Dolly Kei in Shinjuku; Grimoire and Tarock at Merry Go Land

Saturday saw me heading off to Lumine Est and the new Rooftop Garden for Merry Go Land. The attraction? Checking out fashion, of course! Merry Go Land was a fashion event organised by HP France, which sponsors quite a few fashion stores. See the list of participating stores here:

MGL was a way to showcase the fashion in a fun garden atmosphere (it was meant to be like an amusement funpark, but it didn’t quite come off!) There were DJ’s all day and night lending ambience, and I especially enjoyed the ska music played by the afternoon DJ.

In particular I wanted to visit the Grimoire and Tarock bods (and was gratified that they remembered me). Grimoire needs almost no introduction these days (see my post on Grimoire  here), but Tarock is not as well known. In a similar vein, it also showcases vintage clothes and objects from Europe and the US that have an olde worlde feel. See the tarock website, and the Tokyo Shop Style page for more info.

Here is the Tarock stall at Merry Go Land, which had a dolly kei styled mannequin out front.

But what you really want to see is the Grimoire stall and staff, right? Here are Hitomi and Marie (website co-ordinator)

They had an intricate display of their flower corsages and brooches, set amongst old antique books and globes, ram’s horns, doll’s heads, feathers, photo frames and foliage. I bought one of the flower hairclips, and later added it to a headband I’d bought at Forever 21 (shh!)

Owner Naoaki Tobe (seen here with me to the right) is responsible for the displays – he is SUCH a cool dude!

Green-haired Heri wore her usual array of multi-layered clothes and neck ornaments.

But back to the displays…. there were gorgeous dresses in sepia shades, with lace and tassles, chains and objects d ‘art….

and a stunning black dress with purples, blues and browns interwoven – I adore this one…

Daytime was for shopping, but night-time was for schmoozing and seeing the fashion shows, so I went back later, wearing a blue leopard dress I’d bought at Icon, and the Grimoire flowers converted into a fascinator.

I hung with Marie and her friends for a bit. Marie is absolutely lovely, and is working on the Grimoire online webstore.

The sheer number of out-there hipsters who turned up at night (as well as more Dolly Kei afficionados) kept our heads swivelling and cameras flashing, and really needs a post all its own. More cool pics and people coming up! Here are the Ridsnap pics of the night.