Cats and Studs - Outfit Post.

Bag - Putumayo
Dress - H&M
Studded Slippers - Crafted
Necklace - Vivienne Westwood

 

Kuroneko

Sho makes me realize that there's nothing wrong with wearing nothing but black. I should stop trying to change myself and my style. I may have to wear a suit for work, but that doesn't mean I should change the rest to better fit in with 'appropriate' styles, to be more 'feminine' and wear colours I don't feel comfortable in.

Screw them all.

Current Addictions

I bought a new wig recently, I love it. I also started wearing my lashes and lenses again after picking up some of the newer diamond lash series. I feel they fit in with my style more lately. This is also pretty much a filler post until I get round to making a longer one this weekend! I'm also considering taking to vlogging my journey from here on....I haven't quite decided yet haha. I'm not sure how good I would be at talking to my readers through a camera....

Friend date.

On the 9th I had set a date with a friend of mine before I even arrived in Tokyo. Meeting at 1:30pm by the Takeshita Dori entrance of Harajuku station! Just that morning I'd arrived back in Tokyo on the night bus, so suffering from lack of sleep I dragged myself up and out to go and meet 'Jellyfish'. He'd spent the morning telling me it was too hot, so I eventually told him just to wear something easy and cool which turned out to be a Jinbe. Cute. We met up at the right time, walked down Takeshita dori before deciding it was way too hot and way too crowded, it only took him a moment to suggest going back to the station and crossing over to Meiji jingu shrine.

Under the shelter of the trees and away from all the people it was much much cooler, but the noise from the cicada was almost deafening in some places! (We don't get them in the UK). Wandering around..boys will be boys, and 'Jellyfish' insisted on poking at every single bug we came across, even the spiders......I've never seen such huge blue and black butterflies either than in Meiji Jingu! It wasn't a very exciting day to report on, but I thought I would add it in. We spent an hour or so wandering around the shrine and the surrounding park, talking and swapping the dictionary back and forth when we got stuck, we went and sat down on some grassy area and chilled out with the skyscrapers towering in the background. I always find going to these places in the middle of Tokyo a surreal experience.

After our walk we hopped the Yamanote line down to Yoyogi and went for another small wander before 'Jellyfish' decided he was hungry and we stopped off in McDonalds. Teriyaki burger ftw. Having to catch the Shinkansen to Akita tomorrow, and me needing to catch up on sleep and deal with Kiryu photos, we didn't stay out too late, instead deciding to part ways at around 6pm.

10th August - Gaienmae fireworks!

Brand Series: Chrome Hearts

Chrome Hearts Tokyo first opened its doors in December 1999 as the first and only Chrome Hearts boutique in Japan. On April 26th, this location will reopen as the brand new flagship store.

Since its inception in 1999, the concept of Chrome Hearts Tokyo has always been make yourself at home. “Over the years, we began to feel that we’d like to take this concept even further,” said Richard Stark, the designer and founder of Chrome Hearts. “Along with the Chrome Hearts family and staff, we wanted to actualize and extend the Chrome Hearts world, and to share the ‘at home’ feeling we cultivated internally with everyone.” After 2 years of development, the innovative re-creation of Chrome Hearts Tokyo is complete.

The new space has expanded over 2,000-square-feet from its original size and now occupies 7,000-square-feet in the Aoyama shopping district, making it the largest of all existing Chrome Hearts stores around the world.

 A brand often favoured by musicians, Chrome hearts is an american brand but their store in Tokyo is just STUNNING. A must visit for anyone looking to see some amazing jewelry and interior design when in Japan but still keep a bit of the vk vibe! I'm still saving up to buy something from them (be warned, it's EXPENCIVE) but I'm sure it will be worth every penny.
And yes...they do have a basketball court outside...space inside for a band to play too. 

You can buy chrome hearts in store and across various online stores all over the world.

Chrome Hearts HP

May inspirations!

So first of all you can have a wonderful picture of my face lol. Then we'll be onto the inspirations for this month! Not all will be fashion, I warn you now! I hope you're all doing well at the moment, I've certainly had an amusing couple of weeks...stressful with work, but also really entertaining ahah.

Gets!

It's been a while since I've done a gets post! But here are some things I've picked up over the last few months.

LONG omega vest top.
H&M circle glasses.
Mejibray hair scrunchie.
Mejibray lighter.
Various fliers and some new cheki!

Juu went over to Japan last month, and she was kind enough to bring me back the Mejibray merch, fliers, and a cheki of Yuuya from Para:noir. The other cheki I bid from Auok/Mbok and a private auction! Nothing much but just a quick update from me. I'll be heading out to get a new tattoo and pick some more bits up for my holiday tomorrow, so I'll be sure to update more on that then!

Tattooing in Japan

Most people know about the stigma attached to tattoos in Japan, but I'm not here to talk about that today. If you want to know more, then head over to google! What I will be talking about though, is where to go in Tokyo if you want a tattoo. Some places you can rely on to give you an intimate and amazing service without you having to worry about being fobbed off or refused for being a foreigner. (Not that places would, but the language barrier creates problems, especially when dealing with something like tattooing).

1. Scratch Addiction.

Scratch Addiction is one of Japan most famous tattoo shops. Located in Takeshita Dori in Harajuku. The shop is quite small but their artwork is good!. They have been home to some of Japan’s top tattoo legends. The artists are able to tattoo any style, and are highly skilled.
They are appointment only and with limited english, but depending on who is in shop depends on how good the conversation is! They are welcoming regardless and eager to help in whatever it is you need.

Website: http://scratchaddiction.com/

2. Horizaru.

Horizaru is an appointment only, custom only shop. He is amazingly skilled at Japanese neo-traditional work. The tattoos are beautiful, artistic, and is highly recommended by many people in the tattoo industry. His website runs in both English and Japanese, so take your pick!

Website: http://www.horizaru.com/


3. Studio Muscat.

Small Shibuya based tattoo shop with a female artist. She is renowned for her black and grey work and has a large client base. Her website is easy to navigate and Asao herself is very friendly! Take a look and see what you think, she can do any style but favours stronger line work.

Website: http://www.muscat-tattoo.com


I'll add more to this list at some point when I find out some good information, but for now, it's just these select few. If anyone else has any experiences they would like to share then feel free to comment!

Current inspirations - Sho Asakawa.

Brand series! - Gadget Grow

Ok Next!
I apologize in advance but this post won't be a hugely informative one. It's hard to find an awful lot out about Gadget grow, but it's a brand I've loved for a long while and I wanted to share.

First of all you're going to notice that Ryuutarou from Plastic Tree is the poster child for Gadget grow! He's been their main model from the start and I think the brand suits him perfectly. Full of layers, drapes and interesting cuts, Gadget grow is something made for me to drool over. (I find some of their stuff similar to the All Saints brand in the UK).
Started in 2006, the brand now has 4 stores, their main being based in Tokyo Laforet which are the pictures shown below ! As far as I am aware they only have their main site as their web presence, but if anyone knows of any further links like a blog or anything then speak up!

Gadget Grow

Brand series! - SIXh.

"After receiving positive stimulation from collaborations with world-class charismatic visual kei artists. h.NAOTO started the “h.ism” project based on the theme of co-existence between fashion and music. As one of the results of the project, in 2007 the collaboration between the young fashion design duo IBI and MINT, “SIXh.” is born.
In 2010, with designer MIKA in the lead, SIXh.’s ladies collection “MelT” brand has joined SIXh.’s lineup. With gorgeous butterflies and roses as the main motifs, mixed in with sexiness and a devilish cuteness in the MelT style, the IBI Ageha-kei fashion is well on its way of expansion."



Official site.

Webstore
Webstore 2.

Youtube + IBI's Youtube.

Blogs.
Ibi.
Mint.
Nari.

When people mention H.naoto, most think of Hangry and Angry and similar brands within the 'H.naoto' identity, but today I wanted to take a look at Sixh! Starting off as a men's brand primarily, they now produce a female line. They lable the line as 'ghost-kei', a mix of gothic and host-kei, keeping the tailoring popular in both host and a lot of gyaru-o brands and giving it their own individual style. Purples and silvers are a popular accenting color in most of Sixh along with the black/white/grey as you can see in their A/W campaign in the video above, pink does creep into the girls collection though. Mint's collections seem to carry more muted colors though, beige and neutrals seem to be more to his liking.


Both Mint and Ibi have collaborated with popular hosts/models on previous occasions too! (A line named 617.) This was done with 条 誠 (Makoto Ichijyou) and 皐月星七 (Setsuki Sena) from Men's Spider.

Has anyone ever been inside the stand alone H.naoto stores? I think they look amazing inside, even the shop itself is a piece of art!

Brand series! - Monomania.

So after a good bit of thinking, I decided to come up with a mini series of posts to fill space in my blog, and hopefully make it a bit more informative for people to read, rather than just have random posts of my own. It's about time I put more effort into this.
Each of the posts will consist of one brand, but feel free to ask about something you'd like me to look into. Otherwise I'll just keep going with the ones I love the most. My latest trip to Japan will be happening towards the end of the summer I hope, and I wanted to do a more detailed look at my favourite brands before I leave, then I can show you all the gets when I get back.

First up!

MONOMANIA.

Official Site

Blog

Twitter

Store

Rakuten



Monomania is on the 1st basement floor in the La Foret building in Harajuku, Tokyo! The brand has a limited color pallet, reflecting their name, mostly black and white pieces but there's color throw in here and there. A lot of their stuff is oversized and unisex, but there are a few pieces aimed at either male or female, really wearable no matter your size. (We all know how tiny some brands carry their clothes!) they are pretty well priced too, even more so if you catch them when they're having a sale (like now!).

Now onto some snaps. See if you can spot the brands signature print.