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Date Made: July 2004
Wait Time: 3-4 months
Cost: $300+
Worn to: Onicon 2004, Ushicon 2005
Since reading Chobits, I had become fascinated by the style known as gothic lolita. It is based on the Victorian gothic style used to dress dolls of that era. The style was elegant and cute to me....I had to make one. During A-kon, I saw many people dressing up in the gothic lolita style and also bought two Gothic Lolita Bibles; when me, Jill, and Marsha all decided to do a group cosplay and all be gothic lolitas for next A-kon. So I was searching on an online gothic lolita shop named Baby the Stars Shine Bright. Jill went for a green apple jumper skirt and I went for the traditional one piece black and white.
Unfortunately, even though I had just finished my first costume, it was far from the delicate intricacies that was required of the dress. So me and Jill decided to have a tailor make our dresses for us. Because this was our first time to have a tailor make our costumes, it was another new experience. After looking at many tailors, we decided to go along with a Korean tailor that we had found that stated she had 43 years of experience and also had some knowledge of making an anime costume.
As we did not know so much of how to conduct business with a tailor, she told us how long it would take to make both dresses (2 months) and we stated that the convention we were attending was in late October. We gathered all the materials and left them with her, and waited about 3 weeks because she had yet to call us about any progress.
It turned that she had not even begun on them. We were very puzzled and it turned out it was because she decided (I'm guessing) that because we did not need them until late October, she would delay them. And so began our struggle with "ms. tailor lady". As time went on her time management we saw was very bad. When we had called to visit her place to check on the progress of the dresses, she would not be present and the time she stated on the door when she would be back was usually an hour earlier than she would be there. Overall, it was a very difficult experience working with her.
But around the second week of October, she finally handed us the finished products, two dresses, one apple green jumper skirt and one black and white one piece. Thankfully they were very impressive and nicely detailed.
Once we arrived at Oni-con, we were well received by many people complimenting the tailoring of our dresses and the look. Jill was complimented tremendously for her gigantic metallic green eyelashes by Duel Jewel and Camino, the musical bands signed by Oni-con. We were thouroughly happy with the results of the dresses, but were disappointed with how much time we spent bugging our seamstress about our costumes.
Overall, great dresses, great convention, not so great tailor....-_- me and Jill both agreed that we would not go to her again.