V&A Kitty and the Bulldog Exhibit Meet!

Something of absolutely EPIC proportions happened on Saturday! For those of you who have not already heard, from now until the 27th of January 2013, the Victoria and Albert museum in London is holding an exhibition called Kitty and the Bulldog: Lolita Fashion and the Influence of Britain. You can find out a bit more on the exhibit here- http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/k/kitty-and-the-bulldog/

Now, this in itself is quite an exciting development. A museum holding an exhibit on lolita? I was really surprised when I first found out! But then the Tea Party Club (with the wonderful Kyra being our host) decided to hold a meet... and 113 lolitas turned up!

There were so many lolitas that my poor husband struggled to fit us all in one shot! So here are a couple of photos of us outside the grand entrance. Hopefully I have managed to include at least one photo of everybody.

So attendees, have you spotted yourself yet? Imagine having to tag all these people on Facebook!

We reckon that outside of a convention, this might have been the biggest ever lolita meet. If you know of any larger meets, then let me know! We intend to get an even bigger crowd at an August meet.

Here is a picture of me at the start of the day where hopefully, I look a little less tired and flustered! I was wearing Meta's Fairy Tale print skirt and bonnet. As you can see, I left out the ivy wrapped around my legs. I felt it was a little too high maintenance when I knew we would be walking about a lot and it can get a bit itchy! When they were calling out groups to be photographed, I had no idea whether to pose for the sweet or classic! In the end, I joined the classic group. It is a bit of a hybrid outfit!

And I am also including a few photos of the exhibit itself. For the moment, I have only selected a few photos, otherwise it kind of spoils the fun for people who are yet to visit! I might do a Photobucket album at some point and I will be putting my photos on Facebook later, so keep an eye out for that. Those will have a lot more photos!

So what did I make of the exhibit? Well, there are 9 outfits in total to view and it doesn't take that long to view them. Although there are a few little questionable details here and there, I think that overall the outfits have been put together well. I can see a lot of research has gone in to the exhibit. From time to time the wording on some parts of the exhibit seem a bit 'off' as well. I also felt that the Innocent World outfit should have been filed under classic lolita instead of sweet. Okay, so the outfit did have a few hints of sweet styling to it, but it felt more like a classic outfit to me. There was no information on the classic style as far as I remember, and I think that is a real shame! But despite these few minor points, this exhibit was a lot of fun. When I first saw the dresses on display, my heart skipped a beat! I hope that loads of people will enjoy the exhibit and at least understand the fashion a bit better.

The gothic outfit.

Two sweet outfits, both with an Alice in Wonderland influence. The point that the exhibit is trying to get across is that the lolita fashion has some British influences to it and that is probably why they chose outfits with an Alice look to them. Nice to see the lolita's best friend, Usakumya, made an appearance!

Sorry about the camera flash in this picture! I think the most obvious British influence in lolita is apparent in punk lolita. This is probably why punk lolita got featured in the exhibit more than classic.

For the entire day, we got asked by visitors about what we were wearing. Some people thought we were actually part of the exhibit! I would like to think that we brightened up a rainy day!

The exhibit gives a very interesting take on lolita. If you have some basic knowledge on lolita then you wont learn anything new from visiting, but it is still fun to come and see the outfits on display. And I do believe that this exhibit is a big deal. Imagine all of the visitors who are going to stumble across this exhibit, whether they are aware of the fashion or not. Simply amazing.

As I said, there will be more photos at some point. I need to upload them all first!