Brand introducion: Dazzlin

It's been a while since I last introduced a new brand, so I thought it's time for another introduciton!
(When I say new, I don't mean it's opened recently, I mean new as in, I've never talked about it before/I recently discovered it.)

This time, I want to introduce you all to Dazzlin.
Probably lots of you know about it since it's got featured in plenty of popular magazines, from Cutie to Non-non, Elle, Pop sister to Nylon, Blenda, Nuts,...

Dazzlin featured in April's SCawaii. Playsuit! Dots! Peter pan collar!

They got a super cute catalogue (as to be expected from their clothes!).
You can get the prices just by passing over the pictures.
Next are a few of my fav shots!

I love their "how to be playful without being silly" motto!

This is not as mori as many of you would expect from this blog, but this brand did catch my attention for their playful, happy clothes.
And I'm already thinking about summer. In fact, I never stopped thinking about it. And I can't wait for it to start haha

They also got shots from their catwalk show for 2011 SS on their web. Which as you'll see are super fun!

The bum pants! And this swimsuit! ♥♥

Dazzlin, of course, got an online store where you can find (I'd say) all of their stuff.
I have no way to confirm this, but I've seen most of their runway/catalogue stuff on the site.

Dazzlin has got lots of dresses, shorts, and lacey/see through clothes, and that's why it's getting to become one of my favs, even if I don't know much about this brand yet.

Did you already know about Dazzlin? Have you ever bought from them? Tell me if so!

Glossary you usually come across when reading japanese fashion magazines

I'll be updating this post from time to time when new terms are found, so be sure to check back from time to time.

If you find any errors in these, don't hesitate to point them out! And if you think there're some interesting words/phrases missing, do share!


森 Mori
ガール Girl
北欧ガール Northen Europe girl

夏 Summer
春 Spring
秋 Autumn/fall
冬 Winter

重ね着 Layering, wearing one garment over another
着こなしは To dress well, to dress stylish
もの Thing, object
(大)すき (a lot) like

Onomatopeyas
ふわふわ light, airy, fluffy

Clothes
コーディネト or コーデ Coordinate
アイテム Item
アウター Outer

ワンピ Onepiece
ベスト Vest
カーデ Cardi(gan)
ポンチョ Poncho
ペチコート Petticoat

Shoes 靴 (also found as くつ)
ストラップ Strap シューズ shoes (english word japanized, that's why it's written differently from the "shoes" above)

Accessories 小物
ストール Stole
帽子 Hat, cap
ヘッド Head アクセ Acce(ssory)

Materials
レース Lace
ファー Fur
ウール Wool
ニット Knit

Animals
アルパカ Alpaca
ラビット/ うさぎ Rabbit (english and japanese words resp.)

Adjectives
ロマンチック Romantic
ふんわり Gently, airy, fluffy
ナチュラル Natural
ほっこり Warm and fluffy
ロング Long
おしゃれ Stylish, fashionable
キュート Cute
ガーリー Girly
すてき Lovely, beautiful

Adverbs
ちょっぴり Very little bit
もっと More, longer, further

Brand introduction: Made in Colkinikha

Made in colkinikha is a cute brand inspired by the cold and Russian lands.
Kate Sakai is the designer (and model too) for the brand.
In 1996 she started modeling for a few magazines when she was younger (like the popular no-non) thanks to the english antique shop her parents owned (since 1982). Which also made her interested in clothes, since she was surrounded by them all the time.
While she was in university, she started MIC and started selling in a department store in Shinjuku.
(Everything has been loosely translated by me from MIC's website, so there may be tons of errors. Point them if you find them!)

You can find her blog also hosted in zozopeople, like MEG' and Syrup.

Colkinikha is said to be a (fictional) place in Rusia, it's a small place with 14ºc of temperature, thus it's a cold place.
This small region is situated among many villages, and even if the color of the sky is grey and it's winter every day, the villager's heart is warm and welcoming.
Thus, when you wear the kind of clothes Colkinikha's habitants wear, you'll get the same feeling.

(All this is taken from their website, I haven't made up anything! haha)

MIC has a romantic side to it, with an obvious reminiscence to western/north Europe feeling, but with a twist, since Sakai goes a bit further than that (physical and creatively), to colder lands in the east like Russia. Which makes great clothes for Mori and Dolly girls.
Her prints sometimes remind me of Tsumori Chisato (which is great, btw! haha)

I specially love their accessories and the watercolor drawings they use for some of their prints (like t-shirts and tights).

You can see their AW collection for 2010 or wheir past catalogues on their website. Which is really cool (there are a couple of catalogues unavailable though, such a pity).
I recommend taking a look at them all. A piece of art every season haha
The ss2009 collection is specially adorable, and the ss2008 is more mori orienter (and the pictures are so pretty too!), but I think this season's the best so far.

Suuuper cute tights from MIC!

MIC doesn't have a physical shop (as far as I know), but they do have an Online shop at the Parco city online shopping mall. They do have a few retailers that can be found in their shoplist section of their blog.

But Sakai also has another trick under her sleeve.
She joined forces with Yasutaka Nakata (Capsule member, MEG producer, etc) to produce a couple of mini-albums to complement MIC.
The duo got the name COLTEMÖNIKHA and together created some amazing electronic/technopop songs. Sakai singing and writing the lyrics and Nakata doing his usual.
The name was the result of joining Contemode (Nakata's label) and Colkinikha.

Coltemonikha have released two mini-albums to date, the first on 17 May 2006 and the second on 26 September of the same year and both are much worth listening.

You can find their songs on youtube (as far as I know, there's no PV for any song).

Brand introduction. Delilah, or how to dress for a party

Barror is going to Japan in a month (I'm so jealous! haha) and since she said she found new brands from Japan that she likes now (and I'm sure will be visiting) throught my blog, I thought I could keep introducing other japanese stuff I like and things I want to do and places I want to visit once I can go back.

This is Aya chan, shop staff and model for the brand.

I'm going to introduce another brand I like lots. It's a dress and jewlery brand called Delilah, and their slogan is "Let's change before the party!". With that few, you can just imagine a bit how their clothing will be.

Cute

Funky

Pretty

Many of you, mostly gal-oriented readers, will probably know a bit about this brand already, or at least, recognize the style of clothing, since it's one brand that appears frequently on gal magazines, mainly Ageha. Other magazines they got features in are Seventeen, Vivi and Popteen to name a few.

But! The brand appeared recently in Kera (not their first time there, tho), what demonstrates something I strongly believe in, it's not the brand who makes the style, is how people use the clothes that creates it. So, it doesn't matter if you're a gal, a fairy girl, or whatever, enjoy Delilah with your own style!

They mainly offer onepieces, but they also produce cute camisoles.

And jewlery, cute, sparkly and girlish jewlery.

Even swimsuits!

These two may be my most favorite in the whole shop. And I don't even like bunnies that much!

Delilah is situated near shibuya station, just a few streets away. Here you can see the location in google maps.
And they even have a webshop, in case you can't go in perston to the store (like me) and prefer to order online (I'd really rather go in person to the store though...).
Prices are surely a bit on the high side, but it's worth waiting for the sales, where they reduce the price quite a lot.

What do you think about this brand? Is this something you'd buy/wear? Everyday wear or just for parties?

Changing the topic, I participated in The cookie button blog swap, and my partner is Meggs, so I'll be talking about crafts tomorrow. Expect a diy tut tomorrow (I meant to post this Delilah entry yesterday night, so blog swap post will be ready this afternoon c:)!

Btw, don't forget to enter my new giveaway here! It includes moko-moko scrunchies and other drawn-by-me stuff!

Mika Ninagawa, colors everywhere.

Mika Ninagawa is a very popular japanese photographer. Her work is colorful, vivid, cheerful... It surely has something very caracteristic in itself.

She's worked with celebrties such as Anna Tsuchiya and Chiaki Kuriyama, also for magazines such as Cutie, So-en, big names such as Tsumori Chisato and Issey Miyake. And this just to name a few. So she's a really recognized name in Japan. And when you see her photographs, you understand why.
There's not much more words can say about this artist's amazing work, so I'm leaving you with her recent photoshoot for Spoon (more downloads here) and a few more random shots.

For the rest of the photoshot download the magazine

Anna Tsuchiya

I remember falling in love with Chiaki Kuriyama's photobook a couple of years ago. It recreated a few popular fairytale, western and japanese ones, but didn't know about the photographer yet.

Yeah, Chiaki Kuriyama is amazing♥

She also does nature and animal photography, and it's as full of color as her fashion photography!

As I said, really worth visiting her whole gallery for more amazing shots, and also to read her bio.

All this is such big inspiration! I love colors (even if my drawings are mostly b&w), she makes me feel like painting with oils and acrylics in canvas! haha Maybe I'll try again soon!

Talking about other things, I can finally say it since I already booked the flights yesterday...
I'm going to London on the 26th! This is SO great!
It's been a couple of years since I went to London for the last time, and i can't wait!
SO, I want recommendations please!
I'll be a bit busy the first three days, but after that, I'll have a couple of days for myself, so I want interesting places to go! I've already been to the must-see places (big-ben, parliament, etc) so just pretty things!
So, any cool place, shops, museums, galleries, anything, I'm pretty open, so any suggestion is very welcome!