I decided to not post this on my domain anyway, I feel like it's kind of personal stuff that doesn't need to be archived forever on a portfolio site. Lol. Anyway, here are some photos from Okashi-con 2023 and related J-fashion recaps!
Okashicon is a small convention in Pflugerville, Texas and emphasizes inclusivity, Japanese street fashion and a safe and welcoming environment for all Japanese culture fans. This year the con invited Japanese guests Haruka Kurebayashi and Sebastian Masuda, along with a handful of western indie brands and vendors. They have a fashion show, several J-fashion panels, a swapmeet and a fashion mixer each year (when able to meet in person) along with the usual anime panels, cosplay contest, tabletop gaming, maid cafe, voice-actor guests, artist alley and dealer's room. If you are even slightly interested in Japanese fashion and kawaii culture and have the means and desire to travel to Texas in the summer, you could do much worse (I mean that literally lol).
One of the panels I went to is the Lolita Loteria! It's basically bingo but with lolita related imagery, some of which were translated to Spanish but some not for entertainment factor. I won the first round and got a cute little sweet!
Unlike a traditional lolita brand-sponsored tea party, the fashion mixer is open to all Japanese street fashions such as lolita, decora, ouji, gyaru, fairy-kei, rave, etcetera. This year's theme is space uchuu, featuring the cutest space girl mascot and very creative table decorations! The favor bags for attendees are hefty ones with tons of space-themed treats and small goodies from the vendors and fashion guests, kudos to the staff for putting it together!
Okashicon's mixer features themed mocktails (no alcohol), I got the Berry Big Bang drink.
There were four carnival games to play for chances to win extra raffle tickets for the raffle, and on top of that, the guests did some DJ-ing for us as well as a special one of a kind experience!
And now for my coord! I decided to do a space cowboy themed (yeehaw-kei as we have termed it here in Texas) sweet lolita and just went all out with my star and space and cowboy themed accessories and jewelry. I also did a matching set of pastel fake nails with space unicorns, stars, moons and sparkles!
Here is a selfie closeup so you can see my cool star-shaped glasses from iconografi, unfortunately I didn't remember to take a picture without a mask since I was staying with an immune-compromised friend and we were eating inside a building.
Now for the full coord rundown for anyone interested! While I love wearing a full OTT lolita coord for a brand tea party, I enjoy the creativity and casualness of a J-fashion mixer and I get to pull out all the pastels and bright colors and flashy gear. And a mini toy gun lol.
[Dress: Angelic Pretty; socks: Enchanted Dream Couture; vest: Axes Femme; boots: YRUshoes; cowboy hat: got it from the Texas State Fair; bracelets and enamel pins: offbrand, Devilish Angel, Preciousbbyz, Haruka Kurebayashi, Moshimelon; rings, earrings, patch, hairclips and other bracelets: Hot Topic, several creators from my black-owned businesses post; wig: Mintymix; toy gun, nail stickers, deco sticker for the hat: Daiso]
I think this was pretty much the perfect coord for the theme and general yeehaw kei vibes, the only thing I would add is maybe some more bracelets but I was lazy and didn't want to make anymore and there were only so many matching ones I could get at the dealer's room and artist alley. Also my hat and nails kept falling off and again, it was because I was lazy and I just didn't want to attach the hat to my big wig-covered head or use proper nail glue (I take my nails off after the event so I just use cheap nail stickers). I guess I could have added more clips to my hair but as I don't really wear decora, I didn't want to deal with buying stuff I don't always wear.
The final highlight from the con, my haul lol. I got the VIP weekend pass and was given a gift bag with stuff from the con and vendors including a cute t-shirt with the con's cowgirl mascot. As mentioned, the favor bag at the party was full of space stuff, and also I went shopping at the artist alley and dealer's room, and also I won the space cornhole carnival game as I had boasted I would, and won 3 of the raffle prizes! Here is everything I got minus the lavender star socks I wore to the mixer because they are in the laundry. Everything is just soooo cute, I love attending a small con and having the leisure and space to shop to my heart's desire.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, I haven't really reviewed a con meetup in a while since the pandemic and I didn't have much to say about the few I did attend in the past several years that I could share to the public. I will be linking to this post from other sites, but feel free to ask me any questions about my purchases!
No comments:
Post a Comment