Frilly Fortune-Telling Meet
November can be a bit of a dead
time: Halloween’s over, but it’s too early to start doing too many Christmassy
things (other than shopping – get that done early, save yourself some money and
stress), the weather’s too cold and wet for most outdoors activities, so you
just end up at home with some comfort food and comfy clothes. Other than a
brief fling that is Bonfire Night here in the UK, there doesn’t seem to be much
to look forward to in November. I hoped to change that a little bit by
introducing my comm to Polish Andrzejki (St. Andrew’s celebrations) and I
organised a fortune-telling meet.
For this reason I decided to put
together a fortune teller inspired coord, since as the meet organiser I
considered myself the chief fortune-teller for that day. And I must say I love
how this look came out. Sheherazade
was the only main piece I own which could’ve carried this theme and except for
the scarf I already owned all the pieces which I needed, which was brilliant.
This may be the closest I ever came to a Gothic Lolita look – it’s still not
Gothic, but certainly the darkest and most mysterious coord I’ve done.
| AatP Sheherazade JSK | eBay blouse | Resailan tights | Risu Rose necklace | offbrand jewellery, scarf and boots | |
For those of you who aren’t
Polish/Eastern European, there is a belief in Poland that the eve of St
Andrew’s (the night from 29th to 30th of November) is a
good time for magic that would either predict or bind a maiden’s future husband
(men do similar things on the eve of St Katherine’s – Katarzynki – which is the
night from 24th to 25th of November). This is when all
kinds of fortune-telling and games take place, ranging from very traditional
and folklore-based to plain silly and intended as a laugh. As a kid in Poland
we’d often spend one day’s form time to do this, causing all kinds of giggles
and disgusted noises when you were predicted to marry someone with the same
name as one of the boys in your class. But this isn’t just something for the
kids, although nowadays it’s definitely taken less seriously than it would’ve
been for example a century ago – you’ll find night clubs using Andrzejki as an
excuse for throwing on a night out, as well as groups of friends casually
organising meet ups and doing some fortune-telling at someone’s home.
I organised the meet with the
intention of being focused around Lolita, rather than any future spouses.
Luckily, most of the games were easy to swap around to incorporate e.g. print
names instead of people’s names. Let me tell you though, when I first
volunteered to organise the meet and then posted up the details, I did not
expect as many positive reactions as I did. They ranged from “cool idea” all
the way to expressions of regret that people won’t be able to make it. It was
both exhilarating and a little daunting: this was the first time I organised a
Lolita meet, so I wanted it to be good, but I tried my best not to give in to
any imagined pressure.
Some of the games I prepared included: stab a heart to find out what print you'll buy next, 5 things in a petagram to summon X and the wax reading. |
In the end it all went great:
despite a few last minute drop outs (it’s November, of course people will be
poorly) the meet was well attended and fun. Everyone got on board with the
games I had prepared, although the wax reading was a clear winner, and I think
I hit a good balance between planned activities and down time for casual chat,
eating or taking photos. I must say here, the venue Stew and Oyster exceeded my
expectations: when I checked it out, I got a feel of it being quite laid back
and cosy, but the staff there made us feel very welcome and even separated our
corner of the place with a curtain (later, as it got busier and they needed
that space for other guests, they opened it up, but we still got a good
hour/hour and a half of privacy). The food was lovely too – even though the
meet wasn’t centred around eating, pretty much everyone ordered something and
then complimented on how lovely and reasonably priced it was. If you’re in
Leeds and need a relaxed and quiet place to hang out I’d recommend Stew and
Oyster.
Pouring the wax. Photo by Holly. |
Photo by Holly. |
Interpreting the shadow cast by the wax. Polish people didn't predict that you could have dinosaurs and there was no reading for them. Photo by Holly. |
There was already a big waxy mess on the window sill, we only added our creations. Photo by Holly. |
Afterwards, when the meet was over,
one of the frillies joined me on the way to Boots. A member on Amino has said
earlier how she found a new makeup brand called Makeup Obsession who let you build
your own makeup palette for very reasonable prices: one pot of eyeshadow at £2
and one pot of blush, highlighter or contouring stuff at £3 is a bargain! They’re
available online, but I wanted to check out the colours in real life first and
since my local Boots didn’t stock their products, I went to Boots in Leeds
Trinity Centre. Without some help from a very lovely member of staff I don’t
think we would’ve found it, I would’ve looked where brands like Maybelline and
L’Oreal are, but this was where the designer fancy stuff was kept. From testing
out the samples, the eyeshadows and the blushes are very pigmented and they’re
quite generous pots too, maybe the size of a 50p coin or thereabouts! It’s a
shame that their eyeshadow colour range didn’t include many pinks though – there
were lots of nudes and some statement colours like blue, black, green or
purple, all available in shimmery or matte versions. But I’m hoping that as
they become more popular they will increase their range of colours on offer. It’s
a great idea as not only you get to pick the colours you know you’re going to
use, but when you run out of one you don’t have to buy a whole palette just to
replace that one shade. If you’re based in the UK, I’d recommend checking them
out. At £2 per eyeshadow and £3 per everything else you could even pick up just
one that you like before committing to building an entire palette.
My custom palette. The blue stands out and bothers me as far as the aesthetic of this one goes, but I needed all these colours. |
Overall I’ve had so much fun
organising this meet and everyone who attended made it even more enjoyable.
Having done this I think I caught a bit of a meet organising bug – doing something
for others to enjoy is quite contagious, like giving someone a present that is
just perfect for them. Hopefully I’ll get to organise something again soon. For
now I’m happy to have had this success, as well as plenty of rest afterwards,
and all eyes are on Winter ILD now. I can’t wait!
Fortune telling meet sounds fun and a orginal idea to do. Especially when you combined it with some historical background for it. Not a thing I would come up with.
ReplyDeleteI think you have to be from an area that has that tradition or be very into fortune telling to think of this. I'd be happy to share some of the games that I've done if you'd like to do a similar meet. :)
DeleteNot really. I was more into folklore, especially when I was younger. My grandmother told a ton of stories about elves, ghosts trolls and will-o-wisps(I didn't believed her though, but definely kept me out of marsh).
DeleteI love folklore stuff like that, it can really tell a lot about the area. Sometimes you can even see why people would've believed those things, like with that marsh of yours - it's there so those stories seem that little bit closer to home.
DeleteThe Meet-up sounds like a lot of fun, you put a lot of effort into it! I would love to play games at a meet-up as well, but we don't really have cafés where you could do it >_<
ReplyDeleteOh no, why wouldn't you be able to play games in the cafes?
DeleteThis sounds like my kind of meet! It's really lovely that you were able to incorporate traditions from your background and put a lolita spin on them. I love anything to do with magic and fortune-telling so I'm sure I'd have gotten a bit too carried away. It's just as well I'm way down the other side of the country, haha :P
ReplyDeleteThat is such a lovely selfie! You look so elegant and gorgeous! *_*
I'm glad you enjoyed hosting the meet! It's always really nice to see comms that are quite tight knit. I can only look on wistfully as I never really had that experience, haha. I look forward to seeing what you get up to for ILD! <3
If I stick around in the area I might try to make it an annual thing. Although these would be good for Winter ILD or end-of-year meets as we're approaching the sales season and maybe you needed that little bit of fate to tell you which dress to go for. I'd be happy to share some resources/ideas and you could just organise it for your group of friend if you wanted to. :)
DeleteThank you so much! I loved this look so much, I'd love to look into reusing and revamping it, so that it's not too obvious that I'm wearing the same thing again. Maybe for next time I could add a waist chain with some coins...
I feel so lucky to have found the Leeds comm, they're all fantastic! But at the same time I miss having close Lolita friends nearby to hang out more casually and more often. Most of my close friends live quite far away since I've been moving around a lot over the past few years and making lots of friends online as well.
ILD post will be coming in due course, if not tomorrow then on Sunday. ^^