Fashion Photo Contest WINNERS!

Ladies and gentlemen, the winners of our first fashion photo contest! (Maybe next year we'll come up with a catchier name!)

First, if you haven't already, see our finalists along with some information on how they were picked. Then read on for the winners!

As for how the winners were chosen? When Misako and Akira submitted their finalists, they also ranked their top picks. That counted as a vote. We (the two owners of Tokyo Rebel) also each got a vote. We tallied the votes from among the finalists and picked the winners that way. Simple. In both categories, the winner also happened to be Misako's and Akira's top pick.

Rock and punk category

WINNER:

Model: Kate Evans
Photographer: Laura London
Outfit: Hat, rings, skirt all offbrand; cutsew from Algonquins; jacket, leggings, necklace & pins from SEX POT ReVeNGe; boots from Dr. Martens.

Why: Very New York. Nice pose, monotone coordinate works with the grey background. She looks tough. The coordinate is very current. Japanese street fashion has moved beyond visual kei and this photo shows it. Akira's favorite.

AKIRA SAYS: アー写みたい！って思いました。 帽子から足下までのコーデがカジュアル

なのに凄くバランスがよくて、ボーイッシュな女の子がデートの時とかいいんじ ゃないかな？なんてお気に入りです。

In English:  I thought this was an artist's picture.  From head to toe, the coordinate looks very casual but well balanced.  Somebody who is boyish can look like this when they have a date.

RUNNERS UP:

Model:  Nahye
Photographer: Lee Miller
Outfit: red T-shirt, red belt, gloves & skirt from Search & Destroy; black t-shirt & belt from Sexy Dynamite London; bracelet from Alice Auaa & Patricia Fields; goggles from Reminisce; hip pouch from Rituals; boots from Dr. Martens.

Why: This photo is also very much a representation of Japanese punk fashion in New York (though unfortunately taken in another store's entryway!). Still, really nice rich color, and nice natural pose.

AKIRA SAYS: すごいオシャレさんだと思う。小物使いが上手いな～と思いました。

In English: She's very fashionable, all the way down to the way she uses accessories.

Model: Tara Wood
Photographer: Judith Stephens
Outfit: parka and tank top from SEX POT ReVeNGe; side skirt from Putumayo; pants from Tripp NYC; boots from Dr. Martens. 

Why: We like how loud this photo is. It's all up in your face. Kinda scary! But in a good way.

AKIRA SAYS: 個人的に派手なのが好きなのでがちゃがちゃとした柄を上下に使ってるの に上手く着こなしてるなと思いました。

In English: I like the showy atmosphere.  The design of the clothes is very noisy, but she coordinates very nicely.


Lolita (and related) category

WINNER:

Model: Claudia
Photographer: Nuckel_Teddy
Outfit: dress & bonnet by Angelic Pretty; self-made headbow; necklace by Jesus Diamante; self-made rings; bracelets by Bijou Brigitte

Why: The epitome of sweet Lolita. She makes sweet look completely natural, which is not easy. Excellent technical quality; composition, color and depth of field. Also Misako's favorite. While we may not always have this reputation, we do sell a lot of sweet Lolita, so we're very happy to have a winner that so perfectly captures what sweet is all about.

MISAKO SAYS: 薔薇のお花とボンネットを被ったお姫様がクラシカルなロリータを演出していて可愛かったです。お花のいい香りが写真から伝わってきました。ロリータとお花の愛称バッチリです。

In English: The princess who was wearing roses and a bonnet gave the picture a very classic Lolita atmosphere, and made her look very cute.  I even felt the smell of flowers.  Lolita and the flowers matched very well.


RUNNERS UP:

Model: Charlotte Skurzak
Photographer: Philemon Belhomme
Outfit: Stained Glass one-piece & socks from Alice & the Pirates; halfwig from Prisila; offbrand white roses & shawl; shoes from Bodyline.

Why: Like Misako, we love the moss-covered background, and her mature-looking dark coordinate.

MISAKO SAYS: 黒を貴重にしたロリータファッションとロングの金色の髪がお人形のようでとっても素敵でした。緑いっぱいのレトロ感たっぷりの階段と黒ロリータが大人っぽさと涼しげな印象でした。

In English: She looks like a very beautiful doll with the black Lolita dress and long dirty blonde hair.  The green color stairs make the atmosphere very retro.  And black Lolita makes her look very mature and gives a chilly impression.

Model: Stephanie Mi Stoehr
Photographer: Sophie Kawalek
Outfit: Red Riding Hood one-piece with sleeves and capelet by Baby, the Stars Shine Bright.

Why: We like the fish-out-of-water idea. We also like the fact that she looks like a tourist in New York from some faraway Lolita-land.

MISAKO SAYS:  NYの街に赤ずきんちゃんがいたらこんな感じかなーと思わせてくれる写真です。パニエの着方もしっかりしていてスカートが綺麗に見えることで柄がはっきり見えてロリータ上級者スタイルです。

In English:  If there was Red Riding Hood in New York, she would look like this.  She wears her petticoat very well to show the design of the skirt, which looks very beautiful.  This is advanced level Lolita style.


The two winners will receive either a $250 gift certificates or a $250 online coupon, and we may also use their photo to represent our store on flyers, posters and more! The four runners-up will each receive a $25 gift certificate or online coupon. Winners can also expect to see themselves on Misako's and Akira's blogs.

While there are only two winners and four runners-up, we loved all the finalists. And we've got some honorable mentions too, which we'll run through in another blog post in a day or two. (You can see some of them right now in our photo gallery, but we want to say a bit about some of them, individually and in groups, as well.) The nature of any contest is that there's only gonna be one or two people who win and a whole lot of people who don't - you may be disappointed, but that doesn't mean your entry wasn't good. As we've said before, we were surprised by both the quantity and quality we got for our first contest, so you should all be proud.

TO THE WINNERS AND RUNNERS UP:  We'll be contacting you in the next day or so.  It's a little too late tonight :)

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Angelic Pretty Wonder Cookie up for reserve!

We've confirmed our upcoming shipment with Angelic Pretty, so we are now opening up our upcoming stock of the Wonder Cookie series to reserve orders.  This works just like a regular order, only you'll obviously get your stuff once we receive it ourselves.  We expect that to be in a week or so.

We're not doing sets this time because we don't have matching accessories for everything, and we have some extra accessories that we don't have main items for. This series was so popular that AP is just sending us what they can. You can make your own set, though - we do have matching accessories for most of our main items.

Our store customers should be sure to read the section on each main item that's addressed to them.  Everyone should read each description carefully.  There is a limit of one main item and one of each accessory per person.

Happy ordering!

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Victorian maiden reserve items ending tonight!

Another heads up that a new round of Victorian maiden reserve items are ending tonight. These include some lighter-weight skirts and blouses made just for warmer weather, including the a few that are actually cotton-lined. Check them all out!

If you miss tonight's cutoff time, you can still order these if you email us first, at the regular (non-promotional) price. But tonight is the deadline for the special reserve pricing, so don't dally if you want to save some money!

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Fashion Photo Contest Finalists!

Ladies and gentlemen, your finalists for our photo contest - and the photos in the running for the $250 prize - are below.

First, a few words on the process by which these were chosen.

We ended up receiving 193 total entries.  These were divided up by category and we went through them, picking out approximately 30 in each category to send to Misako (Lolita/EGA/Kodona) and Akira (rock/punk) for judging.  It was not easy narrowing it down even that much, and we did end up sending a few more than 30.  This batch represented a variety of styles, and they were submitted from all over the world.  High viewer ratings did help a few photos make the cut that wouldn't have otherwise, though no photos were cut because of low ratings.  (This is why we ended up with more than 30; the ratings helped add, but not subtract.)

The rest of the photos were also sent to the judges for their own enjoyment, just not for judging.

We gave a minimum of information to the judges about each photo and model.  They had no idea - unless they knew from looking - what was being worn or who anybody was.  We wanted to keep it unbiased.


Onto the finalists!

Rock/Punk category

Akira judging! Very serious...

The finalists!

Model:  Nahye
Photographer: Lee Miller
Outfit: red T-shirt, red belt, gloves & skirt from Search & Destroy; black t-shirt & belt from Sexy Dynamite London; bracelet from Alice Auaa & Patricia Fields; goggles from Reminisce; hip pouch from Rituals; boots from Dr. Martens.

AKIRA SAYS: すごいオシャレさんだと思う。小物使いが上手いな～と思いました。

In English: She's very fashionable, all the way down to the way she uses accessories.

Model: Kate Evans
Photographer: Laura London
Outfit: Hat, rings, skirt all offbrand; cutsew from Algonquins; jacket, leggings, necklace & pins from SEX POT ReVeNGe; boots from Dr. Martens.

AKIRA SAYS: アー写みたい！って思いました。 帽子から足下までのコーデがカジュアル

なのに凄くバランスがよくて、ボーイッシュな女の子がデートの時とかいいんじ ゃないかな？なんてお気に入りです。

In English:  I thought this was an artist's picture.  From head to toe, the coordinate looks very casual but well balanced.  Somebody who is boyish can look like this when they have a date.

Model: Kurai
Photographer: Odin Photography

AKIRA SAYS: インパクト大でした！髪の毛の色、セットと服装がマッチして いてかっこいいなと思います。

In English: This has huge impact! The hair color, the background, the clothes, everything is matched and looks cool.

Model: Mei Su
Photographer: Kyndra Van Der Stelt
Outfit: jacket from K-Mart; blouse from Charlotte Rouse; bloomers from Bodyline; shoes from Getta Grip; offbrand tights; accessories from Bodyline and offbrand.

AKIRA SAYS: 雑誌のコーディネートとかでも全然使えるオシャレなコーデだなと 思いました。

In English: This is a very fashionable coordinate that looks like something you'd see in a magazine.

Model: Tara Wood
Photographer: Judith Stephens
Outfit: parka and tank top from SEX POT ReVeNGe; side skirt from Putumayo; pants from Tripp NYC; boots from Dr. Martens. 

AKIRA SAYS: 個人的に派手なのが好きなのでがちゃがちゃとした柄を上下に使ってるの に上手く着こなしてるなと思いました。

In English: I like the showy atmosphere.  The design of the clothes is very noisy, but she coordinates very nicely.




Lolita/EGA/Kodona category

Misako judging! She didn't actually pick the photo she's looking at, but she's looking!

The finalists!

Model: Charlotte Skurzak
Photographer: Philemon Belhomme
Outfit: Stained Glass one-piece & socks from Alice & the Pirates; halfwig from Prisila; offbrand white roses & shawl; shoes from Bodyline.

MISAKO SAYS: 黒を貴重にしたロリータファッションとロングの金色の髪がお人形のようでとっても素敵でした。緑いっぱいのレトロ感たっぷりの階段と黒ロリータが大人っぽさと涼しげな印象でした。

In English: She looks like a very beautiful doll with the black Lolita dress and long dirty blonde hair.  The green color stairs make the atmosphere very retro.  And black Lolita makes her look very mature and gives a chilly impression.

Model: Stephanie Mi Stoehr
Photographer: Sophie Kawalek
Outfit: Red Riding Hood one-piece with sleeves and capelet by Baby, the Stars Shine Bright.

MISAKO SAYS:  NYの街に赤ずきんちゃんがいたらこんな感じかなーと思わせてくれる写真です。パニエの着方もしっかりしていてスカートが綺麗に見えることで柄がはっきり見えてロリータ上級者スタイルです。

In English:  If there was Red Riding Hood in New York, she would look like this.  She wears her petticoat very well to show the design of the skirt, which looks very beautiful.  This is advanced level Lolita style.

Model: Yanise
Photographer: Laura Peña
Outfit: One-piece & headbow from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright; wrist cuffs from Angelic Pretty; offbrand accessories.

MISAKO SAYS: ショッキングピンクの大きなリボンカチューシャとそれに合わせた同系色のワンピースのバランスが女の子らしさ全開で可愛かったです。 お菓子もカラフルでお洋服と合っていました。

In English:  The shocking pink big bow katyusha and the same type of one-piece were well balanced and made her look very girly and cute.  The sweets are very colorful and match the outfit very nicely.

Model: Claudia
Photographer: Nuckel_Teddy
Outfit: dress & bonnet by Angelic Pretty; self-made headbow; necklace by Jesus Diamante; self-made rings; bracelets by Bijou Brigitte

MISAKO SAYS: 薔薇のお花とボンネットを被ったお姫様がクラシカルなロリータを演出していて可愛かったです。お花のいい香りが写真から伝わってきました。ロリータとお花の愛称バッチリです。

In English: The princess who was wearing roses and a bonnet gave the picture a very classic Lolita atmosphere, and made her look very cute.  I even felt the smell of flowers.  Lolita and the flowers matched very well.

Model: Darya Ivanova
Photographer: Darya Ivanova

MISAKO SAYS: アリスのような雰囲気と全身黒でまとめた大人カワイイロリータスタイルです。控えめな黒リボンカチューシャが金髪と合って、参考にしやすいコーディネートです。

In English: It's like Alice (in Wonderland), but an adult version of "kawaii lolita style" wearing all black.  The black ribbon katyusha is nicely coordinated with the blonde hair.



The selection of Darya above is a new selection chosen by Misako, taking the place of a finalist that unfortunately had to be disqualified from winning for copyright concerns.

Congratulations to all the finalists!  Each of you has a one in five chance of winning the grand prize!  Watch for the announcement of the final awards on or before the 30th.

We want to give a special shout-out to all the guys that entered.  It was just a game of odds - we had a lot more girls enter than guys (by about 20 to 1), but some of the guys came very close to making the finals and we really liked some of your photos.  We'll be handing out some honorable mentions when we announce the winners, and the guys will definitely be represented.

If you entered and didn't make it, we hope you'll enter again next time!  Everybody had fun looking at all the pictures, and just because you didn't make it this time doesn't mean you won't next time.  (It also doesn't mean we didn't really like your entry - but we had 193 entries, and there can only be 10 finalists and 2 winners.) This will not be your last chance!

If anyone has any questions about any aspect of the contest, feel free to ask us directly. No point speculating on internet message boards when you can get the straight dope right from us :)

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General updates - contest, new magazines, new SEX POT, Victorian maiden, more!

Lots of little stuff to tell you about over the past few days.  So let's just get to it, shall we?

First, we know that a lot of you are anxious for us to announce our contest finalists.  We will do so shortly.  We took a couple extra days to get organized before we sent everything to Misako and Akira, so we gave them a couple extra days to get back to us.  We should be able to announce the finalists in the next few days.  Note that we are contacting finalists before the announcement, so please be sure to check your email over the next day or two!  (We've heard back from all of Misako's picks so far, so this is more for Akira's upcoming picks.)

Moving on.  Yesterday we received the brand new Gothic & Lolita Bible Vol. 36, as well as KERA Volume 142.

You can now buy these either online or in our store.  (They're a bit cheaper in store - we explain why here.)  Click the links above to get the rundown of what's in each issue.

We'll also be restocking Misako Aoki's Gothic & Lolita Ensemble within the next couple days.

(Some of our customers have gotten confused between GLB and GLE - these are two separate, competing mooks from different publishers, covering the same fashion genre.  Which you'll like better probably depends on your own preference.)

Lastly, we've actually gotten a few new clothing items over the past couple days, including a new novelty item from SEX POT ReVeNGe.  Anyone who spends $100 on SPR merchandise will get either a drinking glass (we still have a few!) or one of these cases:

We're gonna surprise you with which one you get - glass or case.  Color too.  Also a surprise.

We got a few new t-shirts and tank tops from SPR in the same box.  One of those tank tops is already up, but we've got a few more to go.  (We're basically in continuous product posting mode these days - almost every day, something new goes up.)

Lastly, we got a huge Victorian maiden shipment on Saturday - though most of it went to reserve orders.  We really recommend doing that if you see something you like!  You save money and you get stuff that in most cases, we otherwise aren't going to get.  A new round of VM reserves is going to go up in our site within the next few days (ending on the 29th).

But we did restock VM's rose hair accessories, and we got a couple of new dresses for our store - one of which was worn by Midori in the last Gothic & Lolita Bible.  Watch for those to go up on our site later today.

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ALGONQUINS spring items in stock!

Yesterday we received a batch of spring and summer items from ALGONQUINS, including more pants (yes!) and shorts.  Much of what we received can be seen in this ad from last month's KERA:

In fact, here's an annotated version of that same ad showing what we've got from it:

The pants that Akira's wearing on the right are very cool - they're 2-way pants, and can be worn as either shorts or long pants.  (The bottom portion detaches.)  They're also very lightweight - perfect for warmer weather.

Of course, we also got some things not in this ad, including more pants and skirts.  For anyone that can't wait until we post these items to our web site and wants to know what we have, search Google for "algonquins" and the following item numbers:

10711 - skirt with large bow, red tartan or black
10727 - skull shorts
10672 - knit pants, plain black or white check
10673 - knit pants, plain black or white check
41046 - jumper skirt, plain black or pinstripe
B3712 - boston bag (the one Re:NO's carrying in the ad)
B3716 - shoulder bag
10722 - skull skirt, plain black or white check
10662 - plaid skirt, pink check
10742 - 2-way pants/shorts (the ones Akira is wearing above), black
10743 - 2-way pants/shorts (same ones, just large size), black

Pricing will be set shortly.  If you're in the area, come down to the store and check it all out!  We'll begin posting it to our web site within the next few days.

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Angelic Pretty: Wonder Cookie and featured series ordering info

As we've become better known for carrying Angelic Pretty, a lot of people are now asking about their monthly featured series - when we'll have them, what we'll have, whether they can reserve through us, and whatnot.  So, we thought we should provide some public answers.

First, for those who don't know, Angelic Pretty generally release one featured series per month.  Sometimes they release two, but usually it's one, and you'll see it advertised first one month before in KERA magazine and the gothic & Lolita mooks (if the mooks happen to be out that month).  This month's current featured series is Happy Garden.  Last month's was Jewelry Jelly.  We still have a few items from both of these series in stock.  (A few haven't yet even made it to our web site, but they will by next week if we still have them.)

Next up will be Wonder Cookie, which should be out late this month or early next month.

Scan from The Visual Beast - yeah, it was easier to just find one than make our own :)

Featured series can be either reserve series or regular series - "featured" does not mean "reserve"!  For example, Dessert Collection, which was a featured series a few months ago, was a regular series.  So was Marionette Girl, which was a second featured series that same month (they advertised both in different places).  Regular and reserve series are handled a lot differently by AP.  Reserve series can be pre-ordered by AP's Japanese customers - regular series are just put out for sale on launch day. You can't reserve a regular series even if you're in Japan.

Wonder Cookie is a reserve series.  Ironically, that means it is somewhat easier to get, because AP has a gauge of demand already.

However, while AP takes reserve orders in Japan, they have no process for overseas retailers to do so.  That applies to everyone, not just us.  They allow us to carry these items as if they were regular series.  What this means is that we place our orders for these items the same way as anything else, and we have no way of guaranteeing that we can acquire any specific item until just before they ship to us, when they go and actually pick our items out.  That happens just before the series release.

Some retailers will say that they can take AP reserves - they can't.  They can take reserves for what they will be able to get, but they don't know what that's going to be in advance. That's kind of like this classic scene from Seinfeld:



So, while we would absolutely love to take reserve orders for AP's featured series, there's potential to end up with a lot of disappointed people.  So right now, we're not doing it - we'll only put items up for sale that we know we're getting, and we've been doing that basically when our stuff ships from AP.

We hope that this will change at some point, as we grow and as AP sees the potential in offering reserves to those outside of Japan (and in a physical location in the USA's largest city).  We will definitely make a BIG announcement about it if this does ever change.

The great thing about our store is that we actually carry these items in stock - we don't drop-ship from Japan.  So if you order from us once a series is out and on our web site, it will only take a few days for you to get your stuff.  And if you're in the NY area, you can even stop by and look at it before buying (if it lasts that long).  No other store in the USA allows you to do that with AP's featured series.

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This is where you go when your shipment's stuck in customs...

Yeah, our latest batch of stuff from Innocent World is currently being held at JFK Airport, awaiting "formal entry".  Hopefully we will have it soon.

On the plus side, if you have never been to the cargo area of a major airport, it's pretty interesting.  The customs building at JFK is right at the end of one of the runways.

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Contest: we're done! (Plus: If you're still waiting for us to post your photo...)

We've finished posting the contest entries to our photo gallery. Whew! While the gallery's creaking a bit under the strain (we've had more traffic to our web site in the last few days than we ever have before), we still encourage you to check out the final submissions. We netted out at 189 entries, about 140 of which came in over the last two days. This was a lot more than we expected, but that's great. People really got into this contest, and we love to see that. It was fun for us. Now to go back through them and get them organized for Misako and Akira!

Important: if you submitted an entry and are still waiting for us to post it, that means we missed it. As far as we know, we're done. We've posted all the entries we have, we've dealt with all the questions we had about anything we weren't sure about, and everything's all taken care of. So if you submitted and haven't heard anything, or you answered a question we had and we still haven't posted your photo, please remind us. We've gone back through and re-checked everything, but we just want to make sure nobody got missed. All the accepted entries that we have should be in our gallery by now.

On the other hand, if you do see your photo in our gallery but haven't received an email notification, check your spam folder. We notified every single person that we posted to the gallery, and we included the 10% off discount code promised in the rules.

Good luck to everyone!

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Contest submission period over! What next?

Updated 4/20 with revisions.

The Tokyo Rebel Fashion Photo Contest submission period is officially over!  Thanks to everyone who entered!  The amount of time and effort that went into some of these submissions is obvious to us, and there are honestly quite a few entries that we'd feel comfortable with representing our store.  We're constantly amazed at how awesome the people that follow us are.  If you haven't looked at the latest entries, check them out now (click on the contest gallery).

We had entries from literally all over the world. All across the USA and our hometown of New York, of course, but also France, Germany, Portugal, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Singapore, and more. It was truly a global contest.

So what happens now?

Now we wait!  Akira and Misako are currently selecting finalists.  We will post the finalists in both categories once we have them and have verified their information (in other words, we'll wait until we have all the finalists, not just one category or the other).

If you are selected as a finalist, we'll be emailing you to make sure we have a model release and photographer's permission for us to use your photos.  We'll need something signed at that point, so be ready if you think you've got a good shot.  (Or even if you don't - you can never predict these things!)

We'll be contacting finalists once we hear back from Akira and Misako, which we expect by April 19.  (Update: we gave the judges a little extra time because it took us a couple extra days to send them the photos.  So it could be the 21st before we hear back, and then we need to contact each finalist individually.)

We'll be posting them in a separate photo gallery album to make them easy to find.  (We'll also of course announce them here.)  In the meantime, we'll calculate all of our votes to determine the winners and runners-up.  We plan to announce those on or around April 30 if all goes as planned

Watch for more info as we move through the judging process.

Thanks again to all who participated!

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Quick! Victorian maiden reserves!

We've been neglectful in our duties as busy as we've been with the contest the past few days - we posted a few new Victorian maiden reserve items last week and we never actually told you guys.  They are ending tonight.

There are three items in this round, all very cute.

Noble Stripe Frill Skirt: $199

Double Collar Blouse: $145

Triple Ribbon Rose Dress: $289

If you can't order today, or you just don't want to make a decision that fast, the good news is that we can now usually take reserve orders after the reserve period ends, albeit at higher non-promotional prices.  (You just need to email us first so we can check with Victorian maiden.)  So you still save money ordering within the reserve period, but we can usually get things afterwards if you don't mind paying normal price.  Normal prices are always listed on the product pages along with the promotional prices (if there's a promotional price, the normal price is crossed out on the page).

Anyway, just wanted you guys to know that these things are up there!

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Quick Contest Update

Our Fashion Photo Contest deadline is tomorrow, and as we expected, we're getting a lot of entries coming in at the last minute.  If you're submitting a photo now, it may take us a little while to get it posted.  Do not be alarmed!  Everyone who submits their entry before 10PM EDT tomorrow night will be included in the contest, but it may take us a full day - or even more - to get your photo posted to our gallery.  We are now up over 100 entries and counting.  Around 40 of those were submitted today alone (and it's only 6:30PM), and we're betting that tomorrow we'll have at least that many.  So it's just going to take a while for us to get through them all, but as long as you submit on time and your entry follows the rules, you're in the contest.

We'll post more about what happens after the contest closes tomorrow night, once the deadline passes.

Get those entries in while you still can!  And if you haven't checked the gallery lately, do it!  There's a lot of new stuff there, and there will be even more over the next few days.  (Our gallery actually crashed at one point today under the weight of all these new photos we were uploading.)

Edit: Also!  Now that we have so many entries, we've turned search back on in the gallery (even though it's ugly and kind of confusing to have two search boxes).  It only seems to show up on the gallery front page (in the gallery itself), but if you want to find your or your friends' photo, you can search by name there.  (It obviously has to match the name we were given in your entry.)

Searching for photo names on our main web site search doesn't work, because the gallery is actually on a different server.  Use the gallery search instead.

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Reminder: Fashion Photo Contest closes April 11!

This is your one and only reminder that the submission period for our fashion photo contest starring guest judges Misako Aoki and Akira is ending in just a few days, April 11 at 10PM EDT.  Everyone needs to get their submissions in before then!

Read our full rules post if you haven't already.  We've added a couple things to the FAQ at the end and made a couple minor additions to the contest itself.  To save you guys who've seen it before from reading through the whole thing again to find the new stuff, we'll just tell you the main addition here:

There will now be two runners-up per category!  Complete with runner-up prizes.  These prizes are TBD but they will obviously be much smaller than the grand prize.  But we're getting some great submissions and we really want to recognize more than just one per category, at least in some small way.  Misako and Akira will be helping us select the runners-up as well as the winners.

If you haven't looked recently, check out the photo gallery (click on the fashion photo contest album) to see the latest submissions.  They're coming in fast and furious now, so expect more every day until Monday or Tuesday (assuming it's going to take us a little while to catch up with all the last-minute entries).

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New ATELIER-PIERROT items!

For those of you more into gothic than sweet, we've just received a bunch of new Atelier-Pierrot items to satisfy your dark side.  Our shared AP and A-P rack is now overfilled.  Can the wall support all this weight??  Please be careful when browsing our store - we don't want anyone to be crushed by all these clothes.  (Joking.)

We've restocked several of their most popular items, including the crinoline/cage skirt in both black and white.  Many of you probably don't even realize we have the white crinoline in stock (it's not on display in our store, and we haven't taken web photos yet), but we do.  To refresh your memory, this is what the white crinoline looks like when worn.  We also now have a full stock of both type 1 and type 2 Atelier-Pierrot petticoats, we've restocked the Tuck Up Jumper Skirt in black (and we'll now sell it separate from its matching headbow), and we also restocked the corset bustle one-piece in black - which unfortunately for you guys has already sold out again!  Guess we should get a bunch of those next time, if they're still available.

However, we did get the beautiful red version of the corset bustle one-piece too (like the one in the magazine ad below, but with a black underskirt instead of red) - but there's a little problem with the lace.  Read the product description.  It's a small problem, and we're taking $30 off the price for it.  This dress was very hard to get in this color and Atelier-Pierrot actually officially consider it sold out.  So we decided to keep this one to sell even with the slight defect - there's no replacement available.

We've also gotten various new items, some from their Gothic & Lolita Ensemble magazine ad and some from A-P's web site.  (We have both floral prints from the ad above.)  We're obviously quite busy right now between the contest and posting all of our recent shipments to the site, but we're going to work on getting these all up on the web site along with the rest of our new stock.

No new corset bustle skirts in this shipment - they'll be in the next one.  We do still surprisingly have one black and purple bustle skirt left - it's really beautiful, so hopefully somebody snatches it up soon.  This is our last Atelier-Pierrot bustle skirt for the moment - we'll have to see what they have available next time we order.

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Angelic Pretty - Yes, we have Happy Garden! And more...

What is this?

It's this!

And way, way more than that.  This is two huge boxes of Angelic Pretty, filled to the brim.  Including Happy Garden!  And many other things too.

Those of you who have ordered Happy Garden sets, we will ship them tomorrow.  (It's already too late today.)  We still don't have the skirts - as mentioned previously, those are coming a few days later.  So those will ship next week.

The rest of you have a lot to look forward to.  If you're an Angelic Pretty fan, that is.  (If you're not, we've got a lot of other stuff coming soon too.)

Most of this should be on sale in our store tonight, and we'll work on posting items to our web site shortly.

Update:

We got a ton of wrist cuffs in this shipment too, for anyone who's interested. And there's still at least one more box coming.

Since somebody asked, here's a basic rundown of what we have or are getting in the next few days.  We have multiples of most items (except socks, unfortunately - they just don't keep a large stock on hand).  If we use an "&" below, that's separating two different colorways.

This is what was in the two boxes we just got:

Heart Pocket Jumper Skirt - lavender/white & red/white
Fancy Karami Triple Frill Jumper Skirt - white & sax
Frill Marine Jumper Skirt - sax/pink/white
Cotton Candy Jumper Skirt - lavender/lavender
Jewelry Jelly Jumper Skirt - lavender & black
Dot Sherbet Skirt - lavender/white/pink & aqua/white/sax
Circus Neon overknee socks - black & red
Girly Heart overknee socks - pink/white, lavender/white, mint/white & black/lavender
Airy Ribbon overknee socks - sax & lavender
Jelly color wrist cuffs - sax & black
Heart Charm wrist cuffs - black & pink/white
Heart Charm wrist cuffs (different kind) - white/pink/white
Heart Charm wrist cuffs (yet another kind) - black, lavender & sax
Happy Garden One-piece - sax, lavender & black (black is already sold out)
Happy Garden Jumper Skirt - lavender & black
Happy Garden overknee socks - sax, lavender & black (sax is now sold out)
Happy Garden Alice band - sax, lavender & black (sax is now sold out)

Yes, we did restock Jewelry Jelly.  The particular colors and styles we got are different than what we had before, though, so we'll still need to take new photos to post to our web site.

This below just arrived in a separate box (not pictured above):

Happy Garden skirt - sax & lavender (sax is now sold out)
Heart-shaped pochette - black/black
Lovely Heart Tulle Bustier/Skirt Set - mint/white
Bow-tie embroidered logo blouse - white & sax

And these sound like they're coming in yet another box a couple days after that:

Dessert Collection print umbrella - sax & black
Lollipop print umbrella - sax & white/pink
Dot Heart logo print umbrella - black/pink
Tiara Frame print umbrella - sax

We have basically cleaned AP out of wrist cuffs and umbrellas - we got all they had available.  Most of the wrist cuffs we have are no longer even listed on their web site - they currently only have one style available (and it is probably sold out).  We did get multiples so hopefully our stock will last long enough that we can post some to our own web site - last time they sold out through our store pretty much immediately.

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Fashion Photo Contest update!

Just wanted to post a quick note to update you guys on the status of our contest and maybe clarify the answers to a few questions we've been asked (we've also updated our main post a few times with clarifications, but you might not have seen it).

First, we have been getting a good number of entries, and we're not yet halfway through - we expect to get a lot at the last minute. Keep them coming! We really want as many as possible, in both categories. Right now, you punk and VK guys and girls are getting shown up by the Lolitas - don't let that happen!

You can see the entries we've received so far in our photo gallery. (We still have a couple to post.)

Now, some clarifications to the rules:

* You can send us as many photos as you want (and we don't mind it), but we're going to pick the one we like best for judging. Think of it as a "pre-judging". That way everybody has more of an equal shot and nobody ends up with 100 photos in our photo gallery, crowding out everybody else.

* We're planning to zip up the "extra" photos and send them to Misako and Akira anyway, but they won't be judged as part of the contest. They might just want to see all of the photos that were sent in, though.

* Entering early or late is not going to affect the judging. It doesn't matter when you enter, as long as it's on or before the 11th.

* We're going to take viewer photo ratings from our gallery into account, but it's going to be more of a tiebreaker, or to help us determine if a photo makes the cut to make it to the next round. It's not just a mathematical ranking by rating.

* You can enter photos with more than you in them, but we need a model release from the second (and third, etc.) person in the photo, plus your proof photo.

That's about it for now. It's going to be a beautiful weekend here in the Northeast, at least (finally), perfect for taking some great shots.

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