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Custom Wedding Dress & Kimono Upcycled Clothes | オーダーメイドウェディングドレス&着物ドレス

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every day life

Pictures from the Craft Fair

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Here are some photos from the Oakwood Holiday Craft Fair that I participated in last Saturday! It was held at a gorgeous private residence in Roppongi, Tokyo. The downstairs of the condo had a lounge space with a bar, and that’s where the fair was. Just out of curiosity, I checked out the rent price of an apartment in this place. Guess how much? 980,000yen (12,000 USD) and up per month.

Since I did not have time to make new items, I just brought everything I had in stock. I was a bit worried whether my shop will look mish mashed and not cohesive,but after sorting out the clothes by color, I think they looked okay!

Cute squishy toys made out of reclaimed fabrics! I wanted to get the piggy one for Kiko!

Pretty Jewelries from Kanaru Designs.

 

Ceramic candle holders from Flat Packables. I took the blue one home with me.

Overall, it was a great fair, fun time, good opportunity to meet other etsy sellers in Japan. I’ve sold as a vendor at craft fairs in the past both in the U.S. and Japan. I always find myself exhausted after these kind of fairs because it takes all day and usually requires a lot of prep. Surprisingly, this time, the fair was only for 4 hours (from 12pm to 4pm), so it was not as tiring as other fairs I experienced in the past and required almost no prep. My husband, baby and mom came to cheer me on and keep me company:)

Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all – I love cooking the big meal, sitting on the couch enjoying the smell while the turkey cooks in the oven, relaxing, taking a nap (turkey makes you sleepy!), and having people over. This year we celebrated it on Saturday instead of Thursday, since we don’t have a Thanksgiving holiday in Japan and everyone had work. Turkeys do not get eaten often in Japan, and regular grocery stores don’t carry them, but I was able to buy a whole turkey at Costco 🙂 We had about 15 people over that day, and had a great time! How was your Thanksgiving?

 

Nippori Collection 2011

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If you are a regular reader here, I’m sure you’ve heard me mention　”Nippori” a lot. That’s where the wholesale fabric district in Tokyo. Many of the stores sell fabrics at wholesale prices, but have been made available for regular customers. I strongly recommend stopping by there if you have a chance to visit Japan.

Anyway, while shopping there, I saw a poster about the Nippori Fashion Design Contest, where armature designers submit their designs for a runway show competition. It’s like a one-time Project Runway contest. This year’s theme was “street wear”. By the time I saw the poster, the submission due date had been passed so I couldn’t enter, but there were tickets available to see the final contestants’ designs on  a run way type of show. So I asked for a pass, and I got one:)

Last Wednesday was the show. I asked Zhing from Little Projects in Style to go to the show together and she agreed 🙂

Here is Zhing…

I was so impressed by the drawings! These were the contestants who were selected out of 1000+ people who applied.  I really need to learn how to put my designs on paper. Can anyone recommend a good website or book(s) where I can learn this?

Lot of creative & innovative designs… Aside from the issue of whether they are actually wearable, these garments were  fun to look at, and I enjoyed learning how these designers conceived their pieces and then how they translated them to the runway.

The MC said this garment was made for pregnant women as a “protective shell” from society.

This reminds me of a clothes from the book “Pattern Magic“.

 

This is something that I would actually wear. The color and drape are beautiful. 

Reminds me of a fairy in the woods.

This was inspired by a rain drop. Cute.

The inspiration of this dress comes from Origami. Isn’t this so interesting? If this is made of some soft, drapy fabric (not a bumble bee fabric!), I think this can be wearable!

The event had two parts, one was the Nippori collection by armature designers, and the other was “Dalian collection”. Dalian is the Chinese sister city of Nippori, and the models and clothes traveled from China for the show. The models are from a model school in China, and they were pretty. However, the show itself was bad. Some of the items were poorly executed, and the presentation was bad. The plastic bra straps were showing. In one garment, the skirt slit was so high that I could see the model’s butt cheeks! Last few pieces of the Dalian show were ugly prom dresses. They were not only ugly but looked like cheap rental dresses! I wasn’t sure what that was about. I didn’t even snap any photos because they were not picture worthy..

Anyway, the event was fun, and we got to shop at fabric shops too!