Lolita Blogpost Roundup: October 2017

First things first; Happy Halloween! If you head to my facebook page later today you'll see my lolita-esque Halloween shoot ^__^

And then onto your regularly scheduled posting...

In contrast to the quiet of September, October was busy in my corner of the internet with lots of good content from the bloggers I follow. As usual, here are some of my favourite posts from the last month.

Lolidrobe Reassessment Post 2017.3 from Cupcake Kamisama
If you are a regular reader you know how much I love wardrobe building and wardrobe analysis, so this was a fun read for me!

Low Energy Lolita - Tips for Bad Mental Health Days from Adventures of A Drop Bear Lolita
This post was just heartwarmingly good. Wholesome, if I can co-opt internet parlance for my own purposes. I don't know why but any kind of alternative community tends to attract people with anxiety and other mental health struggles, so this guide to still being active in the lolita community while dealing with anxiety is really quite helpful.

My Dear Special Anniversary Tea Party: First Look at Alice and the Pirates A/W '17 and S/S '18 from Buttcape
Not even going to ramble about this; it's exactly what the title says and is an awesome read!

Moi-même-Moitié is Back! Ownership Transfer Announcement from Rose Sanctuary 
I'll be honest; I'm pretty meh about MMM. But, I know a lot of lolitas care so I am signal boosting this post!

Best way to keep up with blog updates from RuffleCloud's Adventures
Hint hint nudge nudge...look at how easy it can be to follow your favourite blogs. Like my blog. Yeah. Hint hint ^__^

Angelic Pretty - Cream Cookie Parade Review from Milk Circus
Lolita reviews with detailed photos are the best! I think I could actually have loved Cream Cookie Parade a lot if it came in a muted dusty pink or ivory; the print is super pretty! But as it is I’ll just have to enjoy it in the wardrobes of other lolitas.

Comm meet: Lace Up! PGLC 8th anniversary from Sanakanin
If you’ve been here a while you’ll know I like flowers. So oh my goodness do I love this outfit! And am actually inspired to do my own mega floral outfit in the near future…

How I Brainstorm Outfits from Luna Rain
I love love love posts like this that let you learn a little bit about how someone else’s brain works. I don’t think I could ever be this proper and methodical about coordinate planning but at the same time I really appreciate it and enjoyed reading this post. Go read it!

Paléontologie from A season in the sky
Oh. my. goodness. This is just the most gorgeous lolita phtoshoot I've seen in a while! So different, so well shot, and just so amazingly beautiful. Seriously, drop everything and go take a look!

If you have a blog, send me a link! If you know a good lolita blog, link me to it! I’m always on the lookout for new blogs to read and to feature so always feel free to link to me all thing things!

Lolita 52: What's in my closet, but I haven't worn yet!

I’ll be honest; several things.

In terms of main pieces, I have not yet worn:

• Wonder Party
• Bodyline L571
• Anniversary Rose
• Princess Rose
• Dim Light
• Handmade Chocolate JSK
• Classical Bustle
• Shirring Princess
• Bodyline L173
• Jurassic Party

So that's 10 out of 29 main pieces in total unworn, or basically a third. And I'd guess that around the same amount of blouses and accessories has also never seen the light of day. I actually am super chill about this though... I don't really mind at all!

To be completely honest my weight has fluctuated in the time I’ve been in lolita. I lost weight and got to my thinnest point in 2014, then start gaining weight without realising it late 2014/early 2015 so at that point I bought several items that ended up too small – including Anniversary Rose. Since then I’ve unfortunately gotten to the biggest I’ve ever been and to be 100% truthful, less than half my wardrobe fits me right now. I am working on getting fitter and healthier, not just for this fashion but because it felt so good when I was actually fit (well, fit-ish, I’ve still never been precisely athletic), and so I do still buy things that are slightly on the smaller side and don’t get rid of items from my thinner days. So yes, there are quite a few things I haven’t worn for those reasons.

However, I also haven’t worn some items, like Jurassic Party, because I haven’t had the opportunity, desire, or coordinating pieces (though partially that comes from the fit issues, because my wardrobe is basically perfect dammit), which is something I’m pretty sure we’ve all done. However this year has seen me wear a lot of things for the first time as I aim to wear lolita more often so as I continue that goal and lose more weight this list should shrink and shrink.

Even though I have pieces I haven’t worn, and some I’ve still only worn once, I still love having every single item I own from a collector’s perspective. My wardrobe is a being unto itself, and a glorious one, and I’d never want to limit by keeping only things I wear regularly.

Do you have pieces in your lolita wardrobe that you have yet to wear?

Orphans and ruins

As I mentioned in my coordinate round up for July to September I recently did a lolita shoot, modelling with Angie and photographed by James. So of course, I am now sharing some of the final photos! I’m just picking a few favourites here, but the whole shoot will go up on my facebook page and you can also see the photos from the epic steampunk look (Trains! Weapons! Drama! Occasional hand-holding!) we did on the same day there.

I have to say, first of all, James did such a great job on these! They are eerie and twisted and exactly what I wanted! The creepy doll was his idea as well, and she really added to the atmosphere of these photos. As always, Angie was a pleasure to pose with and I’m also very happy with how I styled us both. Despite owning a lot of black and white old school style lolita things doing two outfits that both looked good and worked well together was a bit challenging! There are a few things in the styling I’d possibly change if I could but overall I just loved how everything worked.

This location was also utterly perfect. I’m about as un-superstitious as a brick so abandoned places never creep me out, but I’ve enjoyed telling everyone since then about how you could hear doors creaking open and slamming shut everywhere while bees buzzed around the hive they had made in a broken window. It was, in a word, delightful. A perfect location.

Did I mention that it was actually an orphanage opened in 1913? The building fell into disuse in the 90s and since then has suffered several fires. It’s beautiful and derelict in all the right ways, and it was so good to finally do a lolita photoshoot in a location like this.

Anyway, part of me feels like I really should be weaving a tale of sadness and mystery to accompany these pictures, but the fact is that I have a lot of fun modelling and even when the final result is somewhat sombre the story behind it all never is! So I hope you enjoyed the photos and reading a little about the shoot.

Proper facebook links for everyone!
James’s photography page
My modelling page
Angie's modelling page

Lolita 52: My favorite lolita print

I don’t think I have a singular favourite lolita print. I love everything I own, and some pieces in my wardrobe in particular (Anniversary Rose and Dim Light I'm looking at you!) are especial favourites which I admired for ages before buying.

But, given that I post fairly extensively about the pieces I own I thought I'd share a particular print that I do really, really love and don't currently own...

I adore Chocolate Rosette, it has been one of my favourite lolita prints right from the start. And now I can practically hear you asking; then why didn’t you buy it in the rerelease or the MTO? I have two main reasons for passing it up. The first is that experience has proven that AP is bit too short for me. I need at least a 90cm, and preferably 95cm dress length, and it wasn’t. If I were thin but tall it would be different, but I’m not, and I wasn’t going to buy a dress that I wouldn’t be comfortable wearing. The second reason is that the Aussie dollar is still not doing well against the Japanese yen at the moment, and I was not willing to spend $400 on it, especially given reason number one.

But I really love this print, and would  like to own it in ivory or brown (or special set mint). It's just a perfect sweet print for me - it is adorable, and has a range of cute colours in the print, but the overall effect is not too in your face cutesy. I could coordinate this in so many ways!

So Chocolate Rosette is something I will continue to admire from afar. When I’ve lost some weight (especially if the exchange rate gets better!) I may look at getting it but until them it will remain a print that really is a favourite, but not on me.

Do you have any prints that you admire, but don't own for whatever reason?

Newcastle Lolitas Café Meetup

Last Sunday the Newcastle Lolita community held another meetup and, of course, I went! I wanted to write a bit more of an in-depth meet up post this time around, so prepare of a bit of a long one!

I was running a tiny bit late (because it took me longer to do my hair than expected…whoops) but got to the chosen café in the early afternoon; James was a sweetheart and drove me there and back, which was much nicer than taking the train. We also had really fantastic car conversation, it was actually kind of a bummer to get to the meet and have to stop talking! But arrive we did. James had to double park to drop me off so I grabbed my bag and quickly scrambled into the café. The waitress at the door knew exactly where to direct me, based on what I was wearing. Got to love how distinctive we lolitas are!

Took this later, but sharing it now...

I joined Rosie at the table she had booked (bless this girl for getting the ball rolling on the community again) and we sat and chatted for a while as we waited for our third confirmed attendee to show. But unfortunately she didn’t, nor did the girl who said “maybe” on facebook, so after waiting a while we decide to just go ahead and order. We both got the soup of the day (potato and bacon) which was insanely nice, along with some pretty and tasty frappes. Still on our own after we were finished we decided to wander down the street, which is Newcastle’s sort of trendy café strip, to find a good place to take outfit photos.

Yes, I'm the person who takes photos of food. all. the. time.

As we walked I peered around at all the different shops, and jokingly said that if we passed a second-hand bookshop I’d have to go in...and what did we pass? You have one guess about what happened next! I tried to exercise some self-control, but that went out the window really quickly and I ended up with a big bag of 8 sci-fi and fantasy books. I just really like books! It was good/bad timing in a way, because on my birthday which was the Wednesday prior, James took me to a bookstore and let me loose, which resulted in the purchase of four new books, so now I have a really, really big stack of books to read. Which is great, I’m a massive nerd and have not satisfied my desire to read anywhere near enough this year. Part of me feels bad about getting so many books, but mostly I feel incredibly chuffed about it.

Pretty books I didn't buy...

Then, laden with books, we headed further down the street to find a good photo spot. We were heading for the park where we held the last meetup when Rosie spotted a gorgeous jacaranda tree flowering in front of the city library (or at least, I think it was the library, whatever). The pretty flowers in front of the hard lines of a city building were really pretty to me, so I took on the role of photographer and directed Rosie to stand under the tree and pose. But then, we heard a voice as a man walking by said “do you want to be in the picture too?”. So I handed off my phone and he took some photos of both of us! It was so nice and so random that this happened – thank you friendly random bloke! I call him a bloke because he seemed so typically Aussie; khaki shorts and shirt, slightly weathered skin, and exuding friendly cheer. I don’t think he even commented on our clothes, which happened a lot wherever we went that day.

With the group photo taken care of so quickly we took outfit photos of each other and before we knew it we were done, and still had some time left before James was due back to pick me up. So we decided, since we were literally right there, to visit the Newcastle Art Gallery. The kind lady at the welcome desk let us stash our bags behind the counter and off we went to look at the art.

Now, I’m not really an art person. I love photography and modelling, and approach that as a form of art, but in my experience the actual exhibition scene is full of as much wankery and bullshit as it is genuinely amazing works. So I went in expecting to be judgemental but was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy myself. So much so that when James called to let me know he was only a few streets away Rosie and I still hadn’t finished looking at everything…and it’s not a huge gallery! I will say though that there were certainly some pieces that really annoyed me but there was also a lot of truly amazing and beautiful stuff.

I’m not going to talk much about the art but I do want to share a couple of things that I especially loved. First of all, this painting from 2017, entitled Woman with a mullet.

Everyone I have showed this to has laughed. It’s brilliant.

On the second level of the gallery was an exhibit of works by the late Mazie Karen Turner, along with some of her photos and notebooks, and I loved them all! I’d especially suggest looking up for Blue Prints works – they were astounding in person.

While we were looking around I was sneaky and kept snapping photos that I was calling “Rosie in the wild”. I just really love pictures of lolitas doing things while dressed all cutely, so I took a few of her looking around the gallery. And then, because I like the results so much, I handed her my phone and asked her to snap a couple of me while I was looking at my favourite bit of the Mazie Turner exhibit. Much as I rant against wankery, I am a wanker myself at heart. I just don’t pretend it’s art!

While we were in the gallery we were approached by two middle-aged women who were curious about what we were wearing, and later on one of them asked to take a photo of us. That’s a first for me! I haven’t been approached for a photo while out in lolita before and I’ll admit it made me feel kinda happy and special ^__^

The time in the gallery flew by and James called me before I realised the time had passed so Rosie and I made a hurried goodbye and I made my way back to the café to get picked up. James and I picked up our car conversation where we left off and soon enough we were home. I happily removed all the layers lolita requires and morphed back into my usual self – wearing pyjamas and playing computer games.

So with this meetup, that makes three I’ve attended so far this year…I’m really pleased with that! Even though it was just Rosie and I for this meet it was great to spend some time with her and hopefully soon the Newcastle community will have a few more active members so we can continue to frill up the joint!

Easter in all seasons; Egg Art outfits

Egg Art is the last of my recent influx of new main pieces (five in two months!) and as usual I am celebrating its arrival with three flat lay outfits. I really love doing flat lays for new pieces (as well as existing ones!) because it gives me a good opportunity to see what options I have for it.

And Egg Art certainly has a lot going on to build off! It’s black and white (obviously) which is classic and easy to work with, but there are also a lot of different colours in the print to pick up on. You could run with the Fabergé egg theme if you wanted, or a bejewelled kind of look, or just ignore the print entirely and match off colours.

First of all I wanted to coordinate it as-is. That’s the great thing about special sets like this – just add shoes and you’re done! However, I don’t think I’d really wear it like this (though it does look really good, so I might) so for my other coordinates I did something a bit more interesting…

For look two I wanted to play down the black as much as possible, so I covered up the top with a white bolero and ran with light and colourful accessories. Even though in retrospect I think black shoes may have been a good idea I really, really love this look! It’s fun and cute without being too overdone, and it would be super comfortable to wear as well.

Then for the last look I wanted to take the opposite route and add more black. To be completely honest I didn’t end up being a big fan of this outfit. Not quite sure why (if you can pinpoint it, let me know!) because it works on paper but eh. My gut likes some things and not others, and who am I to argue with my gut?

All in all I think Egg Art is very cute, easy to wear, and is definitely a worthwhile wardrobe addition!

Coordinates from July - September 2017

I was on a roll with lolita these past three months! I wore 8 lolita outfits for a bunch of different reasons, and I'm excited to share them all with you. September in particular was my lolita month ^__^

The first time I wore lolita in this quarter was at the end of July for the Newcastle lolita picnic meetup, which I posted about here.

JSK & shoes: Bodyline

Blouse: The Floral Notebook

OTKS: Innocent World

Beret and collar: Peacockalorum

Flower: Offbrand

I really enjoyed this outfit! It was quite simple in a way, but very me - brown, floral, fawn fur…what’s more me than that? I also enjoyed how this outfit morphed from my first idea that I actually tried laying out as a flat lay.

To be honest, I changed the blouse because the brown one was too tight on my arms at the time and then, with that changed I thought I may be able to add some fawn fur, which didn’t quite work with the brown blouse. So in the end it looked pretty different but I think I liked it even more!

And, in case you didn't see the post I actually put this coordinate in a CGL draw thread and received some amazing drawings!

In August after I got my July haul in I decided to wear Berry Stripe to work on a casual Friday. This is not really a proper lolita outfit because I couldn’t find my petticoat in the morning so there’s no poof as well as being super simple! But one of my goals for this year was to wear my lolita items more, even if it’s just in non-lolita outfits, so I did and I’m sharing it ^__^

OP: Metamorphose temps de fille Berry Stripe

Bolero: Banned

Everything else: Offbrand

I couldn’t fit my whole self in this (work bathroom mirror) photo, but the bottom half isn’t interesting anyway, just black tights and black flats. I still felt so happy and cute wearing this to work though! I even took a selfie on the train! Public selfie taking is a rarity in Roli-land…

Then I started September off the right way by wearing lolita to work on the first day of the month! Not much to say about this outfit really, but I got some nice compliments on the skirt and my weeby co-worker recognised it a lolita. My friend/housemate/workmate Natalie was lovely enough to take photos for me as we walked into work form the train station. Due to being all black I've lost a bit of detail here, but I enjoyed wearing this outfit!

Skirt: Victorian Maiden

Cutsew: The Black Ribbon

Flower: Taobao

Everything else: Offbrand

On the third weekend in September I achieved a personal record - I wore lolita on both days of the weekend. Well, for the parts where I couldn't stay in my pyjamas, that is!

On the Saturday evening I dress up cute to go play Cards Against Humanity with James and some friends. It was a great night and I got several outfit compliments too! And of course, CAH was the usual horrifyingly funny experience ^__^

Skirt & Cutsew: Metamorphose temps de fille <3 Patisserie Dream

OTKS: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright

Shoes: Bodyline

Bag: Angelic Pretty

Accessories: Offbrand/taobao/Pastel Skies

I really enjoyed this outfit, and loved being so damn cute. Black x pink x white is love ^__^

Though, when James was taking outfit photos for me I managed to make such a terrible facial expression I just had to share...

The next day James and I went out in the morning to check out a local photography studio we will probably be using in the future and I decided to dress up again. I only had 20 minutes to get ready so it's quite a simple outfit but I rather liked it.

OP & Headbow: Metamorphose temps de fille Egg Art set

Bolero: Heart E

Bag: Angelic Pretty

Socks & Shoes: Bodyline

Then I wore Berry Stripe for work on a Friday again in a more properly lolita way. Nat was kind enough to snap a photo for me again, and I got compliments from workmates and the lady working at the Red Cross (Nat and I did some spontaneous op shopping on the way to the station after work) said she loved my dress. I also ended up putting my hair in a low bun which I think actually looked a heap nicer than just loose but didn't grab a photo at that time ^__^

OP: Metamorphose temps de fille Berry Stripe

Bolero: Heart E

Shoes: Bodyline

Everything else: Offbrand/taobao

I kept the ball rolling that weekend when James and I spontaneously went to visit one of my sisters on the Sunday. We were in the middle of a heatwave so I ummed and ahhed about wearing lolita, but decided that since I was going to be sticky and uncomfortable regardless, I may as well be sticky, uncomfortable, and cute! So I wore a very casual outfit that would survive some rough and tumble with my nieces and nephew (turned out to be only one niece home...much easier to manage) and though I didn't love the outfit it was still nice to dress up.

 Skirt & headbow: Handmade

Cutsew: The Black Ribbon

Socks & Shoes: Bodyline

Bag: Axes Femme

Overediting: Meitu BeautyCam

I also have a bonus photo cuddling one of my sister's bunnies ^__^ This was entirely James's idea, and stolen from his Instagram. Gotta love it when your partner has better lolita photo ideas than you do!

And then I saw the month out with a bang. On the last day of September James and I did two photoshoots with Angie, a model friend of ours, and one of the two looks was a lolita one! I got James to snap a quick shot on my phone so I could share it here with an outfit rundown for both of us.

My JSK, both shoes, Angie's OTKS: Bodyline

Angie's JSK, both blouses: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (got to put her in Shirring Princess!)

My headbow: Meta

Everything else: Offbrand/taobao

Of course I'll be sharing the final photos here since they're on topic for the blog, but if you want to see them first and also see our super awesome steampunk photos as well - complete with genuine steam trains, mind you - I suggest following our facebook pages.

Link to my modelling page
Link to Angie's modelling page
Link to James's photography page

So those are my latest lolita outfits! I'm really, really pleased with how much I was able to wear lolita, especially in September, and also that I participated in the community more and did a photshoot! And I'm keen to see what the rest of the year holds  ^__^

Oh and PS today is my birthday! Just thought I would mention that since it'd feel weird if I posted on my birthday and didn't say anything, lol.