Taobao Being Awesome

Lolitas hovering over keyboards, waiting nervously to hear from shopping services and counting down every single agonising second... a popular must-have series is being released. This week I watched on as the hype grew and grew. I was secretly wishing I had saved up a bit more money so I could have tried for it, but at the same time I was relieved I wasn't dealing with all the stress.

But this time it was not one of the major Japanese brands everybody was lusting after. It was Taobao brand Krad Lanrete with their jellyfish print.

It is certainly very interesting to see everybody get excited about a Taobao brand release. For years many of us lolitas have brought from Taobao, but it was mainly seen as a cheap way of building your wardrobe with good staple pieces and pretty accessories. Sometimes you would get the odd piece which had a lot of fans, but Krad Lanrete has surpassed this.

With people trying to sell on Krad's Mozarabic Chant for more than retail price and now the mania surrounding their jellyfish series (it sold out super quick and there are still a lot of fans who are currently left empty handed) it really feels great to see Krad Lanrete doing so well. I am happy to see something other than the latest Japanese brand release sell so successfully. And if the jellyfish dresses are as good in person as they are in the pictures, I think Krad Lanrete fully deserve the success they have had.

2013 has proved to be a good year for Taobao brands in general, with some very beautiful releases. If this continues then maybe in the future we wont just be hearing about "brand whores" and "AP fangirls", but also about "Krad collectors" or "Taobao fangirls". I for one, would welcome this. As much as I love Japanese brands, it makes a nice change to be strongly praising a Taobao release. I hope these strong releases continue and I am very excited to see what the lolita Taobao brands come up with next.