Cross-Comm Attack of the Clones ILD

This is it! Our cross-comm Attack of the Clones twinning meet happened this Saturday. Finally I can properly tick off that twinning box off my personal Lolita Level Up list! Although as a co-organiser I still haven’t quite recovered from it all, I needed like another Sunday, not a Sunday followed by a working Monday.

Before I get onto the outfit, let’s rewind a little – because after Glass Bottle of Gourmand I certainly did not anticipate to be organising a big summer ILD! Back in January, when Mint Kismet posted pictures of the Classical Doll Dress tea party she attended, I started a general discussion in my comm (I believe it was mainly asking what other prints we could imagine having a meetup dedicated solely to them). Somehow this has morphed into an actual ILD meetup, although at that time it was two other lolitas being in charge. Knowing that ‘adulting is hard’ and big meetups like this require a lot of basically project managing, I offered some support if they wanted it. By which I mainly meant spreadsheets, maybe doing some inquiries – and along the way this has become basically a full on co-organiser. Without them two starting the whole thing, I would not have done it (well, maybe I would’ve caved in to organise something else, though I doubt it), so I’m glad that their enthusiasm brought this cross-comm twinning meet about.

As a co-organiser I deliberately kept myself twin-less for as long as possible. Part of it was for practical reasons (organising is more fun when you’re dressed comfortably) and part of it was in case someone was also without a twin, so that I could help them. This has worked out wonderfully, as I ended up twinning with a good friend, Beccy, as we both own the casual versions of Lady Sloth’s Look At My Dreamy Sky. So I could have a twin and be comfortable on the day – it’s a win-win!

| Lady Sloth/Casual Sloth Look At My Dreamy Sky frill sleeve OP | Angelic Pretty Dolly Chiffon headbow | Angelic Pretty Logo Ribbon Charm wrist cuffs | Sosic Shop heels | Twinkle Kitty Boutique ring | Claire's star clips | Brightlele wig | everything else is offbrand |

This wig is super fluffy and like a cloud. Although now I need to figure out how to TLC it back into being less tangled.

Makeup details. Would you believe that this blue eyeshadow is from a gimmicky Pusheen x Marks and Spencer palette?

This is one of my most comfortable and most flattering dresses, I am so glad I got it. More of this cut, please, Lady Sloth!

The twins of day and night, and the rare time of the day when they can meet. 

Just look at those shoes and how they sparkle! It's amazing!

And now back to our usual 'what the hell are twin poses' programming.

Thank you for being my twin! And for the badges! Shame we don't have more dresses in common to twin again.

Not only that, since we both own different colourways of the print, we took our twin idea further into a day and night theme. Whilst part of me wishes that I hadn’t procrastinated and made myself a cloud clip in style of Chocomint’s star ones, I’m very happy with the final result and this wig was the perfect cloud on my head. It also meant less time spent getting ready that morning, as did the OP. I was going to do much simpler makeup, but got carried away when I found this idea on Pinterest – it was still one of the simpler ones that I found that sort of matched my theme. As you know, if you’ve spent any time here, pastel looks are not something I do often and every time I end up wearing one, I forget how great I feel in that. It was fun and playful, and I could stop bouncing those fluffy twin tails. Beccy also looked fantastic in her night-time version, very refined and elegant. And her shoes lit up, which was amazing, I want these now (unfortunately – or fortunately? – Irregular Choice is sold out of my size for these).

I arrived at the venue just before 11am to help with the setup. We have agreed on Marsden as our location as somewhere halfway between Leeds and Manchester, to encourage people from both sides of the Pennines to attend. It was also where one of the original meetup instigators lives, so she was able to give us tonnes of recommendations. I wouldn’t have even thought of Marsden Mechanics Hall as a venue, but it was fantastic: spacious, reasonably priced, with access to kitchen and a bar, easy to find from the Marsden train station… It even had a proper stage, so I’m definitely keeping it bookmarked in my head for the future. Even though Marsden itself was a little bit of a pain to get to because of having to change (unless you were coming from Manchester Piccadilly or Huddersfield) and because of trains being only once per hour on that Saturday.

On my way with the goods.

The venue was large enough to give us tonnes of space without feeling like we'd be getting lost.

Now I want to do something where we'd need a stage like this/

Beccy arrived not long after me and helped with the setup. She made us fantastic badges to commemorate the event, using one of the early designs that the original organisers had come up with. It’s simple, yet effective and will work for Goths as much as Sweets. The external caterer arrived not long after that and then it was just a matter of waiting for the rest of the attendees to get there.

It took me a while to notice the little sparkly gem.

The spread for the day.

These brownies were a total success.

As were the spring rolls and mini-wraps. 

Luckily, the whole idea for this meetup was to keep it quite chill. We had dedicated a space to a swap meet – and trust lolitas to do what they do best and shop – bingo with prizes and a best twin competition. Everything else was just to allow people the space to relax, catch-up and take tonnes and tonnes of twin photos. One of the reasons we’ve done it a week after actual ILD was to accommodate people who had been at Traumerei the week before and after such a packed programme they deserved a more chilled out event to be frilly at. Also, as it turned out, we had enough money spare in our budget to pay for everyone’s drinks at the bar, so Eden the Treasurer kept refilling the tab, so that people could have what they wanted, whether it be alcoholic or not. And since it’s the Northern comms, a good few people did enjoy alcoholic stuff. Which I can’t blame them for, because the weather had been utterly miserable all day, so warming up however you could was only sensible!

Give lolitas a chance to buy things and they inevitably will!

And then we opened the bar!
Photo credit to Rachel (@inkonsakura)

If you went to a twinning meet and didn't get a photo, are you really a lolita?

Then came probably my favourite part: bingo. It was so much fun at Love from the North that we stole the idea and it’s easier and more interactive to do than a raffle. Plus, that allowed us to prepare fewer yet better prizes. We settled on doing three bags of brand goodies sorted by substyle and in the end the winners have worked out perfectly – no-one was left with a prize bag that didn’t suit their style. And I will never forget the ecstatic amazement when our chief goth won the goth bag (last one standing too) and saw that we got Moitie coffee cup and saucer there. It was priceless! And along the way we learnt some, ekhm, interesting things. I had downloaded a bingo caller app and set it to UK official bingo lingo. Some of them we knew (like two little ducks for 22 or legs 11), some of them were either easy to figure out (unlucky for some 13) or at least rhymed (garden gate 8), but some were… well, just inappropriate. I think the one that shocked people the most was 76, which was just ‘was she worth it’. Although there were also some that were generally just interesting trivia which various attendees explained (e.g. Danny La Rue for 52, who was a drag queen or Trombones, coincidentally also for 76, as ‘Seventy-Six Trombones’ is a song in a musical). If you’re curious, you can read all of the bingo nicknames with explanations here.

Bingo is intense and serious activity.
Photo credit to Rachel (@inkonsakura)

The bags were an indication of the substyle, not necessarily the contents.

On rare occasions a goth's steel cold exterior cracks. Like when they are presented with Moitie novelty items.

After bingo we moved to finding the best twins. My boyfriend’s mum very kindly made us Best Twin 2019 sashes for the occasion (I still need to get her that bouquet of flowers as a thank you) and we decided to select best twins through a ballot. Since we were all one big extended comm we weren’t worried about it turning into a popularity contest and it was easy enough to do since even if someone didn’t know people’s names, they could name the print or just describe the look – whatever identified the twins. And while I couldn’t vote, the winning twins were absolutely on point: their outfits matched incredibly closely (not quite piece for piece clone, but near enough) and they crafted these incredible cage handbags which just knocked it out of the park. A very well deserved win and I hope that they will wear their sashes proudly. Thank goodness we had those event badges too, since I forgot to bring safety pins! Truth be told, all the twins looked absolutely fantastic, I love how much effort everyone put into it and the results were brilliant. 

Congratulations to the Best Twins of 2019!

Twinning Milky Planet for nostalgia.
Photo credit to Daria.

2010 OTT Sweet clone nostalgia levels have peaked!
Photo credit to Viola.

Who said that you have to twin with a living person?
Photo credit to Viola.

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All in all, it was a great event. It was lovely to catch up with everyone and I love how everyone committed to twinning somehow. If I could change one thing, it would be the food: the caterer’s sweet options were nice, but the savoury ones were a little unimaginative. They were recommended by the venue and while they were lovely to deal with, I think they were just too ‘white English’ at their core and struggled to come up with an all-vegetarian menu (plus some dietary requirements). Having said this, I’ve had enough meh afternoon teas in posh places to know that even that’s not a guarantee of quality food. We took a risk and as it is with risks, sometimes things don’t quite work out.

But now that I’ve twinned once I am sort of hooked on the hype of twinning and want to do more of that. Hopefully by the time it happens next I will have a few more twin poses in my repertoire because we really did get stuck on that one!