Withdrawing from J-fashion

Hello dear forest dwellers,

Yes, the bad news is that I'm sort of slipping away from mori. Mostly for financial reasons, but those reasons helped me to realize where my priorities were.

As many of you know, I started a project called the Mori Box, which is a subscription-style box filled with mori goodies. At first it seemed to be very successful-- I received way more orders than I'd anticipated! Everything was going fine until it was nearing the time for the items I ordered to be shipped to me. Here begins a long, complex process which I'll try to sum up as simply as possible. There were issues with backorders, delays, miscommunication, and having to order more items when I hadn't been informed of availability until the last minute. It was hectic to say the least, but the EMS fees to ship the items to me were even more hectic to deal with. I ended up in the negative at this point, and additionally had to pay to ship my customer's items out from my home out of my own pocket.

Everyone was very understanding, patient, and sweet. A couple girls even offered to pay for the shipping to their homes, which was the sweetest thing ever and really cheered me up.

Nontheless, I still lost a lot of money. I'd started the mori box in hopes of raising funds to study abroad this summer in South Korea, but I ended up losing so much. This made me realize that I was giving too much time and money to my mori life, when I should be instead saving every penny for studying abroad. Going to Korea means a lot to me, and it will be an opportunity for me to learn and practice Korean so that when I move there next year, I'll be a more efficient teacher for my students and be able to function better in the city and amongst the people. This is so important to me.

And this is why I've decided to withdraw myself from mori. I don't like saying I'm "leaving mori" because it sounds so definite and forever. I'm keeping a few pieces so I can keep in touch with my local J-Fashion communities, but I will be selling a lot of my pieces and won't be buying any more.

Another reason why I've decided to withdraw is sort of the future of my blog. I've been considering for a while what I'm going to do during my studying abroad with my blog since I'll be gone for two months, and then what will I do next year with my blog when I move to Korea to teach indefinitely? J-Fashion isn't as socially accepted in Korea as it can be here, and shipping my clothes to Korea will cost a fortune. So I'd have to quit next year anyway. This is just easing me into that transition.

What will happen to my blog? When I (hopefully) study in Korea this semester, I'll be vlogging and blogging about life in Korea, and it will continue when I move there the following year. I'm not sure what I'll do with it during the space between those times, though. I'm also probably going to leave this mori blog here and start a new one for my life in Korea blogging.

As I said, I'm withdrawing myself, but not totally leaving. I've made so many friends in mori, lolita, and J-fashion communities that leaving J-fashion all together would feel like I'm leaving all the friends I made. So I'll be lingering :) Just won't be buying new things and will not be as active in the communities.

Thank you for staying with me for so long, friends~

Until we meet again,
Miss Kellie

“Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan