Takeshita Dori in Harajuku Shopping District Here I Come!

With my fascination with all things Japanese, I decided to try and do an interpretation of the Elegant Goth Lolita Fashion. I wanted to do this for this year's Halloween. I'm not sure where that will be at, but I thought I would at least get myself ready.

The Elegant Goth Lolita fashion has been credited to a Japanese guitarist who calls himself Mana. He played for a group called Malice Mizer (pronounced Marisu Miseru). A number of the J-rock bands have an androgynous visual theme. Mana's group and Dir En Grey are two of the early bands along with X Japan who is credited with the the Visual Kei movement. The young girls that follow these bands dress in these EGL dresses and gather in the Harajuku Shopping District around Takeshita Dori(Street) in Tokyo on Sunday. It has become quite an attraction to tourist who gather and take photos of all the people that dress in these beautiful costumes. You may find more pictures of the Harajuku Shopping District here.

The look is sometimes dark like the American Gothic or it's light, like Alice in Wonderland. The common theme is Victorian and young girl. Whether it is dark or light the dresses come with lace and a certain amount of poofiness. They are pretty, feminine, and doll like. There is a always some sort of head gear, a small hat mounted on one side, flowers, or bonnet.

This fashion ties seamlessly into the whole cosplay/crossplay, manga, and anime that the Japanese love so much.

Lost in Translation

This was my first stab at the makeup. I used false eyelashes on both top and bottom. The eyeshadow is M.A.C. "Cranberry Frost" and the eyeliner is M.A.C. "Raven". The lips I used both black and red lipstick. The lipstick from is a dark "Go Currant" from Maybeline. I blended the black into the red.

This really isn't an example of EGL by the way. What I'm showing you here is a style sometimes politely called "Cosplay Lolita", or not so politely called "Clueless Lolita"! For an accurate description of all the different sub-categories of Lolita check out the website LolitaFashion.org. But I loved doing it anyways!

First Pictures Since Surgery

I finally got a chance to create some pictures with makeup since my plastic surgery.

A few tidbits of information are left about my surgery. There still is some swelling after one month and five days. Also, I was told afterwards that sometimes the dissolvable sutures do not dissolve, the immune system will push them up and out! And that has happened to me. It was really weird to have some of these little like fishing line things come out from around my ears, yuk!

And as per usual, my Photoshop skills are being put to the test, I hope you like them!

Here's my first picture in a chartreuse dress that I got from Newport News:



This is something I threw together. I'm in the process of creating an Elegant Goth Lolita ensemble. So I'm showing off the gloves, socks and shoes from that future ensemble:


I'm trying to get all ready for the Southern Comfort Conference. So I'm trying out some different combinations of stuff I already have:

And a closeup from the same shot:


Here's another Head Shot:



I'm really happy so far with the results of all the surgery torture I endured. And I can't wait to get to the SCC this October first! I hope to see a lot of you there!

Love, Tracy

Two Weeks & Three Days

Today is Thursday September 4, 2008. I feel I've fallen behind in my facelift updates. I think John Lennon said it best:

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

But I'm also kinda bummed, I had just bought a brand new Nikon D40 camera and was enjoying the infrared remote control, when I bumped the tripod and crash! I thought at first it was OK because the software screen was OK, but then when I tried to take a picture, it sounded like it was having a seizure, the poor thing. It's on a vacation to the Nikon & Lounge and Repair place. I hope to hear from it soon.

But back to my progress. More of the swelling is down, almost all of the busing is gone. There are still lumps under my chin, this is a direct result of the muscle tightening. An excellent article was in the New York Magazine about the "New New Face" It explains better what my plastic surgeons goals were: To tighten underlying structures and to add back (or plump up) that which is missing. You may wish to read the comments to that article. There was so much anger in a lot of the posts. I hope I'm not generating more!

So here's my picture as of Friday before the Nikon debacle, again no makeup, sorry for the beard:


My wife saw me in this outfit, said I looked like one of the guys from "Spinal Tap", frankly, I don't see it.




Here's one with some basic hiding powder: