Waku Waku +NYC was a bit of a different convention experience for me for a lot of reasons. One reason is that I spent the whole first day of the event preparing for and walking in the Kawaii.i Tokyo Above Underground fashion show! I applied to participate in the fashion show kind of last minute. When I received my acceptance to the Kawaii.i show, I was invited to a fitting/audition. After watching this video, I learned that only 15 of us were chosen out of 70 applicants!
Misha Janette, who styled the show, assigned us each to our designated brand. My new friend Jenny and I were chosen to wear Nebaarando (Neverland), a brand that I think neither of us had heard of before so that was kind of exciting. I think that although Misha said she chose brands that matched our styles from our applications, many of us were outside our comfort zones wearing brands that we we hadn't worn before. I think that ended up making the experience more exciting because we had a chance to try something new.
Our call time on the day of the show was 10 am but the show wasn't until 4:30 so I was pretty confused about what we would be doing for so many hours. It ended up being a much more serious operation than I anticipated. We had hair and makeup artists working on all of us until we transformed pretty much entirely to fit our brand. It was really nice to spend all day with a bunch of girls with mutual interests. I think we all left having made some new friends. We even had a chance to socialize with participants in the Putumayo fashion show. Kurebayashi and I had a couple good laughs at my expense because I wasn't able to wear my wig until right before my show so I spent most of the day "bald" until they put that giant poodle afro on me.
We were only able to do one quick run through before the actual show. Some of the girls had walked in lolita fashion shows before and although I've done a couple photoshoots, I had never done runway. We were given instructions to pose 4 times and I'll admit, it was a bit difficult to come up with 4 poses especially given that I was assigned to carry a large umbrella that was unable to close. Nevertheless, Team Nebaarando, Jenny and I, ended up doing a great job.
I had a lot of fun and would love to participate in something like this again. It's a shame that most fashion shows have a ridiculous height and appearance requirement and that most shows at conventions seem to be limited to lolita brands. I also haven't been attending many conventions for the past few years but since I went to Waku Waku and Otakon, I'm tempted to go more regularly in the future.
The rest of my time at the convention was pretty fun. I found the weekend as a whole to be rather relaxing and positive experience. Saturday night I went to the VIP after party and DJ sets with my friend Utamaro. I was able to talk to Yun*chi, Kurebayashi and Shunsuke Hasegawa, Putumayo's designer again there. Both of them are so sweet! Hasegawa-san also emailed me these photos of us a few days later which was really nice of him. I spoke so much Japanese that weekend and it was rewarding but it reminded me how exhausting it is to not speak any English.
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| post-fashion show makeup with Hasegawa-san |
I loved so many things about this convention. I was able to see so many of my friends in the same place as well as meet many new friends. I have a huge regret about not taking enough photos over the weekend though.
As someone who has been lucky to live in Japan, Japanese culture is both exciting and familiar to me. I was so happy to see that other people who have not been able to travel to Japan were able to meet some of their idols. Seeing how excited and overcome with emotion these young people were about interacting with Harajuku fashion icons made it clear that this convention made many people's dreams come true. That was truly my favorite part of the whole weekend.
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