Bookworm Blog

Definitely one of my all time favourite Japanese magazines. The basic principle of Alice Deco is to show how you can use lolita pieces in creative ways,  as opposed to following “lolita rules”, by mixing them with non-brand and vintage items but also with other Japanese street styles, including fairy kei, mori girl and even dolly kei. Because of the experimental nature of a lot of the ideas, the styles shown in Alice Deco generally range from the casually eccentric to the clinically insane, so don’t expect to find anything in here that you could wear to work. However, part of the fun of fashion magazines is, of course, to present a look book of ideas that you may never experience in “real life” that you can pick and choose from and dress up or down however suits you.

Layering plays a big part in the Alice Deco look, you’ll find a lot of dresses over skirts, lace petticoats and interesting vests. Contrasting accessories, shoes, hats and patterned tights are also used often, and there are also almost always references to the ultimate lolita muse herself – Alice in Wonderland.

Most of the magazine is taken up by photoshoots, but there is always a hair, nails and makeup section, a few pages of street snaps and giveaways, but also a section with clothes patterns and tutorials, similar to the Gothic and Lolita Bibles.

The image above is actually the photoshoot that made me fall in love with mori girl for good, and reaslize how versatile the style can be. I just love the mix of delicate vintage fabrics and lace with chunkier accessories like the fur vest, but also how you can make it work with colour palettes as different as pastels and wine, as long as the general feel is natural.

I’ve mainly posted scans here with a mori or dolly vibe, but there really is something for everyone in this magazine, and I really enjoy drooling over the pastel, fairy kei and sweet loli coordinates too, although it’s something I’d never wear myself!  All scans courtesy of thevisual_beast at livejournal, some magazines are available for download there, but the others can be read online at vvshu.com. Hope you enjoyed this little feature, I’ll probably be doing mori girl papier as the next part of this series

 

Tags: alice deco, alice deco a la mode, dolly kei, fairy kei, inspiration, japanese fashion magazine, layering, lolita, magazine scans, mori girl

This entry was posted by Dawn Gibbs on Monday, March 28th, 2011 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Clothes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.