OKIDOKIE LET'S CLEAR THE AIR
I’ve been getting a whole lot of messages and asks and comments on the whole party-kei thing and instead of replying to all of them, I figure a big friendly PSA wouldn’t hurt.
I’ll organize this in a list so it’s slightly more comprehensive and easier to read :^)
1) This is not something I wanted to become a trend. This is not something I wanted other people to do, or for it to catch on, or to become the leader of some movement- that whole idea honestly is not appealing to me. Other people have shown interest in it and so they’ve made the Party Kei Worldwide Community group- which is cute and fun to be a part of! A few people have also started a Party Kei blog and a Slumber Party Kei blog which are cute and I love scrolling through.
If you go back in the #partykei tag, you can find me tagging my insta photos as party kei back 29 weeks ago. I’ve used this term for my own personal lil headspace for forever because I couldn’t find a fashion that explained what I wore, so I just made up a term. It’s like having a lame OC that you don’t tell anyone else about when you’re like 11. No one made note of it. No one asked “do you mean cult party kei”? I honestly don’t think anyone realized haha.
I decided to make a blog post that had been in the works for god knows how long- because my literal job occupation is blogging about fashion. I kept it semi-secret for so long because I didn’t want it to be a big thing, but since I share so much with my audience and talking about fashion is what I do, I thought it would be a fun thing to talk about. That’s literally it.
2) People have been comparing party kei to fairy kei and peco-kei and probably a whole bunch more. Comparison is good! I consider it a style that fits in the harajuku-pastel-kawaii sort of family (more on that later weee) so it being compared to those things is good. Just like fairy kei isn’t spank kei isnt pop kei, and like otome isn’t lolita, and like pastel goth isn’t bittersweet isn’t creepy cute- there are soooo many different fashions that are separated by lil quirks.
Did I craft party-kei up from the soil with my bare hands? Oh god no. Am I the ruler of a great party empire? I sure hope not. As I say in the blog post that started this whole thing, I honestly, genuinely, just noticed that the things I liked wearing that didn’t usually fit in one specific fashion, looked cute together in my opinion- and so I wrapped it up in a lil package and called it party kei. I literally made a venn diagram of what party-kei is made up of and it’s so hilariously sad and complicated, maybe I’ll post it later :^)
3) “It sounds like cult party kei”: it’s a style about parties like is the word “party” copyrighted or
4) “CULTURAL APPROPRIATION”: this is such a hot topic now that literally any issue is gonna be met with cries of cultural appropriation- but the word “kei” is just a word. I took one-on-one Japanese lessons, and speak moderate Japanese, fluent English, and fluent French. If I called it “mode de fete” I feel like no one would yell at me for appropriating french culture.
Party kei did not originate in Tokyo, no, so why the word kei? Honestly I did not think about it that much as I’d been using the term party kei in my head for months and months. But since I took inspiration from pastel, experimental Harajuku fashion, it just made sense to me to use the word “kei” like every other fashion in Harajuku. I was considering changing the name but that was met with even more out-cry so I left it :^^^^^^)
It’s also maybe worth mentioning that the “fairy” in fairy kei is an english word, and the “larme” in larme kei is a french word. Even the huge fashion empire that is (/was) gyaru is the english word “gal”. Also amekaji. Always gonna bring up Amekaji.
People are mad at me using the word “kei” because party kei didn’t start in Japan. People are mad because the fashion already exists in Japan. People are mad because I’m trying to “lead a fashion movement”. People are mad because suggesting the title pixie kei in a poll insinuates I’m the only one who can do it.
There’s so much contradiction that I’m simply gonna keep wearing my vinyl skirts and my candle earrings and let it wash over <3
I’ve been posting a lot about party kei recently just because it’s been so forefront of my mind with all the positive and negative feedback- but my blog is definitely not a PARTY KEI blog. This is one little thing I had in my head that I decided to share. But I have many other things to share and videos to make and posts to write that aren’t about frosting and confetti that I hope you’ll stick around for! <3
I’m not going to talk on this subject much more unless new points are brought to me that I haven’t already discussed, thank you to everyone who came to me with their concerns!
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