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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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Karada Dakara – Dance Event

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I’m so excited to announce that a dance team I designed costumes for is having their performance this weekend, and I made their costumes! They are having 4 shows in total on 12/8 and 12/9. I will be at the 7pm show on 12/8, if you are in Tokyo and interested in coming out, please feel free to contact me at vivatveritasshop@gmail.com! The ticket costs $3,500 at the door.

It was a lot of work bringing the design that the dancer had in mind into real life, due to her need for movability and comfort, and its stage presence. The pictures above only shows the white dress, but I made some with an overskirt in red, purple and navy on top of the dresses. I made seven overskirts in one day, and didn’t have time to photograph them:(

Below is excerpt from Asahi Art Square, where the performance is.

とあるところに一つの机と二つの椅子。 向き合ってる二人。 一方はディーバで、一方はエゴというらしい。 ディーバ『さー、どこから始めようか。』 エゴ『前に一歩踏み出したい、そんな気がする。』 ディーバ『こんなのはどうだい？』 こうやって二人の会話は始まった。。。

■日時 12月8日［土］19:00開場／19:30開演、 12月9日［日］11:00開場／11:30開演、14:30開場／15:00開演、18:00開場／18:30開演

■料金 前売3,000円／当日3,500円

■住所 〒130-0001 東京都墨田区吾妻橋1-23-1 スーパードライホール 4F Tel. 090-9118-5171　E-mail: aas@arts-npo.org 10:00-18:00　＊火曜日定休

■アクセス 東京メトロ銀座線「浅草駅」4、5番出口より徒歩5分 都営地下鉄浅草線「浅草駅」A5番出口より徒歩10分、「本所吾妻橋駅」A3出口より徒歩6分 東武線「浅草駅」より徒歩6分

■出演 ［代表］秋吉朝子 ［guest dancer］cen, shin, bashi, ken（z） ［choreographer］まっつん, takabo, kaoru, 海津優子, 三田サブウェイラインズ、wired ［vocalist］SAK.,虎徹 ［drum］大津惇 ［live paint］mika kawakami ［projection］下山裕貴

■予約・問合せ e-mail:egopression.2012@gmail.com 主　　催｜ego:pression 助　　成｜AAS協力事業 ＊詳細はwww.facebook.com/Egopression

Daddy’s Diary: Forging a Tradition

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1)Lights at Miyagaseko
2) Smores on Xmas eve
3) Diminishing Bridge on Christmas
4) Making Russian Teaccakes On xmas eve

I have an almost inexpressible disdain for holidays. Christmas in particular causes me pain on a physical, emotional and spiritual level. The reasons are numerous but I shant bore you with an extended elaboration… Tell me this; for what damn reason do I need tell my kids about Santa? I won’t and when I tell people that, they look at me as though I just ran over their dog….Moving on, moving.
The reason for this diary is, even though I am a miserable grouchy s.o.b. who is a cultural iconoclast, my family need not have to put up with me grimacing at every ornament I spot in a store window. Chie and Kiko need traditions. It builds bonds and deepens relationships. Chie is being very generous and says I can swerve around the blood boiling X-mas garbage and rather setup some traditions of my own.
The problem is, how does a man who hates the season make new traditions? What can I do? I thought about making some kind of new holiday (George Costanza Festivus style)but I encountered two problems; 1) I am not that creative and 2) No way will a new weird out of nowhere tradition be sustainable. “Daddy why are having a party on February 3rd for no reason? Shut up Kiko and play the traditional February 3rd tire flipping game.”
 So, having decided not to reinvent the wheel, I was left with my only option, to steal tolerable elements and shape them into my own thing.
My new December 25th celebration wil include 4 elements to be described below. Notice I did not say X-mas. I will call it December 25th. My family may call it what they wish, but in my mind Christmas has died and in its place has come “Great-Wonderful-Exciting December 25th Celebration Day” GWED25 for short. No, I have not fully committed to that name.  Ladies feel free to critique, but I promise you I really do hate this holiday so any mention of rheindeer will be sumarily ignored.
First, there is a Japanesey Christmas village setup in the mountains close to our home in a town called Miyagaseko. Now this Christmas village has many elements that I would normally hate but it is quirky enough to be fun. The lights are pretty, they have food stands serving hot chocolate and lots of food. You can walk around for an hour in the cold drink hot chocolate and have a generally nice time with your family. So, our tradition will include a visit to Miyagaseko at some point in December. The only difficulty with this part of my tradition is that we can’t continue it if move. Hopefully I can find something similar in our future location
Secondly, cookie making. I love these little cookies called Russian teacakes. Any tradition should include these cookies. I am thinking that on December 24th (a.k.a. GWED25 eve), we as a family can make a barrell full of these cookies  and then hammer ’em down on December 25th. The whole cookie making thing will be great with Kiko and future little Duncans. The only problem here is that these things are 90% butter and thus will make me fat.
Thirdly, On the evening of December 24th, at night a little before bed after having made cookies, I will start a fire (God save us) and we will make smores. This tradition element is similar to the previous because it involves cookies. Some would say this lame but I say “Bite Me. It’s my tradition”. Any tradition that involves children fire and sugar is a sure fire recipe for success and happiness.
Fourthly and finally, December 25th will arrive and on that day we can play diminishing bridge as a family with my parents in the U.S. online (Yes, this can be done while eating Russian Teac cakes). Growing up, one of my favorite memories is playing the Dimminishing Bridge card game with my family. Playnig this game wasn’t limited to Christmas. Whenever a large group of my family got together we would play. I found a site that will host my little game. I wanted to find an element that involved the grandparents and I think this is a good way to do it.
Ladies, what say you?

Thanksgiving Party

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I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a party at our place on Saturday, instead of Thursday. We don’t have a Thanksgiving holiday in Japan and everyone was working on Thursday. We got a turkey from Costco, and my mom and Taren (of Oslo and Alfred) helped me with cooking. Everything turned out great, and I ate too much as you can see from my moon face! I like to blame it on my hair style, but I might have gained a few because of the holiday season.

20+ people crammed into our tiny town house. I enjoyed decorating the house with the DIYed garlands, flower lights from etsy (Pamela Angus), handmade table runner and a crochet playmat. I don’t have many pictures of Andy or myself, since we were running around a lot acting as a hosts, but both of us (and Kiko) had a great time with great food and great company. How was your Thanksgiving?