I may be clairvoyant, but I’m not very prompt

About a month ago – oh, who am I kidding? It was exactly a month ago as of today – I received an e-mail from a girl named Christina who was seeking my help. Remember the part in my last post where I mentioned that August and September are crazily busy months for me? Well, e-mail is usually the second casualty. The blog tends to be first.

Vampire speed, vampire strength, enhanced vision and hearing… all present and accounted for. Please note, however, that I didn’t list “time management” as one of my traits.

Here’s Christina’s e-mail:

I was just going through your blog, (which is awesome by the way) I was basically wondering if you knew anyone selling the Converse One Star Jacket and the Song Doggie Shirt Alice wears.

The answer, in short, is no, Christina, and I’ll tell you why: both of these items are incredibly rare. Only a handful of Alice cosplayers own the SONG Doggie Shirt, and I happen to be among them for one reason only: the shirt was only sold in one store in Canada that had six locations, and one of those locations happened to be my hometown. I would trek the 45 minutes there and back in the name of service to other Alice cosplayers, but when the shirts were gone, they were gone. By the end of it, I probably bought shirts for seven or eight people, including Hannah Hindi and my beloved Anna, who was Alice at Stephenie Meyer Day this year and last. Given its rarity, you probably won’t ever find someone who is willing to part with theirs.

As for the Converse One Star jacket? It’s been out of store for years. You’re more likely to find one in a thrift store than in the closet of another Alice costumer.

The good news is, though, that there’s always hope, and that hope is called “eBay.” eBay is where you’ll find the vast majority of your Alice items, and if you want to seriously build a collection, it will become your best friend. Of course, making friends within the costuming community also helps a great deal; your new Alice friends will be scouring eBay along with you – maybe even using different search terms – and can point you in the direction of the items you’re looking for. I’ve had so many girls message me because they found an item in my size that they knew I needed, and my collection wouldn’t be nearly as impressive without their help.

We’re a community, after all – a small but determined league of sparkly vampires. Helping each other out is, ideally, what we do.

xoxo,
Alice