. Anyway, here’s the link to when I was in the Fernopaa store on November 21st.  And here are my photos:

Ami, Morimayu and Yanitan (??) The 2 on the left are so doll-like! The third is very streetwear rock. Ami always wears the pirate hat and Morimayu the tall marching band hat.

I bought some fab wristlets  in the shape of spines, and a new eyeball ring (also just seen on the khaki-clad mannequin)…but I’ll show you these in an upcoming outfit post!

I noticed that gorgeous gal blogger Woxje has done a post introducing Fernopaa too!  She also gives links to the shop girls blogs, so take a look.

All in all, Fernopaa is a real addition to the gyaru fashion scene. If non-gyaru girls like me love it, I can only imagine that gals will flip! Hopefully a webstore will be coming soon…and maybe a shop in 109 one day? Who knows?

Fukubukuro pictures, Part 2

Now I’m back home and can upload pics from my Sony, here are some more pictures from January 2nd – the day the New Years lucky bags go on sale in Japan.

The excellent site Tokyo Fashion has already done 3 fab articles with loads of photos on Fukubukuro here, here and here.

As for me, I went to Marui One first, as I wanted to get gothic gear. I was there about 10.30 but there was no queue out the door or anything. It was only when I got inside that I saw masses of people looking at the sales and the various bags. Here’s a quick pic I took on my way out:

I was there primarily for the shopping, not to take pictures, so there weren’t that many. After all, I had THREE major centres to hit! I passed Studio Alta around midday also, and there weren’t too many girls out the front, although it was very crowded inside. Many had the rolling pink floral cases by Liz Lisa, I noticed.

Had I but known, I should’ve just stayed there, as between Alta and Lumine Est, most of the major gal brands are covered, and I wouldn’t have been swept along in the seething mass of people that was Shibuya 109. But, to Shibuya I went.

It didn’t look too bad from far away…

 

But you could only see the madness when you got up close!

Everywhere were people jostling, clutching multiple lucky bags…some TV company was even filming it, as you can just see here…

lucky bags Shibuya 109

gyaru lucky bags Shibuya 109

lucky bags Shibuya 109

You can see the familiar brand names Cecil McBee, Vanquish, Ank Rouge, Rose FanFan, JSG, and one that might be Manalove…everywhere girls were opening their packs and swapping with girlfriends nearby (as items are not always the same, even in bags from the same brand).  I took these pics as I was carried along by the crowd. Once inside it was little better; again the crowd just surged along taking you with it like a raging torrent, and you had to try to get out of the crowd to enter a shop you liked. One – Emoda – had quite a queue to even get in the store, such was its popularity. And then there were the queues at the tills.

I decided just to buy particular pieces I liked rather than lucky bags, as I’d already bought 2 naoto bags in the morning, and the ones where I could see the contents, were not that appealing to me.

I then went to Harajuku, visiting La Foret for the the gothic punk underground floors, before proceeding along the street past Forever 21, where you can see girls spruiking the bags outside:

 

Here’s what they sounded like: Girls at Harajuku Forever 21 spruiking lucky bags

And here’s how slow it was walking in the crowd from La Foret to Takeshita Street: Harajuku on fukubukuro day, Jan 2

Takeshita Street was, of course, crowded to the max as well:

SO great were the crowds out that day, that as I was waiting for the Yamanote line train back to Shinjuku, a very strange thing happened: the  trains stopped to let people OFF on the other side, but wouldn’t let people ON.  This just doesn’t happen on a normal day, no matter how busy. Two trains passed in this way, and I despaired of ever getting home, when a third train finally arrived and actually opened its doors to the ravening hordes. PHEW!

Gyaru brand haul from Tokyo New Year sales

So now we move on to the more gyaru purchases I’ve made lately…although this first item I bought, the fox tail, was bought in the gothic top floors of Marui One, as were the tights . The black fluffy faux-fur legwarmers were from Intesucre, a chain which has stores everywhere.

 

My faves are coming up, however.  I bought a funky long jumper wit a big skull on the front in sequins from Durer, which I wore all yesterday.

 

My absolute fave is this gorgeous leopard double-breasted trenchcoat from Cecil McBee. I also got a cute military style vest in a soft grey knit (only 1000 yen) from SwordFish, a brand I’m coming to like more.

 

On the accessories front, though I tried on those Russian style fur hats, they just swamped me, so I got this animal print spotted beret in soft angora….and these glorious boots o’ doom from R & E!

 

Whatcha think, y’all?? Sexy as hell, these…even tho I won’t be wearing them in Sydney until June/July!

Now, in my travels around the various gal stores, I’m becoming quite enamoured of some brands at the rock-chick end of the spectrum – Taboo wth its skulls & crosses and Twisty (acessories) being 2 that remind me of tutuHA. I really liked Emoda, but unfortunately the great abstract print peggings were not in my size.

I originally wanted the Lip Service leopard coat, but the only one I could find, in Lumine Est, was too small. At 109, no leopard ones were left. However, I ducked into Cecil Mcbee in the Shinjuku subnade and nabbed the last leopard coat on the rack – and glory be, it fitted!

I’ve realised that Studio Alta is almost as good as 109, despite lacking a tutuHA shop, and it’s less crowded. It’s here that I’ll return before I leave for any last minute purchases.

Where do you like to shop when you’re in Tokyo, or where would you like to? Which of these items do you heart best?