How Butler culture has influenced my lifestyle!

One thing that a lot of people don't know about me is the fact that I am obsessed with Butlers!

Butler culture in Japan is targeted towards young woman in their late teens to late 20s who are into traditionally feminine things.

Think "Princess Lifestyle."

From Deka Wanko, Chapter 44

Like a lot of girls who are into traditional femininity, I love the idea of being treated like a princess, which definitely adds to the Lolita aesthetic.

So why am I talking about how much I love butlers? Because Butler culture has influenced my lifestyle in a number of ways. It has influenced my lifestyle aesthetic, my interpersonal feelings, as well as my own behavior.

To show you what I mean, I will introduce you to a few things that heavily involves the Modern Maiden's idea of the perfect butler.

1. The Victorian Atmosphere

After a few years of watching Black Butler, I found out where some of the inspiration for the manga series came from: Swallowtail Butler Cafe in Ikebukuro in Tokyo, Japan. Upon seeing that such a cafe existed, I had to look into it right away. I fell in love immediately!

In case you don't know, butler cafes are cafes where you go to enjoy pastries and tea while being treated like royalty by very handsome butlers. The atmosphere of Swallowtail Butler cafe in particular makes you feel as if you were a young lady living in a Victorian mansion. On top of that, the butlers are trained professionally, almost as if they were real butlers. They do their job with the utmost dignity, and they take care of everything for you, and when most guests who have been there say everything, they mean EVERYTHING! You won't have to lift a finger!

This cafe has everything down to the decimal point as to what a maiden with refined taste desires, including the items on the menu. They have lavish afternoon tea sets, dinners, and dessert plates and some of the finest tea blends that are said to be hand-blended by the cafe's footmen! The tea is served in only the best in teacup brands and such! (I have a cup and saucer set from Paragon that is my pride and joy!)

Might I add, they also have a few Patisseries that sell the cutest cakes and sweets I have ever seen!

However, if royal etiquette does not come naturally to you, you may find that they are pretty strict about a few minor things, but this is for the sake of maintaining the theme and order of the cafe, as they do get a lot of customers, so much, you have make a reservation at least two weeks in advance! 

Here are a couple of customer experiences as to what the cafe staff's etiquette is like.

"There was a younger butler and an older butler that spoke English and explained some stuff to us. They took our umbrellas (it was supposed to rain that day) and stored them in the back for us, then some younger butlers held our bags and ushered us to our seats.....The butlers pushed all of our chairs in and placed dark blue napkins in our laps, and placed all of our bags into a collective basket to the side of the table on the floor and covered it with a cloth. But I realized I was going to need my phone in case **** called. HOWEVER you are not allowed to go get anything without the butlers to do it for you! You have to go along with the roleplay or they get very perturbed. I finally got my phone, and **** called because he couldn't find the place. I didn't know it but there were NO PHONECALLS ALLOWED. So the butlers quickly came over and were all "Oh, if the mistress would be so kind as to honorably speak on the telephone in the privacy of the outside of the cafe...blahblahblah..." (go_slow_ly)

"If you need to go to the bathroom, you just ring the bell and your butler comes and escorts you and waits until you've done your business to escort you back to your table." (Deerstalker Pictures)

For a lot of people, this kind of experience can be a little awkward, and sometimes rather frustrating and difficult to follow, making the experience a little bit pressuring. But this sort of experience can be a lot of good fun if you plan ahead and prepare for what's coming. If you plan on traveling to Japan and you would really like to make a visit, I highly suggest you triple check the times and dates before making a reservation! (The full details on reservations are on their website right here. They also have an English guide.)

This cafe is one of the places I would really like to visit before I die, and if I ever do live in Japan for a few years or so like I once said I would really like to do, you could guarantee that I will be a regular customer!

Sources
Deerstalker Pictures
go_slow_ly
Official Site

Now let us dive a little deeper into this topic.

2. Butlers and Escapism

Now as I have mentioned a bit earlier, Swallowtail was the source of inspiration for my favorite anime of all time: Black Butler. At the time I got into it, I absolutely loved the idea of having a loyal butler! Someone who is always on the dot and knows exactly what you need at the right time, someone you can trust who will never cross you, someone you can be weak in front of and won't call you pathetic, but instead take care of you, protect you, and help you regain your strength. Through Black Butler, I found an interest that took me away from a lot of hard experiences I had in school and in life in general. The idea of having a perfect butler became one of my personal escapes.

In Black Butler, even though both Sebastian Michaelis and Claude Faustus were under contracts, the relationship between them and their masters, Ciel Phantomhive and Alois Trancy, just appeared so close and intimate. Now being a single person for the majority of my life (no surprise there!) watching girls get their hearts broken by questionable men, I admit, I became more attracted to the idea of having a manservant who obligates himself to take care of me and stay by my side, rather than a boyfriend who could just drop me at any time if he got tired of me. Needless to say, that idea stayed with me a for a long time.

Through Black Butler, I have become a huge butler enthusiast in general. The whole idea of having a perfect butler to keep me in order has really fueled my lifelong desire to become a traditionalist proper lady with high standards and strict personal policies in a rather careless, easygoing, repulsive, and discourteous society. It has boosted my motivation to achieve my lifestyle goal of living my life as if I was a noble lady of the Victorian Era!

But unfortunately, the closest I have gotten to the goal of actually having a butler is the next subject here.

3. A Desire for the Perfectionist Treatment

This here, is my favorite Otome game, Butler Until Midnight, the game by Voltage Inc. which has just discontinued back in December 2018.

(An Otome game is a type of visual novel that originates from Japan. It's basically what we call a dating simulation game. The object of the game is to interact with the characters and develop relationships with them as the main protagonist. These games are usually played from a first-person perspective.)

Since I'm into the glasses type, my immediate first choice was Tomoki Matsuba, a perfectionist butler.

As I progressed through his story, I noticed the main protagonist dreaded his strict guidelines. On the contrary, I actually really loved how much of a perfectionist he was, given that I am one myself sometimes!

He knew anything and everything that I wish I was educated more on as a child such as the piano and dinner etiquette. Needless to say, this fictional character was truly the ideal butler.

Although I had very good grades and pretty good behavior as a child, I didn't like the subjects I was being taught. I wanted to learn about things like Classical Music, how to play the Violin, the histories of the Victorian and Rococo periods, and of course, Tea Party Etiquette, all which would be considered useless in real life.

Did I care? Of course not!

By the time I was in middle school, I slumped down from a little Princess to a sloppy, overexcited, and extremely awkward preteen otaku. (Note: In case some of you are not aware, "Otaku" is not something to be proud of.....)

I'm not afraid to admit that I developed sloppy table manners, little to no common decency, and my grades ranged from average to low. It got progressively worse in high school. Now in college, I'm doing much better. Not all A's, but at least there are no D's and F's now, I actually have a self-care routine, and I now have a proud collection of tea cups as well as a decent wardrobe that isn't made up of jeans, cosplay accessories, skechers, and anime t-shirts!

Interacting with Tomoki in the game made me wish I had someone like him to straighten me out at an early age, and help me break some of the bad habits I have now. It's difficult to break some habits I have like chewing gum with your mouth open, putting your elbows on the table, laughing at inappropriate times, and the worst, procrastination!

Now I admit, the first few years of my adulthood were awfully disastrous as I was getting to know a few aspects of being an adult such as the twists and wrong turns of dating life, but nevertheless no matter how many mistakes you make, there is always time to get up, turn around, change, and improve.

"BUT WHY!?" One would ask.

"WHY do you actually WANT to have good manners and good behavior?"
"WHY do you actually WANT to do everything by the book?"
"WHY would you actually WANT to eat like the Duchess instead of just stuffing your face with whatever you want?"
"WHY would you actually WANT to follow rules?"
"WHY do you seriously WANT to be a proper lady?"

"Just do whatever the hell you want!"

I AM doing whatever I want. This is what I want.
I'm not living the way I want to because I'm trying to get a Prince or something dumb and cliche like that, I'm doing this for me. I'm doing it simply because I WANT to. Simply because I get a strong sense of self from it. Simply because I feel like myself in that state of being.

"But traditionalism is not even feminist! It's outdated!"

Not feminist? Think about this.

I am a 22-year-old woman who is completely by her own free will, choosing a lifestyle that involves wearing otherwise considered conservative clothes that also resemble porcelain doll clothes that are seen on little girls the majority of the time that I would be told I am "too old" to wear, learning outdated mannerisms that make most people tell you that you have a stick up your butt, refraining from debauchery as much as I humanly can (with a few slip ups here and there) in a society where men expect that sort of promiscuous behavior from women and get angry when denied the view of a woman's body while most of the male-gaze-driven media profits off of that expectation, and participating in delicate activities such as embroidery, baking, and hosting afternoon tea that are looked down upon and considered only for the weak and spineless.

If that is not a feminist thing for a woman to choose to do, at least a woman my age in this day, I don't know what is.

The Modern Maiden's image of the Butler has taken up plenty of space in the part of my brain where the inspiration goes. I find these creative and dreamy ideas and concepts of the butler to be very interesting, and very motivational.

Point being: I like Butlers. A lot.

Thank you for reading, and remember that there's no shame in having serious reasons for silly obsessions, and neither is there any shame in having otherwise considered silly inner motivators to do what you set out to!

-Blandis

Lolita Blog Carnival: Differences between Lolita Now verses Lolita Five Years Ago

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first Lolita Blog Carnival post to this blog!

In case you don't know, Lolita Blog Carnival is a Facebook group of Lolita Bloggers who get together every week to write on a weekly topic related to Lolita Fashion.

This week's topic: Lolita Now verses Lolita Five Years Ago!

Now almost 6 years ago, I graduated high school, and I was just starting to get into Lolita. I went through a Sugary Sweet phase where I was all about pastels and sweet prints, as most beginner Lolitas are.

It was very short-lived, and frankly.....a bit embarrassing for me!

So from my perspective, back then, Sweet Lolita was the most popular substyle of Lolita. Pastel colored hair, OTT accessories, sweets themes, as well as other pastel palette styles like fairy kei were very present and very loud in Lolita fashion.

Angelic Pretty was a brand I heard the most about when I was first getting into Lolita. The current designers, Maki and Asuka, were seen as trendsetters in Lolita. At that time, colorful sweet prints, high hair, and multiple accessories were although not new trends, very popular in Lolita. (Images from the Tokyo Rebel blog.)

With Angelic Pretty's growing brand came the rising popularity of Sweet Lolita. Soon enough, the majority of Lolitas were Sweet Lolitas, and that was the image most people had in mind when they hear about J-Fashion, or see clothes similar to Sweet Lolita being marketed by mainstream Western clothing companies.

TokyoFashion.com Street Snap from June 2013

TokyoFashion.com Street Snap from January 2014

TokyoFashion.com Street Snap from September 2013

Of course with the growth and development of social media, Lolita fashion became more widespread and accessible to Western countries than it was back in the 1990s. When I first got into Lolita back in high school, back in 2011, I found the fashion through a crazy and completely unintentional visit to BABY THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT in San Francisco. When I was getting into it, I was able to look it up through the internet and find many Western sites writing about Lolita fashion, as well as finding out that BABY and Angelic Pretty both have USA stores in person, and online. Little did I know, most Western Lolitas back in the late 1990s had very little access to the fashion, except through fashion magazines from Japan that were very hard to come by at the time.

By 2013, I was a Junior in high school taking classes on sewing. At that time, I was always checking the EGL Comm sales, as well as for new blog posts/YouTube videos from Tokyo Rebel and BABY SF. At that time, I was a lone Lolita and was not involved in any Lolita communities then, so everything I knew about Lolita fashion was from blog posts, videos, and social media posts by Lolita models and Influencers like Misako Aoki.

As for Lolita fashion today, Lolita is a lot more toned down than it was five years ago. More Lolitas have cleaned up the look, even in OTT looks. With less accessories and more clean, and intricate detailed prints or plain colors with trims and textures rather than just sweets all over the place, Lolita fashion is surely a lot more classy and perfectionist than it was five years ago, or when the fashion first began to emerge on the streets of Harajuku, Japan back in the late 1990s.

TokyoFashion.com Street Snap from April 2018

This year, Mana, designer of Moi-Meme-Moitie and former lead guitarist of visual kei band Malice Mizer, made a comeback after the brand was dropped from Gothic Lolita Bible back in 2016, the magazine which was later discontinued along with well-known Japanese fashion magazine KERA, in 2017.

Mana in Gothic Lolita Bible

Lolita secondhand store Wunderwelt, known for selling Lolita pieces secondhand, now sells the brand, new and used.

Mana has also made a couple of appearances in the United States in 2018, with another one in Hawaii scheduled later this year. With the comeback of Mana and Moi-Meme-Moitie comes the revamp of Gothic Lolita.

Moi-Meme-Moitie Models from Sakura-Con 2018 in Seattle, Washington

Like any fashion style, trends change over time. I will not make any predictions as to what could trend in the next few years, because truly, who knows how the fashion will change in the next five years?

Thank you for reading this Lolita blog Carnival entry! Check out another entry below!

The Bloody Tea Party

-Blandis

Happy 2019!

Hello everyone!

As 2018 comes to a close, I would like to take a moment to thank those who have supported me, even throughout the number of times I have stopped and restarted with my blogging.

If I can be so honest, I went through a lot the past few years. I had lots of tough problems and personal issues to deal with, and I really want to thank the people who have stood by me through it all, even when I kept quiet about it all.

That aside, what I love about New Year's is that it feels like you get to leave it all behind and start fresh.

So from Silk and Shears to you, Happy New Year!

What Inspired me to get into Fashion?

For the past five years now, I have really advanced in my fashion life. As I've been progressing further, I decided to take a look back to when I began to get into fashion.

How did it all start? When did my transformation begin? It began in the 7th grade.

At the time, I just discovered anime and manga, and I was hooked! I didn't have many friends, so most of the time at school, I was reading manga, drawing, or playing video games on my own. One day at the library, I found volume 2 of Shugo Chara. I heard of it back when I used to be on Flipnote Hatena. (Ah, good times!) I was too excited to wait for volume 1, so I just read it anyways. As I flipped through the pages, I started to connect with the main character, Amu Hinamori.

During that phase of my life, I was struggling to find out what it is that I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. For the first few years of my life, my persona was distorted and was going in many directions. People began to spread rumors about me that I felt did not reflect who I was, and I felt that I did not give off the impression I wanted to have on others. When I first read Shugo Chara, I shed a tear when I realized that Amu was going through the exact same thing. 

As I got further into Shugo Chara, I came to really identify with Amu and become obsessed with her sense of style! She really expressed herself through her clothes, and I'll admit to being envious of her closet full of the cutest clothes I ever saw!

While her general style was cute and punk put together, I was most taken by the more frilly "Lolita" outfits such as the third picture above.

She gave off a bold impression with the things she liked to wear, and it led people to think highly of her. It was then that I decided to try experimenting with my own clothes. I did not know anything about fashion whatsoever, and I didn't have much to work with except various red ribbons, scarves, and scraps of cheap jewelry. So I just threw stuff together and tried to make it look cool. Of course, I expected people at school to be a little weirded out. What I didn't expect was becoming a bigger target for bullying and hate than I already was. Still, I kept experimenting more and more, and I kept trying to find which style was right for me.

"No matter what changes, I'll still be me, and I can be whoever I want to be."

-Amu Hinamori

A little before going into 8th Grade, I got into Japanese Gothic culture. From my point of view, American Gothic fashion and culture is seen as really dark, edgy, and more horror based, while Japanese Goth is a bit more on the cute, elegant, romantic, and feminine side. I was first motivated to look more into it than I already knew after watching Black Butler for the first time.

Black Butler is basically everything I wanted in an anime! The music, the clothing, the tea and sweets, the beautiful yet deadly supernatural beings, and of course, the butlers! It is my all-time favorite anime, and I highly recommend this to anyone who loves anything to do with occult, mysteries, the supernatural, and the Victorian Era! (I have also read the manga which is perfection! I'm not all the way caught up yet, so NO SPOILERS!)

The thing I loved the most about Black Butler was obviously, the fashion! The heels, the drapes, the frills, everything! (And let's not forget about that pink dress!)

I was already fascinated by Goth and Elegant culture in general even before getting into anime. (I watched a lot of Tim Burton movies and read fairy tales and such when I was younger.) I just got pulled deeper into the fashion and lifestyle aspect of it all.

“I prefer to have my nightmares with open eyes.”

-Ciel Phantomhive

My freshman year of high school was when I was sure that I wanted to be an elegant lady. However, since I couldn't afford the look I wanted to have, neither did I have enough time in the morning to don it all every day, I got most of my outfit influence during that time from prep school uniforms that I would sometimes see in anime, manga, or J-Dramas.

I was still in high school at the time, so I thought the prep school look was the most appropriate. My teachers and the faculty loved it,-and I have little doubt that the vice principal may have considered uniforms at one point-while most of the other students associated it with things that were more raunchy. Unfortunately, that is just how it goes with experimenting with fashion sometimes.

While anime was pretty much a huge influence on my fashion life, so was music. Music has played such a HUGE part in my life, especially in my fashion life. The biggest influence as far music incorporated with fashion goes was ALI PROJECT. They're a Neo-Classical duo with one singer and lyrics writer, and one composer and musician: Arika Takarano and Mikiya Katakura.

My singing style leans a lot more towards a more Operatic style, but nobody likes to listen to Opera anymore as far as I know, so when I first started listening to ALI PROJECT, I fell instantly in love with their style of neo-classical music. I love Takarano's voice and Katakura's instrumental style. Most of all, I loved Takarano's extravagant ensembles!

ALI PROJECT's music videos were beautiful in every way! I am completely in love with their music and their dark yet romantic and regal approach to their image! She inspired me to give myself the self-image that I needed: A Queen without a King.

" 'I am a special maiden.' It’s okay for you to think that, you know. Even if there are strangers who look away and snicker at you because your skirt is too poufy, or because the ribbon adorning your hair is too big, you don’t have to let it bother you. Sure, it’s aggravating that there are still some confused people who see Gothic and Lolita as unemotional, cheap cosplay, but you should just remain confident and stand tall."

-Arika Takarano

It wasn't until just three years ago that I finally jumped into Lolita fashion after taking interest in it three years prior to that time. I knew it was going to be something that I was going to stick with. I spent the past two years experimenting with different Lolita substyles. I used to be into over-the-top cutesy sweet Lolita, but then I thought, "Yeah it's cute, but not on me." (It was like an emo phase, except with rainbows, glitter and unicorns.)

So I got into old-school Gothic Lolita a little later, and I felt that it really suited me. My friends  then started to notice that I pretty much embodied the Lolita character trope that is often seen in anime, manga, and video games.

I just so happened to identify the most with this character trope because...
1. I wear frills in any and every situation.
2. Cake and sweets are my life.
3. I am pretty introverted and independent.

This took me back to my creative inspirational roots in my interest in anime, manga, and video games. More than often, whenever I would start a new anime, manga, or game, I would notice that there was almost always a Lolita or Lolita-esque character. She is always sure of herself, and trusts nothing and no one but her own instincts. She comes off as snobby and picky, but she is a perfectionist and settles for nothing less than what she wants. She hates being pushed around which gives her a superiority complex that keeps her from having a low self-esteem. She's blunt and straightforward, but it is because she doesn't lie just to make herself or other people feel better. Her ambitions are set in stone, and no one is able to keep her from achieving what she has set out to do. She does everything her own way and never does what anyone else prefers her to do. No matter what kind of situation she's in, even in the worst situations, she's always adorning herself in frills as if it was her second skin, very much like Momoko Ryukasaki from Kamikaze Girls!

Seeing that there are so many characters in Lolita fashion that there is a legit trope for it really makes me feel like I'm not alone, and that there are people, real or fiction, that I can relate to. It really helped me to figure out what I am most comfortable with and how I wanted to express that. I wanted to take the influence from this classic anime trope and express that through my clothes, so Old School Lolita is the style that suited me perfectly!

With its roots from Japan, and its influence from history's most elegant time periods, Old School really reflected the dark and romantic, edgy and punk-rock, yet classically feminine fashion rebellion against the norms of what an adult lady was expected to be in modern society. Although it is a simple style compared to most Lolita substyles, it it what makes the style a classic. To me, it truly reflects the Gothic and Punk movements of the 80s and 90s, where people decided to try doing things differently instead of following social norms and doing what was expected of them. 

Through fashion, I finally knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to say, and who I wanted to be.

I wanted to do things my own way, and live my life how I want to. I wanted to be the kind of person who does whatever they please, ignoring the pressure and harsh opinions of others. If I want to dress this way, then I will. No one has the right to tell me otherwise.

To most people, fashion is just clothes and makeup, but to me, it was the key to figuring out what kind of person I am. It was because of fashion that I immersed myself into a lifestyle that I feel comfortable with living. It was because of fashion that I built up so much confidence that I didn't have before. It was because of fashion that I feel like I can do things that I doubted I could ever do before.

So next time you cringe at old photos of yourself from middle school or high school, remember that it's okay to go through a few phases to find who you are!

"When you find something precious, you have to hold on to it with all your might and never let it go, whatever else you may lose. After all, there are lots of people who die without ever finding something that's really precious to them."

-Novala Takemoto

Thank you for reading,

-Blandis