Monthly Roundup: January 2021
Obviously, this month has been eventful for a lot of different reasons… and we’re not going to talk about any of them! Instead, welcome to Spellbond Carnival’s very first monthly roundup post, where we ramble about random lolita things that were on our minds this month.
First things first: The Kumyas.
Okay, you have to understand, neither of us thought we were really that into sweet lolita. Well, okay, no, Serena loves food prints and particularly chocolate ones, but Reese at least was fully out of this element. And then, randomly, like two weeks ago, a switch flipped — not the sweet lolita switch (yet)… but one that is perhaps far more dangerous. And it was all because of one bear.
We were just having a friendly conversation about how Kumakumya is the cutest teddy bear we have ever seen (this has always been true even before we hit the obsession button), and how Usakumya is… uh. Kind of terrifying. Yes, we’ve seen red-eyed rabbits. No, that doesn’t make her less scary. So after passing back and forth theories involving demonic possession or what could not be shed in Usakumya’s transition from rabbit to bear… we eventually struck gold when it occurred to us that Kumakumya is just so darn cute, maybe they need someone a little terrifying to protect them. And, I mean, listen — how cute is that backstory, right?
But honestly, this isn’t giving full credit where it’s due. Because what prompted this conversation in the first place was… him:
This is Captain Chris, an animal mascot by Alice and the Pirates who was just released in 2020. And like — look at him!! Look!! He’s so cute! The print of which he is the subject matter is Captain Chris’s Fantasy, which can be roughly summarized as a series of images where Captain Chris goes on a swashbuckling pirate adventure, lying around in treasure chests and heroically raising a sword.
We were so moved by Captain Chris — he has ambitions! Dreams! Aspirations! And he’s new to the lolita scene like Reese is, both having really gotten involved in 2020. This suggestion of personality in Captain Chris inspired us to start thinking about the Kumyas, looking at their different products and prints and building up little stories and worlds in our heads with some of Baby’s other mascots… right now our biggest hope is for Baby and Alice and the Pirates to release something that features a crossover between Captain Chris and the Kumyas.
You might describe what happened next as inevitable: total obsession. We’ve edited them into the icons we use on some of our accounts. We’ve added dresses to our Lolibrary wish lists. And we’ve come into possession of some select Kumya merch… most of which has yet to arrive, but one did. It also happens to be Reese’s very first brand piece!
Meet Kumya’s Fluffy Cap:
And it says Baby on the ear! It’s SO CUTE!!!
Speaking of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright… okay, you’ve probably heard of this dress. Maybe. Perhaps. It’s called, uh… let’s think. Strawberry Loves Chocolate?
Yeah.
This dress.
Remember how we said Serena loves chocolate prints? Well… this is the ultimate chocolate print. This is everything Serena ever could have wanted from a chocolate print. We found it when we were browsing Lolibrary for fun as we often do, and Serena had specifically searched for chocolate prints… and somehow didn’t really connect that we’ve never seen this one before? Anyway, long story short, it was love at first sight. Long story long, though, we uh… had no idea this was a recent release.
Until Serena saw it on the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright Twitter while scrolling the timeline like two weeks ago. Then we realized the reservation period had JUST passed in December and… yeah. Tragic moments. If you see JSK II in the ivory colourway on the secondhand market for a price that’s more reasonable than $600 CAD and you somehow don’t want it for yourself, Serena’s on Twitter at @elevenverses and will love you forever if you wanna pass over the link.
So in other Big Brand News, as you probably already know… Angelic Pretty is re-releasing the much coveted Sugary Carnival print as a made-to-order. And uh, remember everything we just said about being sweet lolitas and how Reese is the one who isn’t into it and et cetera — that was beginning of January us. Now us realize that beginning of January us had no idea what we were talking about. Because Reese really loves “Sugary Carnival,” particularly in the sax colourway!
Which is partly why we were really excited to hear it’s getting an MTO. We presumed it would be like the very famous and successful MTO release of “Honey Cake,” where the size range of the print was made significantly broader than what was offered for the original release (up to 127 cm). And that’s also why we were so disappointed to learn that the “Sugary Carnival” MTO is not plus size friendly. Come on, AP. We know they know better.
Motivated partly by our frustration with that, we just wanna give a shoutout to Metamorphose Temps de Fille for offering actually plus size friendly options for so many of their new releases. Just to name a few, Sweet Berry Gingham, Magical Artefact, and Wizard JSK are all offered with a sizing option for a bust that can go up to 140+ cm.
This is what inclusive sizing looks like. The lolita community’s definition of “plus size friendly” is reflective of a specific concept for standard sizing — which definitely has its purpose. But having such a broad definition of what makes a piece plus size friendly, and not having another term that breaks that range down more, can make it difficult to find pieces that are sized appropriately depending on which end of that range you’re in. Someone with a bust of 145 cm isn’t going to find “plus size friendly” a super helpful label when that term is also used for dresses that go up to 95 cm.
You can tell by the fit range that Meta’s newer pieces are made to accommodate that they really want people of diverse sizes to enjoy their dresses — and that’s awesome. We hope other brands start following in Meta’s footsteps.
On a final, Meta-related note… Serena managed to grab up the Medium Length version of the Room Print Skirt in ivory on Lace Market this month! Room Print has been a dream print for years, and finding it in the preferred cut and colourway was such a stroke of good luck! It’s currently with a friend who’s going to send it up to Canada eventually, but the coolness of having a print that came out in 2008 and which has been the subject of so much adoration for so long is not dimmed by that in the slightest.
Did you do anything cool and lolita-related this January? Have you got headcanons about the Kumyas too? Did you buy anything from the Captain Chris series??? Tell us all about it in the comments!
