Sweets for the sweet; Jam Paradise outfits

I really enjoy food-related sweet lolita pieces in brown colourways, or at least that feature brown prominently, though currently I only own a single one of that nature: Jam Paradise by Rococo Soul.

It's a really lovely dress with lots of cute details that I enjoy wearing casually, and in my last taobao haul I picked up the matching headbow and two-way clips. Which means it is my only lolita piece where I actually own the proper matching accessories. Of course, I put them to good use in the flat-lays below!

First, a quite casual outfit that is something that I would definitely wear for a more laid back occasion. Given that the print is quite eye-catching I don't really feel the need to make the rest of the outfit too dramatic (at least, not this time!). This look would include lace topped offwhite ankle socks too, insert usual rambling about my current pairs not looking good laid out here.

Next, since the first look was quite casual, I wanted to run with a very typically lolita look. This is the first time I've used the shoes James got me for my birthday in a flat-lay, I really do like those shoes. A definite improvement over my previous cream pair!

Lastly I wanted to do something a bit more interesting colour-wise, so I whipped out one of my new cutsews, which I think matches really well! It's not the same shade of red as in the print but with the OTKS to tie it in I think it worked quite well. You may (or may not) have noticed but in this outfit I didn't use the matching headwear, even though I have it. This was partially just because I wanted to stretch beyond that, and partially because this outfit, I think, works best with the dress as a standalone piece in that print, and with more focus on the accompanying pieces.

Talk to me about matching headwear in lolita in general, and in your wardrobe as well. Love it? Hate it? Super neutral?

Merry Christmas!

A very brief post today to wish my readers (and any random internet passersby) a Merry Christmas. Whether you're celebrating Christmas, another holiday, or nothing at all I hope you have a wonderful day.

Have a picture of some Christmas themed donuts for visual appeal, and if you feel liek chatting about Christmas or anything else please feel free to leave a comment  ^__^

Lolita 52: What I thought when I got my first real piece of Lolita

Simply put; I loved it. Whether it was the pieces for eBay I bought at the very start, my early Bodyline, or my first brand, Lolita has always set my heart a-flutter. But just saying that would make a very short post, wouldn’t it?

If you count my first real pieces of Lolita as the first clothes I bought that were designed for the fashion, those would be an Ekaterina replica (though I didn’t know it was a replica at the time, not really) and dress/coat/thing from eBay. I enjoyed both of them so much. I felt pretty and happy and frilly when I wore them, and even though they weren’t perfect in construction they brought me a lot of joy.

The JSK from my very first Bodyline order, the only piece I still have from it.

However, if you’d call my first lolita perhaps more accurately as my first Bodyline, then my main thought here was that I was wowed by the prints and the details. You can see the pieces I got from Bodyline in my first order here. My love of lolita was cemented now – what was there not to love about this pretty, feminine, detailed fashion? I also started to fall in love with lace around here and even though Bodyline lace may not be the greatest, this was one of my first experiences with lace that wasn’t cheap raschel or basic eyelet lace, and I have never looked back since.

A flat lay with Loyal Rosette, before I sold it on.

And for the people who don’t count “real lolita” as anything other than brand, well, my thoughts then were a continuation of the same. Loyal Rosette was my first burando main piece, and it was such a lovely thing. Mostly, the quality was such a surprise and such a step up from Bodyline. I hadn’t truly believed that brand was really so different (and I still think there are a great many excellent non-brand lolita pieces) and so I revelled in the luxury of it all.

How was it for you when you got your first piece of "real lolita"?

The lolita LBD: L348 outfits

I won't bore my regular readers by repeating my praise of solid coloured main pieces...I'll just share some outfits that prove my point for me. Before I start rambling I want to apologise for the picture quality - shooting black indoors is just not good. Due to that and the fact that this is a solid colour piece there's no usual detail shot to start the post.

L348 is one of my many Bodyline pieces, and it has served me well over the years. It's a little bit old-school in style but not so much so that it limits how it can be worn. It's comfortable and sturdy and has a good amount of detail.

First up, I ran with red and hints of white to make a really cute outfit! 10 out of 10, would wear. Legwear would be simple black tights, which like always I didn't put out for aesthetic purposes. This is just such a wearable outfit, I really like it.

Next I put together a look that's a little more obvious and ran with black and white. I think they key to this outfit would really be in the accompanying hairstyle and make-up. It looks a little boring as a flat-lay, but big double buns for hair and perhaps a statement lip would really make this something rather fabulous.

For my last outfit I just had to run with black and pink - it's one of my all time favourite colour combos! Once again, it's a bit of a simple outfit but here I don't think it really needs to be made more elaborate, you know? It's rather lovely with the the big blocks of contrasting colour.

Are there any Bodyline pieces in your lolita wardrobe?

Lolita 52: Something that I made

If you’ve followed my blog for while you’ll know I’ve made several things in the time I’ve been in lolita. I even have two relevant blog tags; sewing and crafting (though not everything in those tags is strictly lolita). So since I blog about everything as I make it I don’t really want to just rehash that for this post.

For curiosity’s sake, I decided for this post to pull out everything I have made in my current lolita wardrobe to take a look at it all together.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with that turn out! I have made other things that have shortly made their way out of my wardrobe; two JSKs, at least two skirts and another short-sleeve bolero are what I can think of offhand. But these things I've kept are items I'm happy with and that I do actually wear. The cherry skirt in particular I wear a lot casually, and the brown bolero is just so handy!

I have plans for several things I want to sew, so we will see how that goes. I'll definitely blog about it ^__^

Review #43: The best part of lolita is the OTKS...

...and I recently bought myself three new pairs from Innocent World. A bit of an impulse buy, to be honest, as my OTK collection really is quite well rounded but as I've said before - OTKS are my favourite part of lolita! And you can never find anything like them anywhere else.

The pairs I bought are Union Flag Lame Overknee Socks in beige, Antique Bouquet Overknee Socks in Beige×Bordeaux and Diamond Rose Overknee socks in Beige×Pink. As is standard of innocent World the socks are soft, stretchy and all-round delightful.

It also seems like the "handwritten note" is actually a handwritten note these days!

However, also as is usual for Innocent World, the colours are not exactly as they appears on their website - I think IW stock photos tend to be brighter, in most cases, than the products really are. But regardless, these still all match my wardrobe pretty well. Also, oddly enough though they are all labelled as "beige" the Antique Bouquet ones are a distinct tan-ish colour, while he other two are off-white. And the last funny thing is the that Union Flag Lame pair are several centimetres shorter than the other two! Different manufacturer, perhaps?

Regardless of my comments above, which may sound a bit negative, I am really happy with these socks. Yes, maybe a bit of a frivolous purchase, but one that brought me quite a lot of joy! Turns out the most useful ones will probably be the Union Flag ones as the pattern is very generic (except for the crown part) as is the colour and I didn't have anything like this. The others are a lot more distinctive and limited due to colour, but I love them regardless.

Have you bought anything for your lolita wardrobe recently?

By name and by nature; Handmade cherry skirt outfits

My honest to goodness real surname is Cherry, so ages ago I bought the last of a roll of this satin cherry fabric when it went on sale super cheaply at my local fabric store. Eventually I made a lolita skirt from some of it, and it's been one of my most worn lolita items... though to be honest, most of the time I wear it casually, outside of lolita so I'm not sure if that counts!

I know satin is not generally thought too well of in the realm of handmade lolita but I love this skirt to pieces, and part of that is because the satin gives it an extra something. I don't tend to have much fabric variation in my lolita wardrobe, most everything is good old cotton or cotton blends, so this is a nice change of pace.

For my first outfit I wanted to do something light and bright with one of my new red custews, and I think it turned out very cute! I left legwear out because this would be worn with either black tights or black ankle socks, both of which don't look too good in flat lays. In a way, this is a bit more otome than lolita almost, but regardless of who you categorise it I would certainly wear it!

Next, I tried something different by coordinating the skirt with my lemon and cherry Meta OTKS. I think this still needs a little tweaking to be perfect, but I love the unexpected direction of adding pink (and lemons!) to the mix.

Then for my final look I went casual again, but a bit more of a layered casual and I think this is my favourite look of the three. Like the first outfit, I would definitely wear this out and about. It's distinctly lolita, but still fairly casual... just the way I tend to like it!

Another lolita capsule wardrobe

What can I say, when I like a thing I tend to stick with it for a while. So, shortly after having put together my hypothetical Project 333 inspired lolita capsule wardrobe, I immediately thought about how I could possibly improve it. Mostly, though I am a huge fan of having more options than main pieces in small lolita wardrobes, I wanted to try putting one together with a wider selection of main pieces. Then, because that's not challenge enough, I wanted to put something together that was more thematically varied as well.

So, below is the wardrobe I devised. I really tried to stretch myself both aesthetically and colour-wise here, and to make it less matchy-matchy than the first hypothetical capsule wardrobe.

As you can see we're spanning religious themes, a floral piece, a harlequin chess-piece JSK, whatever you classify Dim Light as, as well as having a few different solid pieces. Burgundy is decidedly the dominant colour, but instead of running with a more easily neutral burgundy/off-white/brown colour scheme I also added black piece to really add some different looks to the wardrobe, which I think make it more realistic, in a way. Yes, it would have been a lot easier to run with brown (or maybe even pink) but using black as well give the hypothetical wearer a lot more actual variety. You can pull almost gothic outfits from this wardrobe, as well as almost sweet ones, which you wouldn't have been able to if I'd kept it in a more cohesive, 100% classic colour scheme.

However...it is very burgundy! So all in all I'm not sure how successful this attempt at versatility was - it's certainly thematically versatile, but not so much in colours. But if this was for a person who has a favourite colour in burgundy, or who looks best in that colour, that would not be a problem. Personally, I'd rather limited themes with more varied colours but it was good to experiment with trying to get as many different prints and patterns in there as possible!

Of course, no hypothetical wardrobe from me is complete without example outfits, so here we go.

I actually really adore this JSK, it's really a piece that you can dress up or down...though I don't think you can ever make it casual! Though these four outfits are all distinctly in the same colour scheme I think they all convey different aesthetics.

Spoiler alert; the coord on the bottom left is the only outfit where I pair a burgundy main piece with black. I thought it worked here, but not really anywhere else. I really love Dim Light...it's such a lovely print and this cut in particular is so very dramatic.

Antique Bouquet is another Meta print I love, and can be worn in a few different ways in this wardrobe. Not much more to say about these outfits, really, except that I would wear each and every one of them!

And here we see how this wardrobe can produce some very different outfits! I would say that the top right outfit is quite gothic, bottom left is gothic-sweet (if there is such a thing). while the other two are firmly classic.

Again, the second black JSK gives the hypothetical wardrobe wearer some more versatile options as this JSK is firmly classic, but a rather cute classic, and that is reflected in the different aesthetics of these example outfits.

The sole skirt of this wardrobe is simple black, which I felt allowed for a range of looks from old-school-esque almost sweet to classic to kuro.

This OP is adorable, and though it is a solid colour, sailor lolita is very distinctive! This particular dress, I felt, could be styled in simpler, cuter ways and also in rather more opulent classic looks.

Lastly, the second OP in this wardrobe is a very, very, very obviously themed piece. I found it the hardest to coordinate, but given that this is more of a special occasion piece anyway, that's not necessarily too much of a bad thing.

Lastly, I threw together a couple of coordinates with the coat, because I didn't use it in any of the outfits because, well...it's a coat. It's just there to go over things when it's very cold, but I thought it deserved a couple of outfits as well.

So there we have it, my second hypothetical Project 333 inspired lolita capsule wardrobe. To be completely honest, I don't like this one as much as the first. however, it was good to stretch myself and try an approach to this that is not my favoured way.

Lolita 52: My best deal

Oh, this one is a bit of a challenge! Mostly because there’s a few ways you could define “best deal” so I think I really have two answers.

First of all, if you define best deal as something along the lines of price-per-wear I’d have to say that Bodyline's L279, that gorgeous floral brown velvet OP, is my best deal because it was cheap when I bought it and it’s probably one of my most worn lolita pieces. I think that’s because you can dress it up in a very lolita way, or you can tone it down and it just looks like a vintage dress so you pass under the normie radar. So it’s a good option if I want to wear something cute but not too attention grabbing.

Then, another possible definition of best deal is the item bought at the greatest reduction based on its original retail price. In that definition it is probably my short-sleeved black Baby bolero, but I can't identify it and thus can't track down it's original price. Though given that it cost me 900 yen I think it's safe to say that is my best deal. However two other items were very good deals, the Innocent World French Lace Bolero and Metamorphose Patisserie Dream skirt at only 23% and 19% of their original retail prices respectively.

Of course, you have to factor in shipping and shopping service fees but still! I've managed to get some pretty good deals of Yahoo Japan. And that's not even to mention all the OTKS I've bought at even bigger discounts compared to their original prices.

What’s one of the best deals in your lolita wardrobe?

A perennial classic; Shirring Princess outfits

As my regular readers know, I recently got my hands on a JSK I consider one of the quintessentially recognisable lolita pieces; Shirring Princess by Baby, the Stars Shine Bright in the black x white colourway.

The lace in particular is something I adore on this dress...just look at it! The dress overall also has a balance between casual and dressy that I like; the materials and construction and fairly simple, but the bustle back and layers of lace mean it could also be rather elegant if coordinated right.

And, speaking of coordinating this JSK...

First up, I put together something that immediately made me fall head over heels in love. How cute is this? I honestly am so keen to wear this sometime, it's just so me! I really don't have more to say.

Next, I wanted to try bringing in some colour, and decided on pink with hints of red. I feel this really needs a pink and red belt to tie the colours in better, or alternatively instead of a pink blouse, a pink bolero. However, given that I don't own any of those items I did what I could and even though I'm not 100% happy with the outcome I enjoyed stretching myself a bit with this.

Lastly, I ran with something of an updated old-school look; same items as a stereotypical old school look, same colour scheme but some slight differences such as a the blouse being chiffon and the headwear being a lacemonster bow rather than a rectangle headdress.

Do you have a piece in your lolita wardrobe that you consider to be a lolita classic?

Lolita 52: Impulse buys that were totally worth it; and, Wardrobe blunders! Things I bought that I ended up regretting

I am once again lumping two of the Lolita 52 topics together as I don’t really have much to say on either. Though a few of my lolita purchases have been a bit impulsive, nothing really stands out as having been truly impulsive and then “totally worth it”. Similarly, though I’ve bought many things that I’ve then had to sell on, again nothing really stands out as a regret. 

I think it’s commonly accepted that lolita, being as it is for most of us in the West a fashion that you tend to buy for online, there tends to be a lot of trial and error; things match or don’t, fit or don’t, are well made or not. Impulse and regret are part and parcel of it. Though it would be nice to have a story about that one thing that I bought on a whim which turned out amazing, overall I think I’m lucky to not have any grand stories of surprise happiness or regret in my lolita wardrobe.

Angelic Pretty's Twinkle Doll special set was something I bought and basically immediately sold, but I made my money back so no regrets!

Do you have any stories of things you were happily surprised with, or that you ended up regretting?

Project 333: A lolita capsule wardrobe

For a while, I've wanted to try doing a Project 333 style lolita capsule wardrobe. I even created one from my own clothes, but the photos turned out badly so I never posted it. Recently, I had the urge to experiment with this concept again, so here we are.

Project 333, if you haven't heard of it, it the idea that you have a wardrobe of only 33 items for 3 months, at which point you cycle out some items to suit your style and the change of seasons. These 33 items are meant to include everything but underwear, work-out specific clothes, and any items of sentimental jewellery, like a wedding ring, that you always wear.

For my lolita variant, I went with the following rules:

• This is a year-round 33 piece wardrobe, not seasonal
• It does not include the necessary underthings, such as petticoats and bloomers
• It does not include jewellery or small accessories (though, given that it is quite cohesive you would probably not need to many different pieces to match everything anyway)
• It does not include bags (and a single, neutral, big ivory purse would go with everything)

So I know it's not exactly Project 333 rules, but that gave me a good starting point to build a hypothetical capsule wardrobe, which you can see below.

As you can see I ran with a pink, lavender and ivory colour palette in a floral theme, ending up with a very sweet-classic point. I chose main pieces that ranged from fancy to simple, and did the same with my collection of blouses, cutsews and outerwear. True to my usual stance on lolita wardrobes, I have focused more on having a variety of supplementary items rather than a large number of main pieces. I found it somewhat challenging to stick to a set number of pieces, and was constantly tweaking it - exchanging a blouse for a pair of shoes, for example. But in the end I feel like I came up with a very well rounded wardrobe which has a lot of coordination opportunities despite its small size.

To show this wardrobe in action, I've come up with four outfits for each main piece.

I'll admit, sometimes I like to live vicariously through hypothetical wardrobes because I adore Angelic Pretty florals but AP is too short for me! Here you can see both seasonal variations and outfits that show differing levels of fancy that could be achieved with this JSK.

This lovely Baby JSK was chosen to be the OTT centrepiece of the wardrobe, though Dramatic Rose above could also fill that role. So most of these outfits, by virtue of the dress itself, are on the fancier end of the scale. I thought choosing a solid colour piece for the OTT option gave the most coording possibilities while still allowing the hypothetical wardrobe owner to have a "wow" piece. I toyed with the idea of making the OTT piece OTT in every way, like a princess-sleeve AP onepiece, but decided I wanted to prioritise versatility.

Sweetie Violet is another AP love of mine that would never look good on me, so here it is. In this wardrobe lavender plays second fiddle to pink, but I felt having both kept the wardrobe more interesting, even if it meant the lavender coording options were a little more limited.I think it would also have been interesting to pull together a cute OTT look with the JSK and the Infanta princess sleeve blouse, and something causal with that same blouse with the princess sleeve part detached, but I do like the range showing the the four outfits above. I guess the fact that there are still more outfits I could have made without getting repetitive does prove that the wardrobe works!

I only ended up choosing a single onepiece for this wardrobe, and even chose the matching headbow for it. I felt the headbow worked well with Sweetie Violet as well, and it gave a little extra something to this dress to be able to do matchy-matchy outfits. I know full sets are somewhat unoriginal but I did like being able to have a little bit of that going on in this wardrobe. There's just something so very quintessentially lolita about matching sets that even I, lover of versatility that I am, really enjoy.

For a slight change of pace, the first skirt in this wardrobe is a sweet Innocent World print, as opposed to all the other prints which are slightly more classic leaning Angelic Pretty. It is also probably the most casual main piece in the whole collection because the cut is incredibly simple despite the print, and that casualness is reflected in the outfits.

The last main piece in the wardrobe is another solid, again from BTSSB. It allows for a range of looks as it's neither particularly dressy nor causal, and also gives an opportunity to work with the lavender pieces again. At this point in the post I don't have much more to say about this set of outfits specifically, except that I really think this skirt is super adorable!

After having made the outfits, I have to say I was really pleased with how well this wardrobe worked. There's certainly an outfit there for any occasion for a quick run to the grocery store to a fancy tea party, in any season. I would possibly make a few tweaks if I were to do it over but, speaking generally I was very pleased with the versatility of this hypothetical lolita capsule wardrobe.

October auctions haul

I've been pretty good about not spending much on lolita this year but recently... well, my hand slipped a few times on Yahoo Japan. I actually got outbid on a few items as well, most notably some socks lots and a BTSSB fawn fur beret which was a real bummer, but especially given how awful the exchange rate is for me right now it's probably for the best.

Anyway, I ended up with a JSK-apron-headpiece set, two red-and-white cutsews and a little something that will either be part of a giveaway, or a Secret Santa gift if I either sign up for the CGL one or actually woman up and go to my comm's Christmas meetup.

As usual I used Buyee, and have nothing to say about their service that I haven't covered before. So, onto the clothes!

I know it's bad photo, but anyway, this is the set! The JSK is BTSSB's Shirring Princess (or Princess Shirring, I don't even know) and the apron and maid-style headdress (which kept folding in on itself in the photo) are both from Marble, which is a brand I know nothing about. The Marble items are good pieces to have, though they will probably have more costume/photoshoot use from me than actual lolita wear, but that's fine.

I have to say that Shirring Princess is really beautiful, the laces in particular are lovely, and because this is such a classic, perennial lolita piece I really get a kick out of owning it. It is also my first dress with a bustle back! However, I am iffy about how I like full shirring on me so I'll have to try wearing it a few times before I can make the verdict of whether I will keep it or sell it in the long run. But for now, it really is making me happy to have this dress.

The place where my hand really did slip was with these two cutsews, from a brand called Mary Rose on the left and Angelic Pretty on the right. What happened is I saw the AP one, liked it, and immediately put a starting price only bid on it, thinking I'd get outbid and could then decide how badly I wanted it. Then I came across the Mary Rose one, which was cheaper and I thought was likely to fit me better, so I did the same with that. I did feel a bit silly, bidding on two such similar items, but I really did think someone would outbid me on one of them but no-one did! So I won both!

However, when I got the package I was really happy to see that in real life they are quite different in colour and style, and that they both work with my wardrobe in different ways! Neither of them fit perfectly, but I am working on losing weight so hopefully soon they will fit better.

So that's my October haul! Have you bought anything interesting lately, lolita or otherwise?

Lolita 52: How long it took me to build a complete wardrobe

This is a bit of a hard one to answer, because to an extent I still don’t feel that my wardrobe is wholly complete. It’s definitely well-rounded, and I can coordinate everything in a variety of ways, so if that is the yardstick then it certainly is complete now and has been since about a year ago, so after I’d been in the fashion for around three years. However, I know there are still some gaps I want to fill that perhaps are not essential but would make my wardrobe that much more complete.

A glimpse into my wardrobe...I arrange things by colour.

This topic is an interesting one because it really raises the question of what you consider a complete lolita wardrobe to be. Caro-chan of FYeahLolita in her post “Building a Complete Lolita Wardrobe” defined it as one where you can wear a different outfit every day for a week, and I’ve used this as my definition in my $500 Wardrobe posts. However, when I’ve done my Wardrobe Challenge posts I’ve come to feel more that my definition of complete lies in how versatile and well wearing a wardrobe is, rather than a particular size. It is complete if everything works together well.

So, if I were to distil that down into a single sentence, it would be this: A complete lolita wardrobe is one that is cohesive, regardless of overall size, which has multiple coording options for each main piece and no impossible-to-wear pieces.

I can now say that now I have defined my own version of what “complete” means in regards to lolita wardrobes, I can safely say that mine certainly is complete.

As for how long it took me, as I said at the start of this post I think it took me approximately three years, really. And I’ve been continually improving it since then, and have even further to go.

The little brown dress; Lyris Design outfits

This JSK is, without question, one of my favourite lolita dresses. Possibly the favourite. I think, if I could only keep on JSK it would be this. I mean, I would be sad about ti an it would be a very very hard decision, but I really do love this one. It's exactly what I want, which is as it should be, since it was a custom commission.

If you're interested in reading my original review of this JSK, please click here.

First up, I paired Lyris Design with more Lyris Design! I think she used the same, or at least remarkable similar, fabrics for the JSK and the steampunk bodice, and they pair together really nicely. I feel like some more steampunky tights and maybe a gold hairpiece would make this pop, but as is I think it's a very cute steampunk lolita look.

Next I pulled out my trusty Axes Femme blouse to do a more casual classic look. I love this, I really do. It's simple but not boring and all the burgundies match really nicely!

Lastly, I tried a sweeter look with pink and hints of blue. I feel like a little blue ribbon tied in a bow under the blouse collar would complete this look perfectly, but even as it is I rather like it.

I know I probably sounds like a broken record, singing the praises of solid coloured main pieces on this blog all the time, but I think this post really shows that there's nothing boring about non-prints in lolita. If anything, they give you a great opportunity to showcase all the details that can sometimes be overwhelmed in a printed piece.