Lolita flea market in Stockholm, 25/7 2009
I got tired of going through the same old selling online hassle and thought; "why not get together for a flea market?"
And so, the Swedish Lolitaforum, in cooperation with the Japanese vintage store Tokyostop, arranged a flea market in Stockholm last Saturday.
Preparation day, the evening before the flea market
Putting together tables and making it look good takes a lot more time and space than you think.
Angelique and Madeleine behind Morbide Nuitée set up their table with their handmade jewelry.
Malin (thornchan) was there as well to promote her jewelries under the name Thornleaf.
Table and mannequin belonging to me, Sara (sushisael), Frida (shizuka_85), Sofia (yonaki_85), Ylva (spader7) and Josephine.
Katja (thepinkfairies) carefully placed out her things to sell.
Tada! Five hours of preparation and it looked quite alright.
The day of the flea market, presented hour by hour
07:00 - Woke up.
08:00 - Make up done, finished dressing, ready to go.
09:00 - Me, Mooness, Sara and Josephine were at the store early to set up the last things.
10:00 - Sellers were dropping in and finishing setting up their tables. Among them were Abbi (abbichicken from Mymble's Daughter arranging a whole table full of goodies.
10:15 - Meanwhile, Mooness has finished arranging the refreshment table. All the money from the refreshment table went straight to the Stockholm Catshelter. We managed to raise 688 SEK! That's about 93 USD.
10:30 - Katja did some last minute sewing.
10:50 - This was the mass of people waiting for the store to open. The first girls showed up at 9:30. One and a half hours before opening!
11:05 - Just minutes after the opening people were already queuing within the store to get into the room where the flea market was held.
11:05 - And the room itself was PACKED.
12:00 - Me and Josephine had to stand outside the store and direct people into a nice queue since they suddenly were lining up out through the door and on the street to get in.
12:30 - And the line just kept going and going. This was when we realised that we probably underestimated the amount of visitors... People stood in line for at least 30 minutes to even get to the door. Then it took another 15-20 minutes to get into the room inside the store. There were some visitors who got in line, got inside, went out, got in line again, came out again, got in line YET AGAIN and got in. AGAIN. All of this just to get more money from the ATM, some food, and more money to shop.
13:00 - A talent scout from Swedish national television came to interview and take pictures of potential candidates for a program that will air this autumn. She had e-mailed us in prior to the flea market wondering if she could find any "manga and japanese fashion inspired kids". Lol, yeah, maybe... :P There were all kinds of people visiting though; parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, costume and theater workers, pretty much all kinds of people and not just lolitas.
14:00 - The queue cleared up just enough so that we could see the refreshment table for the first time since the store opened.
15:00 - I got to SIT DOWN for the first time since the opening. Gah.
16:00 - Aaand some food. Nomnomnom. My first meal of the day, not counting the cookies from the refreshment table.
16:00 - I also gave up and took of my shoes and went without them for the rest of the day while indoors. I had already switched shoes around lunchtime from heels to these wedges.
17:00 - By now the amount of visitors had cleared enough for people to actually walk around and browse the tables for real.
18:00 - One hour left. I slashed the prices of my KERA magazines and the girls were all over them. ;D
19:00 - The flea market was officially closed and we packed our stuff together. I came there with a suitcase that was 60 cm by 80 cm big, packed to the brim with stuff to sell. Now all the items that were left could fit into this hat box I brought as decoration. Including the rest of the decoration stuff I had with me.
20:00 - The sellers that were left popped a champagne bottle and cheered for a successful lolita flea market! First ever in Sweden! ^^
21:00 - We went to an Italian restaurant and had FOOD. REAL FOOD. YES REAL FOOD OH SWEET LORD IN HEAVEN.
22:00 - We dragged ourselves to the subway, to our homes and to our beds.
We had an intense, wonderful day of meeting people, selling stuff and having a good time. Thank you to everyone who came and participated in all kinds of ways to make this lolita flea market memorable.
Some good memories:
- A dad stands waiting on his daughter to get out of the store. He says he just let her have the wallet and exclaims; "Well, it can't be worse than when we went to Paris to shop!"
- A mom comes in and says; "My daughter is 13 years old and she loves lolita. She is at summer camp and doesn't know I'm here - I want to surprise her by getting her something!"
- A girl came out of the store with staggering steps and I suddenly see that she wears my old shoes but they are untied. "I love them so much I just had to put them on! I don't know how to tie them but who cares!"
One of Swedens biggest national morning newspapers printed an article about the flea market the same day. They put me on the front page of the Culture pages. Holy shit! It looks like the bonnet is growing out of my forehead. You can read the article here (Swedish only, sorry).
We will do this again but it might take a while. ;) I still have to recover mentally and physically... and think about where to get a bigger venue.
Thank you for watching!