It’s been a while since my last outfit post, so here are some gothic outfits I’ve worn to recent events, along with my funky contact lenses!
Gothic Military outfit of the day; Takuya Angel; Kabukicho parties; leopard lenses
January 17, 2011 by
I had a packed Wednesday the week before last: first I met Hana of Finding Tokyo in Harajuku (post and pics of purikura coming up), then I visited Ryo at the Sexpot Revenge store (post and pics coming up), then I bought some gorgeous coats at Closet Child (post and pics…you get the message), visited Takuya Angel at his newly redesigned store, and then later met up with Takuya at a gig/party in Kabukicho.
To backtrack a little…the Takuya Angel store is now about half the size it was. You can enter it directly from the side stairs (and through a short corridor, knocking on the door to check it’s open), or through the rockabilly store in front. I didn’t take photos when I went as it really is quite small and there were 5 or 6 people in there, one of whom was trying on clothes and getting the others’ opinions.
Takuya said he was DJing at a friend’s party/gig in Kabukicho…just around the corner from my hotel, as it happened! He said he was playing til 10pm and we should go for drinks after. Cool!
I went home and chilled a bit, then threw on my Gallery Serpentine corset, my years-old Lip Service Jacket in the fabulous Napoleonic military style (one of my all time faves), along with some gothy make-up and my piercing blue leopard print contact lenses.
The jacket you can see best in the photo to the left, but below shows the lenses better. I got them from Colourvue. I’ve also recently started wearing orange blush, as seen on some gyaru models – I like that it’s slightly unnatural, but still gives a healthy glow. The blusher is a very intense orange one I picked up at Okadaya – brand is Nyx – and I’ll write more on this and the dazzling range of coloured glitter shadows they offer. The pinky-purple lipstick is Airborne Unicorn from Lime Crime (also one my my all time faves!)
There was such a cosy feel in my hotel room at Hotel Vintage, and you get that in this photo, I think. (BTW, I recommend this as a great place to stay in Shinjuku. The rooms aren’t big, but they are spotless, there’s a non-smoking floor, 24 hr reception, in-room LAN internet access, and it’s in the heart of Love Hotels and Host Clubs, Kabukicho).
After a short time of waiting outside Wizard 7 – a host club – and watching one of the boys practicing his ballroom dancing moves, I plucked up the courage to ask if they knew where the party with the DJ was. Next building – ah.
The event had had a number of bands playing, and I saw quite a few pretty alternative looking boys packing up drum kits and taking out guitar cases to their vans. Maybe I should have got there for the gig itself. Never mind :/
The event was a birthday party for an art director who was turning 29 – “you are YOUNG!” I told him, to his smiles. After all, I’m more than a decade past that date, and my life’s pretty good, so I knew not to be scared of hitting 30. He’s on my left, below.
To my delight, Mee was also there. She’s a friend of Takuya Angel’s who always wears his clothing (and who you saw in my post on celebrating Hanabi with Takuya Angel, although she had pink hair then). She’s a walking advertisement, you might say. She’s a lovely girl, although she has little English and I little Japanese. Seeing that her red Takuya bear claws matched my hair, she threw them around me for this pic:
And then a group shot by the bar was in order:
So if you drop by to say hi to a friend, you never know where you’ll end up that night! I dragged myself away around 1ish, as I was meeting Valerie of Tokyo Arts factory the next day, and visiting a heap of stores in Shibuya. But it was another colourful and unplanned night, as often happens in the great city that is Tokyo 🙂
Christon Cafe, Shinjuku – a great place to eat; skull contact lenses
January 15, 2011 by
Though my visit to Tokyo was short this time around, I still managed to meet up with a few friends and check out some great places.
Christon Cafe in Shinjuku was the restaurant agreed upon by myself, and friends Jab and Suzanne (of whom you’ll have seen lots of photos if you follow the Decadance Bar and gothic scene in Tokyo).
Since Jab is renowned for always wearing his black sclera lenses, I decided to break out my skull lenses to match him. Cool, no? They have red eyes, and the little skelly smile underneath the pupil emulates the teary/watery effect I’ve seen in some circle lenses. I wore my grey vintage faux fur coat and turband (a great fix if you can’t be bothered straightening your fringe).
I wasn’t sure about Christon Cafe when Jab first suggested it, as I’d been to the Shibuya one and found the portions to be small and the prices large. But I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised!
As Christon is the location for the Tokyo Decadance parties, I’ve been here many times before – but only to walk through. For those who haven’t been, it’s filled with medieval religious icons and statues, with great Byzantine style chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
There are also some old refectory type tables and comfy booths, off in the section with the black walls where we sat, which was also adorned with chandeliers and religious items:
I’d never really looked around, or noticed the lovely olde-worlde books/menus they have. The ‘Epicurean Bible’ above was the menu, and I like the quote they used on the drinks menu from Isaiah 56:12
“Come,” they say, “let me get wine;
let us fill ourselves with strong drink;
and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure”
Now to decide on the food….I quite liked the Chef’s Recommendation – Cheese with the Bible Toast (sic)
Here’s the Prince of Darkness with the gorgeous table menu, shaped like cathedral windows:
A little appetiser was placed on the table while we deliberated….a kind of waffle cone filled with cream cheese, sultanas, flaked almonds and a rose petal.
There was a sinful gnocchi with mushroom and tomato in a cream sauce, and beef carpaccio
We also ordered a raw tuna and avocado salad, which came with a big crispy triangular structure on top…and an upside down cross on one side.
Then there were creamy croquettes on pumpkin mash, and a lamb dish which didn’t need the sweet chilli sauce on it. Jab mused that perhaps Japanese don’t like the strong taste of lamb, and sought to mask it. Who knows?
And here are the diners themselves, seated in our cosy booths:
After dinner we headed to the Golden Gai, where unfortunately, my fave punk bar “Hair of the Dogs” was closed due to Tohru being sick. So, we went instead to the delightful “Bar Albatross” for a few bevvies. All in all, a lovely night in great surroundings with fabulous people.
My lenses were from Colorvue, and my lashes were from Okadaya, though I’m not sure if they were Diamond Lashes or DUP.
Steampunk Club Night – Steamengine IX
May 5, 2010 by
Last Friday night was Steamengine IX, a Steampunk club night held at the Red Rattler in Marrickville Sydney.
To be honest, I didn’t get there til after 11pm, so missed the fashion shows, cabaret, burlesque and piercing display. But I got some cool tunes from the DJs, a bit of atmos, a fun time chatting to fellow steamers…and a goody bag for best dressed female!
People were not all dressed strictly steampunk (some were goths), but there was a lot of colour and creative dressing, which I liked. We heard the sounds of Abney Park, Dr Steele, Voltaire and more from the DJs, and the band Cybridian, who played last.
Without further ado, here are some pics of the night.
Voila the main organiser, Sharon (of the “In Visible Light” store on Enmore Rd, Enmore), and co-host for the night, Luke
Me with some o’ the lads
Stunning Matt Bylett rubber corset below left. Matt is a Sydney based designer whose work you’ll have seen in Farscape and Xena – yes, really! (I must feature him soon)
The insane clown posse?
Some cool looking guys, up to no good…
There were gorgeous red velvet chairs upon which some airship pirates lounged
Some ladies in colour…one a lolita!
There was a lot of red and black…
Do ya wanna see my Frye button boots? I think you do. But first, the overall outfit. Note my lovely vintage looking hatbox under the chair, that served as my handbag.
Finally, a few close-ups of make-up – me and the delightful clown Hexy
I wore odd crazy lenses and Takuya Angel eyelashes.
If you’re coming to Sydney and want to see if it’s on, check out the Steamengine IX facebook page. It’s a hoot! Theme for the next one is Airship Pirate, so I’ll be getting out of my ladylike attire and into my breeches, leather harness, distressed aviators cap, leather gloves and accessories…and goggles!
Singapore’s Heart of Darkness
April 8, 2010 by
Possibly the friendliest goth club in the world. That would be “Heart of Darkness”, held by the Singapore Dark Alternative Movement.
Saturday night was a special edition for easter, a deathrock night called “Bloody Fool”, and we would’ve been bloody fools to miss it 🙂 It was held in a venue in Carpenter St near Clarke Quay, at a club called Six.
We’d just walked in and got a big smile from a guy with tattoo’d face – he turned out to be one of the dj’s. We walked to the bar to order a drink and the organiser Saito Nagasaki came up to greet us. Noice!
Then others came up, and we chatted, and we met more than half the club by the time we left. Saito is 2nd from the left in this pic, and he has been organising clubs for years, since the time he lived in Perth and ran the club “Outbreed”.
I’d meet one person, and go off and dance to Bauhaus, and I’d look back and see that someone had gone to talk to Dom. So friendly, they didn’t want him to be on his own. Such manners could surely be used in our western clubs, yanno?
Yes, he’s a kind of scary clown, is the one below, Dalsix.
Except HE was the one scared by Eldred, who kept mock-raping him in the corner – funny indeed. Eldred is the one who designs the graphics and posters, and he’s a very talented illustrator, actually. I said he should post his work on Deviant Art or similar.
But sometimes Dalsix strikes back…
But it wasn’t all shenanigans and hi-jinx. Oh no! There was a superb selection of deathrock played, and some up-tempo, non-deathrock tunes played when requested. There was Morrissey, Buzzcocks, X-Ray Spex, and some EBM as well.
The eye opener for me was learning that Singapore is somewhat of a police state, and alternative people get leaned on and hindered, if not threatened, from running the events they want. One person described how the police wanted him to manufacture evidence and say that some tattoo’d guy they didn’t like had done something wrong, so they could lock him up. Our alternative friend refused.
The goth/alternative scene and its people are misunderstood everywhere, but in asia, there are even more pressures that we in Australia, for example, just don’t face. We know about China, we know about Burma, but there is more that we don’t know.
But back to the fun and larfs. I already mentioned how fab the people were, and Dom and I had a great time meeting people and chatting with them. But there were other highlights. There were lovely ladies in bondage:
men in silly hats…
and DJ’s – this is DJ Ghoul, from the Netherlands. Saito was also a DJ, as was Mentor.
If you’re ever in Singapore and into gothic, industrial or ebm you really must set aside a Saturday night to check out the Heart of Darkness. It was small but awesome.
Date: first Saturday of each month
Time: 9pm – 3 am (but it actually went much later – I think we got to bed at 5?)
Venue: NOVA SAFRA Gamehaven, 29 Carpenter Street #06-00
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