Normal business cards? Pah! There is nothing normal about the majority of things I like (apart from tea, cause I am British of course) and so I wanted something a bit more interesting.

That was when I discovered Mini Cards by a company called MOO. They’re about half the size of normal business cards, but the main selling point for me was that you could get a box of 100, but have 100 different prints on the back of each one.

Amazing ^ ^

So I ordered a box and chose 10 different prints, so of course I got 10 of each print. They arrived just now ^ ^

I am in loooooove <3

Look at how cute they are! They come in a lovely little box too, are printed on really strong card and they are wonderfully clear. I have my images on the back of each one and then of course my image with all the details on the front of every card too. I put a QR code in there (oooh, technology!) and that seems to work well even using the crappy camera on my BlackBerry.

I am a very happy bunny ^ ^

Every day I read something new about Japan and fall in love even more <3 <3 <3

 

I am already very familiar with and a huge fan of the Shinto concept of 魂 (tamashii) which means ‘soul‘ or ‘spirit‘ and unlike a lot of Western religions, lots of things are considered to have a soul such as large rocks, trees, houses and even dolls or cuddly toys. So throughout the year in Japan there are various festivals, or I guess funerals, for things most of us in the West so easily and thoughtlessly dispose of.

In Shinto, being an animistic religion, it is believed that to simply discard something that has served you well is disrespectful and would anger the object’s soul. If something has given its life to you, or say in the case of dolls or cuddly toys have given you unconditional love, then surely they deserve a proper burial (see 人形供養 Ningyo Kuyo)? Anyway, this brings me on to the tradition of the Harikuyo Festival.

 針供養 Harikuyo meaning ‘needle memorial service‘ is practiced in most parts of Japan on February 8th.  Today it is mainly celebrated by people who rely on needles for their livelihood such as seamstresses, tailors, embroiderers or leather workers, but it is a tradition that has its roots in Buddhism and has been practiced for hundreds of years. In the past, pretty much all Japanese women would sew on a regular basis and so would dress in their best kimonos and flock to their nearest temples to give their old, used and broken needles a proper send off. In respect there would also be no sewing done on this day.

Needles are taken to a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple where they are offered prayers of respect and gratitude then pushed into their final resting place of something soft, usually a block of tofu or konnyaku jelly, as a reward for their hard work and long service. Normally at the end of the service everything is wrapped in paper and laid to rest at sea. It is hoped that by being respectful in this way, the power and energy of the needle will pass to the owner and also make them better at their craft for the following year.

I think this is just beautiful and I love the idea of being truly grateful for the small things in your life, not being wasteful (see もったいない - mottainai) and not taking things for granted. If it wasn’t for these tiny tools, you would never be able to achieve your goals or do what you love. You can’t do everything by yourself and things that are helpful to us should not just be thoughtlessly disposed of and then replaced.

I will certainly take a moment to pause and reflect before I dispose of any sewing needles in future and I hope that this wonderful festival will inspire you to do the same.

Happy sewing for 2012 ^ ^

 

(Photos from – kikuko.web.infoseek.co.jp, madebymrswoo.blogspot.com and japanese-embroidery.blogspot.com)

In just over a month it will be time for more Japanese fun and amazingness as HYPER JAPAN is back, woo hoo!

It is the biggest J-culture event in the UK and covers pretty much everything including fashion, food, anime/manga, music, art, language and anything else you can think of. Last year they even had a stand showing off fancy Japanese toilets! I have been to every event so far and am very much looking forward to this year. I’m sure they have tons more guests and events to announce yet, but so far I am already sold on the UK Sushi Roll Championship and plan on nomming everything I can get my paws on. Also looking forwards to seeing singer and actress Natsuko Aso perform live.

Here is the video for her single “Eureka Baby” which is also used as the ending theme for the anime ‘Baka to Test to Shokanju Ni!’

The fashion shows are always amazing and this year they are showcasing a variety of different Japanese street styles such as lolita, mori, gyaru, visual kei and fairy kei. I will be sure to take a whole bunch of pictures as I’ll be mooching about with my camera and will also be ready to pounce on anyone cute, colourful and generally dressed wonderfully.

My lovely friend Amy who owns Cakes With Faces will be at the event so if you go please make sure to drop by her stand to check out all her cute drawings and buy a t shirt. The link to her website is also in the side bar on the main page of my website ^ ^

I will be sure to do a full write up  after the event once I’ve no doubt finished eating all my sweets and playing with whatever cute stuff I’ve spent all my money on.

HYPER JAPAN 2012 Spring event will be held on Friday 24, Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 February at Brompton Hall in Earls Court. Tickets are available now on their website. Come and join the fun ^ ^

HAPPY NEW YEAR あけましておめでとうございます ^ ^

So it’s 2012 which means I should probably get on with Shibby or it will never happen, ya know what with the world ending and stuff this year, right? Pfft..

I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions anymore as I never stick with them, but they’re normally silly things like to stop biting my nails or lose weight, etc. This year though I have definite things that I will do, things that I NEED to do in fact to get anywhere in my life.

The main ones are..

1 - Actually make and sell some clothes. All my designs are done, they are there on paper all ready to be made into patterns, cut, sewn and sold via my currently empty Etsy shop. I just need the money to get this all done and this year is looking much more secure. I have plans in place to make sure I have the money this time round *fingers, toes and dreadlocks all crossed*

2 – Try to blog AT LEAST once a week, but preferably more. The gaps between posts on here is crazy, especially since I seem to constantly post things on my personal Facebook page which I’m pretty sure most of my friends don’t really care about, when really I should put that stuff here where people interested in the same things can read and hopefully enjoy.

3 - Continue learning Japanese. I can now read hiragana and katakana and know a fair bit of vocabulary. Just need to get on with kanji, grammar and general sentence structure so I’m not just blurting random words at people.

4 - Go to Japan at the end of the year and practice my hopefully newly learned Japanese. Planning on going for Christmas and New Year where I can go mental buying 福袋 Fukubukuro or “lucky bags“. First stop would be SUPER LOVERS followed by 6% DOKIDOKI ^ ^

5 – Reiki II course. I did Reiki I last year and this year I hope to do level 2 which will then give me the wonderful gifts of being able to distance heal and also I can get insurance to do this as an actual job. I’ll be able to make lots of people feel all wonderful and make a few pennies on the side to support Shibby. I already got a table for my birthday so I’m all sorted ^ ^

I really hope 2012 will be a good year for me as last year was a pretty terrible one. Lots of things to look forwards to this year, but I will save that for another post. I hope you all have a wonderful year too and please keep reading. I have a spangly new Facebook box there in the side bar so please like my page and you can of course also follow me on Twitter ^ ^

Love Gem xx ^ ^

 

Well I didn’t really plan on writing another post so soon, but I figure I have had a lot of things inspire me recently that I thought I would share.

First up we have music. I have been extremely influenced by some of the Japanese acts I have been lucky enough to see this year, namely X Japan and Miyavi. Both acts have at one point been very much visual kei, so much so that their fans still chose to dress in costume for their gigs (you can see here and here)

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ- I have loved this girl for a while after constantly seeing her pulling cute and quite often weird faces in KERA magazine. She has always pretty much summed up the term ‘Harajuku Girl’ for me and so it comes as no surprise to hear her debut mini album has been named ‘Moshi Moshi Harajuku’ (to be released on the 17th August 2011). The first single from this album is the amazing PONPONPON with the craziest video I have ever seen, the most wonderfully catchy song and a set designed by the founder of one of my absolute favourite brands, 6%DOKIDOKI. Check it out…

Japanese brands/designers – I have a huge list so will only post one for now and I may as well start with the last one I just mentioned, 6%DOKIDOKI. This is probably my biggest inspiration as I completely get their concept.

These days girls are all forced into looking grown up and sexy from a very young age. You see it in the clothes sold in shops, pictures in magazines and all the overly made up young idols/actors prancing about on Nickelodeon or Disney kids shows that look about 25 when they’re only 16 (or sometimes the other way round, which is still just as bad!). 6%DOKIDOKI has a beautifully punk aesthetic, but instead of using ripped fabrics and safety pins it has gone for all out colour anarchy and things so cute they make your face melt. Fun, child-like and cute (or kawaii) is just not something that you are “supposed” to be over the age of 6, but screw that. This brand is aimed at teenagers and older. Nothing makes me happier than to see someone wearing a huge bow, pink socks and a toy teddy necklace and it makes me happy to wear it myself too. Even better if you throw in some body mods and tattoos like most of the shop girls have.

I have been lucky enough to visit their shop in Harajuku and it was just wonderful and I now own an amazing vest with fluo teddies on it ^ ^ Most Western folk don’t really get it and I get some odd looks for sure, but it’s fun to break the mold. My designs have a very similar vibe and I aim to put more fun into others people’s lives and wardrobes

I will leave it there for now, but will certainly be back with more later in the week.

Just thought I’d update on stuff going on over here since I haven’t updated for a while. I know, I am rubbish ^ ^

So I have all my designs planned, but then let’s just say there have been some financial difficulties and so am now not going to have anything up online until later in the year, but hopefully in time for Christmas. I’ve reworked some things to fit more with an A/W theme than the S/S theme I had originally planned. Not gonna fret too much though, when it is meant to be it will all happen and fall into place.

In other news, I am now a level 1 Reiki practitioner which is quite exciting for me. It’s opened my mind a little bit to some new ideas and concepts, plus given me a fresh outlook on life. I’m trying to learn to live more in the ‘now’ and not worry about anything too much (and I worry A LOT) as I know in general it doesn’t make things better and only messes up my thoughts, which certainly isn’t very good for design work.

Anyway, I hope to be back on soon, at least with some new samples to show you. I will try to update this blog more often, maybe post images and links to sites/blogs that have inspired me while I work.

I’d just like to say thank you to all the support I have been given so far in setting this all up and for the patience in supporting me while I faff around getting things off the ground. It will all totally be worth it, I promise ^ ^

Man this gig was good ^ ^

So X Japan have been around since the year I was born (Google it, I’m not telling you my age!) and it’s taken all these years for them to finally do a gig in the UK, but it was worth the wait.

I’m a pretty new fan, but you could tell there were some proper old school fans there getting very emotional about finally getting to see them live and it was beautiful.

I can honestly say I haven’t been at a gig so crazy in years. We moved to the back as you could just not stand up straight as the crowd were all over the place. Maybe I’m just getting old? ^ ^

Anyway I won’t do a review as there are already a bajillion of those all over the internet, so on with the photos. As usual with this being a fashion website heavily inspired by J-fashion, I scouted around the queue for people dressed awesomely. Not as many as there were for Miyavi surprisingly, although maybe it was just a slightly older audience? Who knows, but I still found a few beautiful peeps. Clicky on the pic to see the rest…

I decided I needed something cute to wear for the We Love Japan event I posted last month and so I made a little yukata.

I’d been messing around learning how to make a full length yukata, but decided it was far too traditional for me. So for those who are interested, here is a step-by-step photo guide to the creation of my dress. Apologies for bad photo quality, but they were taken on my BlackBerry which is amazingly terrible at taking photos.

Growing up in London I’ve always been fascinated with things like graffiti; whether it be paint, drawings, stencils, stickers, posters, whatever and general ‘urban decay’. I’d take photos of ripped billboards – when you can see about 6 different images all torn into each other (not so easy to find now everything is canvas these days), peeling paint, half missing signs and I’d get a lot of very strange looks from passers by.

So I’m currently planning this new collection and trying not to totally waste all that time I spent pottering about in the textiles department. I refuse to use pre-printed fabrics, unless maybe they are recycled, but even then I’d prefer to print my own designs over it anyway. I want to use quite simple silhouettes, but with mental, contrasting all over and placement prints. This got me thinking about using my love of messiness and mixing it with Japanese culture – my other total passion. I really am kicking myself that I didn’t take more pics of Tokyo urban decay while I was over there. I certainly will do next time (still hoping and praying for another November trip).

So I’ve been playing about in Photoshop with just some stuff I found on Google Images. Obviously when I do this properly I will not so obviously just rip off One Piece manga. I’m currently sourcing some old Japanese newspapers and old manga to properly do this, but I thought I’d show you roughly the sort of thing I’m going for. I layered different images all together using different contrasting colours. I will probably hand draw my own doodles and messy graffiti over the top too, but it doesn’t look so good when I don’t have a tablet so I will do that for my silk screen. Once I get my hands on some proper papers I will probably try to achieve the billboard effect I was talking about which could look quite interesting. Clicky for slightly bigger piccies…

So I hope that gave you a little taster of what I’m trying to do and I hope that you like it. I also started to do some inspiration research to find other designers doing similarly cool things and have fallen head-over-heels in love with this guy – Junya Suzuki. But I won’t bother posting much about him as these guys over at Tokyo Telephone have already done an impressive job on that so I will simply link you over to their blog post…

The Two Dimensions of Junya Suzuki