Baby The Stars Shine Bright Come to America!
As I sit here in my new Baby The Stars Shine Bright dress having returned from San Francisco today I feel strangely energetic. I must still have a lot of adrenaline going through me still! My adventure started on Friday with a very long drive up the coast. We made it to San Francisco by late afternoon and walked over to North Beach for some delicious Italian food. After chatting with I believe the manager of the Steps of Rome Caffe in broken Italian, we decided to eat there. And as usual, the food did not disappoint. For the price (about $10 to $15 a plate) you get a bargain with the high quality ingredients they use. And my broken Italian paid off-we got free dessert. A nice slice of tiramisu, which I highly recommend.
But I did not go to San Francisco just to eat. Baby The Stars Shine Bright and Black Peace Now was finally opening. I love Baby The Stars Shine Bright-they offer the most variety and always seem to come up with something special. Other brands may become the fashion of the moment, but I always gravitate to BTSSB. But I was not surprised by the enthusiasm and the number of lolitas that arrived for the opening-this was a main topic of conversation at the Candyland party earlier this month in Los Angeles in which over 450 lolitas attended. I also recall the last time Volks released Baby The Stars Shine Bright items for their dolls-the crowd of doll owners was just as enthusiastic and caused quite the frenzy !
As I love both Volks and Baby The Stars Shine Bright, I brough my mini Super Dollfie Toppi, named Mai, dressed in her Red Riding Hood dress by BTSSB. I was delighted and charmed by the staff at the Baby store who had heard of the Volks and Baby The Stars Shine Bright collaborations and were happy to finally see one.
The New People website instructed everyone to arrive at 9:30 am for the distribution of tickets. Luckily we arrived at 9:00 am because they had been passing out tickets for at least an hour. They had 150 tickets and I pulled 110.These tickets would allow us to enter and exit the building as we pleased during the day. We then wandered Japantown, which was much smaller than Los Angeles's Little Tokyo but it has quite a few anime shops and even a manga cafe. I am envious of the size of the Kinokuniya bookstore, a whopping two stories.
At 10:30 we returned and after much head scratching we were finally organized by ticket number. Surprise, surprise, almost all the ticket holders were dressed in lolita. After standing through speech after speech and told to close our parasols so they "could photograph us" we were finally allowed into the building in groups of 30 at a time and were warned "lolitas please don't run into the building!"
As we entered the building we were filmed. In fact, there were cameras everywhere! I didn't notice them at first as I entered the store as I was literally stunned upon standing in my favorite lolita store in the US! The store looked a combination of the BTSSB store in Osaka and the Alice and the Pirates store in Harajuku I visited but much larger than any of the Baby stores I visited in Japan. I soon snapped out of it and began to look for the items on my list. I did not find the pagoda parasol I wanted but opted for a long frilly white one instead that offers UV protection and can be used in the rain. I have to say, the quality of the parasols BTSSB produces are amazing.
Sadly, they had very few Alice and the Pirates items but they did have some of the circus print items which I picked up for fivechildren . They also barely had any jewelry for sale-which was probably a good thing due to the sheer numbers of people in the store. In fact, there were so many people for the opening it took two hours to get through the line. But despite the large crowd, the staff was very attentive and friendly. They all looked very pretty in their BTSSB outfits and I feel represented the company well.
It turns out that they only had one cash register and if you wanted to use your credit card they had to total up your items, escort you downstairs to pay, then escort you back upstairs to pick up your package. The credit card machines had not yet been installed. Luckily I was between
neku_niku and aimeekitty so I was not bored at all. In fact, I recognized so many lolitas from the epic parties in LA that I wish I was better at remembering names!
The two hour wait meant that I had to miss the Yoshitaka Amano panel and the BTSSB and Black Peace Now fashion shows. My friend recorded the fashion shows so I'll be able to at least watch it. But I really wanted to attend the Yoshitaka Amano panel as I love his work in Vampire Hunter D as well as the artwork he provided for Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters. Well I could always have him autograph a book, right? Wrong! In order to do that you had to be amongst the first 50 people to purchase a Yoshitaka Amano item in the New People store. Where was that written??? Considering this was an event that the lolita community had been waiting well over a year for, I would have thought New People would have been more prepared. As they are likely to have more events, I am going to send them an email describing my dissatisfaction with the organization of the event.
But despite the organization and people traffic issues, I am happy to have been at the opening of Baby The Stars Shine Bright. They did not have to open a store in the United States but they did, which shows how much they appreciate their customers outside of Japan and it made me happy to have over 200 lolitas show their support of Baby The Stars Shine Bright on opening day and appreciate them for coming to us.
I have posted pictures of the opening on my flickr. Here is a preview of the photos:
Volks and BTSSB! My two favorite things! Mai (my MSD Toppi) wears her "Red Riding Hood" dress-also by BTSSB!
Random lolitas at the street festival
The view from the street!
But I did not go to San Francisco just to eat. Baby The Stars Shine Bright and Black Peace Now was finally opening. I love Baby The Stars Shine Bright-they offer the most variety and always seem to come up with something special. Other brands may become the fashion of the moment, but I always gravitate to BTSSB. But I was not surprised by the enthusiasm and the number of lolitas that arrived for the opening-this was a main topic of conversation at the Candyland party earlier this month in Los Angeles in which over 450 lolitas attended. I also recall the last time Volks released Baby The Stars Shine Bright items for their dolls-the crowd of doll owners was just as enthusiastic and caused quite the frenzy !
As I love both Volks and Baby The Stars Shine Bright, I brough my mini Super Dollfie Toppi, named Mai, dressed in her Red Riding Hood dress by BTSSB. I was delighted and charmed by the staff at the Baby store who had heard of the Volks and Baby The Stars Shine Bright collaborations and were happy to finally see one.
The New People website instructed everyone to arrive at 9:30 am for the distribution of tickets. Luckily we arrived at 9:00 am because they had been passing out tickets for at least an hour. They had 150 tickets and I pulled 110.These tickets would allow us to enter and exit the building as we pleased during the day. We then wandered Japantown, which was much smaller than Los Angeles's Little Tokyo but it has quite a few anime shops and even a manga cafe. I am envious of the size of the Kinokuniya bookstore, a whopping two stories.
At 10:30 we returned and after much head scratching we were finally organized by ticket number. Surprise, surprise, almost all the ticket holders were dressed in lolita. After standing through speech after speech and told to close our parasols so they "could photograph us" we were finally allowed into the building in groups of 30 at a time and were warned "lolitas please don't run into the building!"
As we entered the building we were filmed. In fact, there were cameras everywhere! I didn't notice them at first as I entered the store as I was literally stunned upon standing in my favorite lolita store in the US! The store looked a combination of the BTSSB store in Osaka and the Alice and the Pirates store in Harajuku I visited but much larger than any of the Baby stores I visited in Japan. I soon snapped out of it and began to look for the items on my list. I did not find the pagoda parasol I wanted but opted for a long frilly white one instead that offers UV protection and can be used in the rain. I have to say, the quality of the parasols BTSSB produces are amazing.
Sadly, they had very few Alice and the Pirates items but they did have some of the circus print items which I picked up for fivechildren . They also barely had any jewelry for sale-which was probably a good thing due to the sheer numbers of people in the store. In fact, there were so many people for the opening it took two hours to get through the line. But despite the large crowd, the staff was very attentive and friendly. They all looked very pretty in their BTSSB outfits and I feel represented the company well.
It turns out that they only had one cash register and if you wanted to use your credit card they had to total up your items, escort you downstairs to pay, then escort you back upstairs to pick up your package. The credit card machines had not yet been installed. Luckily I was between
neku_niku and aimeekitty so I was not bored at all. In fact, I recognized so many lolitas from the epic parties in LA that I wish I was better at remembering names!
The two hour wait meant that I had to miss the Yoshitaka Amano panel and the BTSSB and Black Peace Now fashion shows. My friend recorded the fashion shows so I'll be able to at least watch it. But I really wanted to attend the Yoshitaka Amano panel as I love his work in Vampire Hunter D as well as the artwork he provided for Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters. Well I could always have him autograph a book, right? Wrong! In order to do that you had to be amongst the first 50 people to purchase a Yoshitaka Amano item in the New People store. Where was that written??? Considering this was an event that the lolita community had been waiting well over a year for, I would have thought New People would have been more prepared. As they are likely to have more events, I am going to send them an email describing my dissatisfaction with the organization of the event.
But despite the organization and people traffic issues, I am happy to have been at the opening of Baby The Stars Shine Bright. They did not have to open a store in the United States but they did, which shows how much they appreciate their customers outside of Japan and it made me happy to have over 200 lolitas show their support of Baby The Stars Shine Bright on opening day and appreciate them for coming to us.
I have posted pictures of the opening on my flickr. Here is a preview of the photos:
Volks and BTSSB! My two favorite things! Mai (my MSD Toppi) wears her "Red Riding Hood" dress-also by BTSSB!
Random lolitas at the street festival
The view from the street!