#spreenow

[zminishadowz]

wanted to do some shopping but spreenow is glitching tf out

[frobby]

waiting for beautiful woman named "shipment ready for payment" to message me back

[starrysharks]

these questions are pretty similar so i'll answer both at once.

to buy from a chinese indie brand, you need two things: the brand's taobao link and a proxy site account. taobao is a chinese storefront (?) that most of these stores are hosted on. there are plenty of western stores online that also carry taobao brand clothing - like arcana archive, glitch cupids, and pixie rebels - but i would recommend just getting your stuff from a proxy as those stores often up the prices of the clothes.

note that it can be a bit of a struggle to get the taobao link of a store, especially if you don't have an account (which is notoriously difficult to get these days), but i did find some link lists! (mostly lolita stuff as that's what taobao is most popular for among alt fashionistas ^_^)

some other brands that i recommend -

eyeelike - y2k inspired, though their stock is usually very limited. sizes up to UK 10-12 (L) i believe

link (lemme know if it's broken):

frufru - bright, colorful, sorta harajuku-esque! i heavily recommend their star messenger bags, been wanting to get one of my own for a while ^_^

link

and hbreaker - a more visual kei sort of thing! more edgy than the other two stores, but i'm yet to check it out properly

link

so, now that you have the link, you need a proxy site. this is so that you can send the clothes over from china to your own country. in the past, i would've recommended pandabuy, but it died a few months ago due to illegal replica selling. for that, i'd recommend avoiding proxies that allow replicas, because they might go under while you're trying to get clothes shipped. (that happened to me T_T)

some that are reliable are:

sugargoo

superbuy

spreenow

now all you do is use the search bar (make sure it's on the "shop" mode rather than "product"), and plug in the link to the shop you want to buy from, and it should be the first result. get all your clothes, and now all you have to do is have them shipped out! shipping usually costs a lot (£20+ from my experience) and if you're buying a haul, it can be over £200 for just 4-6 items, so i'd recommend only buying stuff you KNOW you're going to wear often and enjoy. shipping should only take 2-3 weeks (at least in my experience - i live in the UK, it might take more time in the US.) and boom! now you can dress like those cool girls on xiaohongshu!

there are also two western stores i'd like to go over that have similar clothes - sixth dimension and minga london.

sixth dimension has many good qualities - they have more inclusive sizing (up to UK XL), reasonable prices based on their quality, and they restock and do sales often. i heavily recommend them if you can't afford the high shipping prices or if the sizing is too limited for you!

unfortunately, i have less nice things to say about minga london. they're highly extortionate in terms of pricing - i've seen shein quality cardigans sold for upwards of £70, for example. they do drops often, and have been accused of fast fashion but i'm not sure if that's legit or not. they've also stolen designs in the past. however, they do have inclusive sizing, up to XXXL. i'd recommend only buying from them if they're doing a sale, or if you literally have no other choice.

now regarding fruits mag - unfortunately, you can't buy from them. fruits mag is a japanese magazine that went over a variety of different street styles, so if you want to buy from fruits, you'd have to buy from the brands that the people in the magazines are wearing. as fruits was most popular in the 2000s, most of those brands are defunct...however, i do have some recommendations for japanese alternative brands!

alice and the pirates - popular lolita fashion. pretty good sizing i think, and they do worldwide shipping too iirc.

baby the stars shine bright - same as aatp, but more "cutesy".

acdc rag - yami kawaii type clothes with inclusive sizing.

dearmylove - jirai kei/dark girly clothing and beautiful shoes. inclusive sizing, i'm pretty sure they have a full plus size range! also collabed with needy streamer overdose lol

liz lisa - lolita/mori kei/girly styles and pretty coats. quite expensive tho...

moi-meme-moitie - the brand of malice mizer's guitarist mana-sama! gothic lolita. i'm not sure about sizing or prices.

6%dokidoki - yume kawaii and decora style. very colorful! i'm not sure about sizing.

angel blue - japanese kids clothing, usually worn in general kawaii and jojifuku styles. as it's for kids, the sizing is NOT inclusive at all, UK size S-M at the most from what i've seen. usually you can only find resellers on depop, but the pricing usually isn't horrible.

other than brands, i'd recommend looking for clothes thrifting on and offline (hit big city thrift stores for better chances of alt clothing), buying accessories from verified etsy sellers, and just looking around the house for anything you can turn into an accessory or part of an outfit! i hope this post helps you though!

[frederickkittens]

So, I'd like to hear about some of those Toabao fabric shops. Also, basic instructions on how to order would be swell. Also, what the shipping usually like?

I'll DM if there's anything more detailed I'd like to know, but I felt like this was a good public question since people really don't seem to talk about this.

If you’re just going to be shopping using someone else’s links they send you you have a nice easy task ahead of you haha! If not creating a taobao account is pretty necessary. I’ve found that the taobao mobile app is the least finicky way to use taobao and the easiest way to sign up IN MY OPINION is through Alipay. Taobao loves to lock accounts but I haven’t had an issue since signing up through Alipay instead of just regularly. The mobile app of taobao has a really awesome image search feature so if you’ve seen an item on a reseller or even just somewhere randomly you can pop it in and it’ll pull up that item or if it isn’t available, similar items. Here’s a handy key word guide. Unfortunately a lot of taobao brand lists are really lacking and haven’t been updated so I don’t really want to link any of the ones I know of, however I can definitely make a list of my own eventually.

So if you’re anywhere other than China it’s really easiest to order with a shopping service due to taobao being kinda finicky. I personally use Spreenow but there’s a lot of good ones, 42 agent, parcel up, etc. there’s actually a google doc of different Shopping services for both Chinese and Japanese shopping. It’s incredibly useful honestly!

How you buy will vary a little depending on your shopping service but most of them just have you make an account and then simply paste the link in, typically doing so will pull up all of the information and automatically translate it for easier use of non Chinese buyers ! (This is a step that honestly would be easier to walk through in DMs or for me to explain using a specific shopping service instead of just in general)

Shipping can vary a lot depending on the weight, time of year, and what shipping options your chosen service provides. Many will have a weight calculator built in on their website so you can get a little estimate ahead of time. Shipping rates are really high right now due to the holidays but they should go back down soon ish! I know I’ve seen a shipping and service fees comparison for shopping services somewhere so I’ll see if I can find that again…

NOW FINALLY OMG…. On to the fabric links!

甜浆果原创设计

葵喵酱lolita原创布料

狐猫原创布艺

樱桃手工布艺YTshougong

扉页诗原创布艺

Mila米乐布艺

There are definitely more even just that I have saved but this post has gotten long enough that the tumblr app is getting mad at me tryna edit it- I’ll reblog when / if I add more !

Definitely if you’re looking for a specific sub style or vibe lmk that too because most of what I have saved is either oldschool usable fabric or like cutesy sweet😭

[strawberrypillz0]

Where can I buy jirai kei clothing? c;

I would say that a lot depends on where are you from! ^^ If you’re from Asia you will have more options, but personally I���m from Europe so I will share how and where.

First of all - you can order from brands, Liz Lisa, Honey cinnamon, ma*rs, rojita, dearmylove, Ank rouge. Well, you can check any of these websites to look for the clothes you like, the second step will be choosing a proxy service to order thru them! A lot of people use zenmarket, but I would suggest to do a research on the one you will like the most. (You also have usually calculator on their website, so you can check how much it will be - keep in mind that usually the shipping is expensive and you will have also customs usually to pay.)

Second option - usually cheaper, unless you’re looking for vintage clothes will be mercari japan, they offer second hand clothes, you can look thru by putting brands or whatever you’re looking for in Japanese. You will also need a proxy server for it, also can be zenmarket or the one you just like. You can often find here clothes for good price, but if you want to have authentic pieces try to see if they have brand tags!

Next option will be taobao - taobao, have a lot of Chinese Jirai brands, also a lot of subcul clothes etc - the way you can look for items is by putting translated words to Chinese or by image!:) they don’t really have authentic pieces or it’s rare so keep it in mind. (You can also download devil inspired or go to their website, look for the clothes you like from them and put them on taobao cuz DI is a reseller from taoabo, so that’s another tip when you don’t know where to start.), from what I know they released also English version of taobao? But personally I still have a Chinese version, I crated my account by using translator (papago). Okay so to order from taobao you need a proxy service too (I mean you can order thru taoabo but the amount of countries is limited), i recommend spreenow - they have a tutorial how to add links, cuz it’s a little bit complicated but it’s worth it because I never paid any customs. (If you’re going to order add always 15 yuan to the price cuz this is how much shipping from taoabo costs, then you pay proxy fee which is 10% if I’m not wrong.. and then the shipping).

The last one will be Xianyu, works the same as vinted/mercari. Second hand store, where you have bigger chance to find authentic pieces (but be careful no matter if it’s mercari or xianyu cuz people try to sell dupes by scamming people, but keep in mind that they are selling “brand” clothes for cheap, which are dupes.. usually don’t have brand tags and a lot of Chinese jirais are saying it’s a dupe). Again, just look by brands or specific words in Chinese.. and then use spreenow. :)))

I hope I could help a little bit!

[tragicnik]

How to buy lolita in the Philippines!!

I made this guide(?) a few months ago in the lolita fb group since it's hard to find lolita pieces in the philippines at like a good price TT

Lolita is really expensive especially for minors like me lol so this is what has worked for me and I hope it can help you too!!

✮ sites and apps i use to buy lolita

Carousel- it's 2nd hand so it's cheaper there are replicas though, there's still branded lolita dresses here I mostly see alice girl and infanta and they usually go for like ₱500-3000 which imo is pretty good TT

Facebook- brands/sellers(?) you can buy from here are Dorotee Sweetlips and Rosychicphilippines, I think it's better to buy from these people because they don't sell replicas.

If you don't mind buying replicas that's fine but I think if you have the money it's good to buy actual pieces because it's higher quality and will last longer:p

Spreenow- this is taobao agent, which is like an organization or person that buys on taobao on behalf of other people. It's kind of hard to make an account on taobao so people just use that instead! Spreenow is pretty good you just have to convert php to hkd, there are pretty affordable lolita pieces on there the only problem is the shipping fee lol. The shipping fee is like really expensive, especially on taobao resellers so I think it's better to buy from taobao agents.

Bodyline- a Lolita brand, more affordable but whenever I check the website most pieces are sold out:(

Btw you can also find ouji and other J-fashion on these sites except for bodyline i think

✮ I hope this helps!!!

[the-bjd-community-confess]

How to use Taobao: Do you get told to log in? Make an account using a tutorial online.

Does it immediately get locked? You have to make an Alipay account and give them your information to verify you. You need to give them an ID and a bank card. Then you can follow the steps to unlock your account depending on the warning it gives you. (Google translate is good enough to figure out which one is the reason behind the lock out.)

There's no way around that and if you can't or aren't comfortable with that then get the link from someone else and use Superbuy/Spreenow/42agent or NewCloverSinging.

Taobao has an image search function. See something on m00nlight or somewhere else and want to know who made it? Toss that shit in the search bar and it should try to find similar item listings.

You can also have shit just sent to a warehouse to avoid having to pay bonkers shipping every single time an item is finished. Usually it's a couple bucks within China.

Most items have their wait times and order periods posted somewhere on the images of the order page. 2-4 months is common for outfits. Some makers are even 6 month waits. You will pay a deposit that is also listed on the page. Check back after the wait period is up. There may be a new listing with the item you ordered called Final or Tail when translated. That is how you pay the remainder of your item and it will be shipped once payment is confirmed.

This is as much as I can say on the matter. I've tried too many times to help some people and I don't know how much more information I can give someone. Your problem can be copy pasted into Google and usually someone on Reddit has figured it out. Peace.

~Anonymous

[deregirls]

Hey guys reminder since I forgot and paid the price (litetally):

Most of those shops that get promo'd by aesthetic blogs with "discount" codes are scams for one reason or another. Most are overpriced dropshippers with iffy at best customer service, even if they have "good" reviews. Even if you do get the product (which you sometimes WON'T), you're likely paying 2-10 times the price that it actually is online. They use Tumblr users to advertise themselves with their URLs as "discount" codes to prey on people that don't know better.

Let's be honest when you think about it, do you really want to trust a site that relies on some 5k at best follower aesthetic blog on Tumblr of all places for advertising?

Most lolita/"kawaii" shops (kawaiibabe, for example) are dropshipping from the Chinese shop Taobao, which has tons of different proxies you can use to get their products for a fair price with actual customer service. I don't personally have any experience with using them (though I have been recommended spreenow by friends and it seems easy enough) so if someone wants to provide more info on that feel free!!

This also applies to a lesser extent to shops like DevilInspired or LolitaWardrobe. While they do not jack up the prices nearly as much, and sometimes provide the convenience of being a bit easier than proxies or having some products available after they're sold out on corresponding Taobao shops, and while people find them good for searching for things they later order from Taobao using a proxy, it's typically better to use proxies for making purchases. You'll pay less even when you factor in shipping and fees, the customer service is better, and you're more likely to...get the product, or at least get a refund if things go wrong.

[aerohail]

hi! may i ask, what character is this? and, where did you get that specific cotton doll? i like his face and legs bc they aren’t so short haha

https://www.tumblr.com/aerohail/717855389743448064

Hi! They're a non attribute cotton doll! No character! You can find them here!

[wri0thesley]

also! if any of you are like me and are Alas, Controlled By The Excited Demons Of Surprise Boxes, genshin's tmall currently has their mystery boxes back on sale! you can see some of the things you might get if you scroll down! you can buy from taobao using a proxy like spreenow. i got a mystery box last year and it had a paimon figure, paimon blind box, keychains, postcards, acrylic stands, buttons, a fancy print, genshin balloons and a hilichurl plush in - it was super fun to open and imo worth the money if you're a fan of genshin stuff as a whole and don't have One Particular Character Only you like!

[alias-mike]

not to be That Guy but devilinspired is actually a taobao reseller with very high markups and bad customer service! you can find the actual seller of these specific outfits here:

https://m.tb.cn/h.gP3fbf7hzeyHW6D

taobao usually requires a shopping service to purchase if youre not from china, and i would recommend spreenow for their reasonable service fees and excellent customer service!

Vampire fashion by DevilInspired.

[alias-mike]

ALSO IN REGARDS TO THE LAST POST. while lolita wardrobe isnt a scam or as bad as devilinspired, theyre still decently pricey when it comes to buying stuff from taobao. use 42lolita (more reasonable reseller) or spreenow (shopping service) instead

[starrysharks]

!!!? where dyou shop for clothes !!?

depop, taobao (use a shipping agent because its unavailable in most countries and the shipping costs get REALLY high, i would recommend pandabuy but it went under a few weeks ago 😭 i've heard good things about spreenow but haven't used it yet), mercari jp via buyee, cfierce, sixth dimension shop, and some local thrifts too! for shoes i have lots of wishlisted stuff from grape, mikio sakabe, new rock, and i like to hunt for buffalo, roxy and gordon jack on depop tho it can get a bit pricey :3

[strawberrypillz0]

Is AliExpress a good place to buy jirai clothing?

It’s a 50/50! Definitely would recommend using taobao and then spreenow for the proxy (it’s much cheaper and the choice is much bigger), but I understand that for some people it is the only option probably - so the store I see a lot of Jirai use (which is pretty expensive… especially compared to taobao but it might be a little bit faster) is Sweet Princess Store! But there might be more resellers, for example I got my shoes from the brand (with tags etc) Transfer student which is a Chinese small brand from Purple Skye store, just because it was cheaper this way because they are really heavy. Just look at the opinions mostly, that’s my suggestion ^^

[20dollarlolita]

@sont Ok but whats the catch with 42lolita? Everything there is much cheaper than anything else ive seen and they even have cotton stuff, it seems way too good to be true!

They're a taobao reseller, largely selling Chinese lolita brands. Chinese lolita brands in general are less expensive. You're going to pay a lot more for shipping from 42lolita than you'd initially expect, but you at least know what that shipping cost will be. You're actually going to be paying more on 42lolita than you would with a taobao reseller like Spreenow, and you're going to be spending more than shopping used on Yahoo Auctions Japan and Fril and Mercari using Buyee. I still like them because I prefer the shopping experience with then versus Spreenow.

Taobao lolita brands are just that much cheaper than Japanese brands. You pay extra to get it out of China and into your country, but that's still less than some other places.

This is what we mean when we say "lolita fashion doesn't have to be $300 for a dress," and "if you learn where to shop, it becomes much less expensive."

My friend is getting some crap on instagram about perceived classism in the lolita community, and as someone who runs a budget-focused lolita fashion blog, I'm going to rehash some of the old "but I can't afford burando!" conversation.

For some background reading, here's where I bought three "lolita" "dresses" off ebay, and what I actually received for my money. And here's a breakdown of one of those specifically. I'm linking to these because I want everyone to remember that the pictures on ebay, amazon, wish, etc do not represent what the actual piece you receive will look like.

Lolita fashion can be expensive, but the less expensive end of legitimate lolita fashion is not actually as expensive as many people think it is. It's not all $300 for a dress and $60 for a pair of socks. There are options that bring the price down to other fashions. It cannot compete with the hyper-fast fashion of Shein and H&M and other places where the clothing is designed to be disposable. This is because lolita clothing is not disposable. Even modified or damaged, lolita fashion pieces have resell value. It's very common for people to be wearing garments that are over ten years old. There's also a lot of documentation about how hyper-fast fashion is damaging to the environments where it's made and the people who made it.

Okay, so that's all very fine and well, but it's true that recognizing that something is worth the money doesn't actually get you the money to buy it. There's a lot of things that I recognize are worth the money it costs to buy them, but that I don't have the money for. I don't drive a high-end electric car, even though I think it would be a better choice for me, because I don't have the money for a high-end electric car. So I do, very distinctly, understand that. I'm not about to tell someone "just save up for it!"

But, when someone tells you that you cannot buy lolita fashion on wish dot com, they're not actually saying "you won't be accepted in a wish dot com dress." They're saying, "any money you spend on a wish dot com dress will be wasted, because you will not receive a usable garment." Let's play pretend for a second. You come up to me with $20 and say, "I'd like to buy clothes." I say, "Good. I'll sell you some clothes." I then take your $20 bill, rip it into small pieces, eat all of the pieces, and say, "that's your clothes." Now, you didn't actually get any clothes from that, and there's no way you're getting your $20 back because I have consumed it. Your friend comes up to me and says, "Hi, I'd like to buy clothes." You say, "Don't give her that $20! It will be a waste of money!" Your friend says, "That's classism, because I only have $20." That's the conversation that's happening right now on my friend's instagram.

Classism does exist in the lolita fashion community. It can even come from people with good intentions. But, when it comes to buying on Ebay and Amazon and Walmart.com, people who are saying, "you can't buy lolita fashion on walmart dot com," aren't saying, "we won't accept your walmart dot com dress, because it was cheap." What they're saying is, "the thing that the site is telling you that you're buying and the thing that you will receive are going to be two different things. The thing you will receive will barely be a garment." There's a reason why, when I say "lolita dress from ebay," I have to typeset it as "'lolita' 'dress' from ebay," because it will probably be neither lolita nor a dress.

If you're new to the fashion and want a good shopping resource, 42lolita is a reseller/shopping service that will tell you what the shipping will be up front. Many other resellers will send you the shipping costs after you make the purchase, which makes it harder to predict what you'll be paying. You won't be getting a dress for $20 on 42lolita or anywhere else, but the prices they charge are more in line with shopping at a department store, rather than shopping at a big name designer store. There's a lot of other ways to purchase lolita fashion, and I just used 42lolita as one example.

The number of people who genuinely want the fashion to be as expensive as possible is not all that big. Even people who occasionally buy a $300 dress enjoy finding inexpensive accessories and support pieces. Finding lolita-usable jewelry on the Walmart clearance rack is a thing that's exciting to most people in the fashion. If there was a secret to buying $20 dresses on ebay and getting something that could be used in the fashion, people in the fashion would absolutely already be doing that.

So anyway, yeah, there's classism in the lolita community, but telling someone that they should not give me $20 for clothes when experience shows that I'm just going to rip it up and eat is not classism. Friends don't let friends spend money on badly made replicas on aliexpress.

[happybandage]

-taobao outfits i want 2/3-

clothes design obv from there, i just drew my oc´s wearing them-

SHIRT:http://www.spreenow.com/category/c50012/taobao-agent/taobao/621180627417

SKIRT:http://www.spreenow.com/category/c50012/taobao-agent/taobao/623246355258