Lolita Blogpost Roundup: June 2019

Everyone...it's officially half way through the year. How did this happen?!? I have no idea but at least, as usual, I read some quality lolita blogs this month.

New Japanese Brand : Lieblich & Elegant from Crimson Reflections
Ooooh a new Japanese brand? Exciting! I'm keen to see more from this brand and I'm liking what I see, even if it's not quite my style.

OOTD February from Auris Lothol

Outfit posts are still some of my favourite things! And I love it when bloggers share other j-fashion looks in with their lolita coords, it's always good to see something a little different.

Baby, the Stars Shine Bright Sendai, 14th anniversary tea party from The Sensitive Petal Princess
This was a bittersweet read, and gives a little insight into the Japanese lolita community which I find fascinating.

2019-03 Chocolate meetup from RuffleCloud's Adventures

I love reading meetup posts and I love chocolate coords so this was a definite favourite read this month!

My Formative Lolita Years from Cupcakes and Unicorns

This was such a fascinating retrospective! I'm not too into introspection (except, of course, for those times when I totally am) but this was a fantastic read nevertheless and did make me think about what it was for me what truly cemented my idea of how lolita fashion should be.

On Being Lolita: Traveling Light from Pink Milk Tea
Travelling with lolita is something that's discussed on and off online, and this post was great because it presented real life scenarios rather than just untested thoughts. It was good to read, especially because I am definitely planning to travel with part of my loltia wardrobe more in future!

I hope you enjoyed these posts, and the first half of 2019 ^__^

Lolita Blog Carnival: If You Could Keep Only 5 Main Pieces What Would They Be?

I put this topic up as an option for the Lolita Blog Carnival, and I’m really excited it got chosen this week. So of course I’m participating! And I'm really, really interested to see everyone else's posts as well ^__^

My first two main pieces I would keep are really obvious (to me at least). Item one – my wedding dress!

This is a pretty bad photo, sorry!

Of course, there’s no way I wouldn’t keep this! Not only does it have a lot of sentimental value, it’s a really beautiful dress in its own right and being custom made, it’s a great fit on me too. Even though it’s probably the most extravagant dress I own (seriously, just look at that lace!) it’s still also pretty versatile and is perfectly my style (naturally).

This close -up shows it off a bit better ^__^

My number two choice is for many of the same reasons, and made by the same designer! My Lyris Design underbust JSK is another beautiful piece that was literally made for me. I love how simple it is, but there’s enough details that you’d never call it boring. Again, it works well with my style and you can wear it so many ways.

After those two, however, things started getting a little harder. What things do I love the most? What do I wear the most? What would be best to keep in this hypothetical scenario? Some things that I wear frequently, such as my handmade cherry skirt, wouldn’t really make the cut for this. Sure, it’s really handy, but if I had to be picky it’s just not quite enough.

I do think I would hang onto Meta’s Berry Stripe OP. It’s comfortable, easy to wear, and can easily be toned down or dressed up. I’d wear it a lot more right now if it wasn’t in my mending pile for elastic replacement!

I would also hold onto my Patisserie Dream skirt. It’s a print that is just perfect for me and I don’t think I could let it go. I’ve worn it casually as well as in proper lolita style and I have loved it every time.

Most recently worn for this shoot and shopping day in Harajkuku!

Photo by my love The Enthusiast <3

And that brings me to four main pieces, and the choice of number five is even harder. Several pieces are vying for my choice here. An obvious one is Jurassic Party – after all, we made that! But it’s not really my style, or at least not as much as many other things in my wardrobe. My brown Bodyline floral JSK is something I keep coming back to over and over again, and have for years. Dim Light is a dream print, and so is Wonder Party. Teddy Chocolatier is a newcomer but has so much potential!

Ultimately though, I’m going to make this decision based on my overriding desire to keep things at least somewhat cohesive. If I really was to reduce my wardrobe to five main pieces, I’d want to have a sensible selection that would limit the amount of supplementary pieces I would need in order to have a good, versatile wardrobe. So it needed to be either a sweet piece that fits in with black/white/red/pink or a classic piece that works with brown/wine/ivory.

With those parameters in mind I think the fifth main piece I would keep is actually Meta’s Rose Stripe Shirring Pinafore JSK. First of all – I really do love this dress, I loved it since it came out and even though I’ve only worn it twice I’m just getting more in love each time. But it also would work well with the colours already in my classic selection without being a duplicate like other main pieces would be. If this was a real situation and I was to dramatically downsize my wardrobe, it would be a welcome change to have this dress in my collection.

This was a surprisingly challenging prompt but I enjoyed having the opportunity to really think about what pieces I value the most, and what would matter to me if I was to get rid of the majority of my wardrobe. It actually made me excited about all the vast possibilities my wardrobe holds – and the fact that I have 30+ main pieces and don’t have to content myself with only five!

Read more from other bloggers:

In Love With A Dream

Building a capsule wardrobe from one starting dress

Recently, as I often do, I turned to the capsule wardrobe thread on CGL for inspiration, because I felt like playing around with digital clothes. One post in particular took my interest - someone shared the Bodyline carousel JSK, saying that it was their first piece and that they wanted to know where to build up from there.

And that is just the kind of experiment I like! So here's what I suggested for them ^__^

First of all, I put together two very distinct outfits with the JSK - the only piece they share is the bag. They could also have the same shoes, but you know me - one pair of shoes is really just a travesty. The white and black outfit is intended to be more of a neutral look, while the lavender one is pulling from the print in a more interesting way.

Then I wanted to demonstrate how to use that base to build up from "two outfits" to "an actual wardrobe". The next main piece chosen needs to match at least some of the accompanying items from the first two looks to limit what else needs to be bought, and the things bought to match it should also go with the first main piece.

As you can see, I chose a lavender x pink skirt and got some pink items to match, which in turn work with the carousel JSK. The new skirt could also be worn with the lavender and white pieces, giving the wearer five very distinct outfits already. In reality, given that you could do different makeup and hairstyling, and would probably have smaller accessories and jewellery to further enhance the looks, that gives a pretty workable small wardrobe.

But who would I be if I didn't take it a step further? Let's add an OP and some matching pieces to the wardrobe - running further with pink this time. This then gives the wardrobe more options for the skirt, and some further variations for the original JSK. The new OP could also be worn in a few different ways, bringing the wardrobe up to being able to yield around ten outfits.

As you can see, by this point the black pieces are starting to be the odd ones out. If this were my wardrobe, the next main piece I added would be something with black details. The good thing about this kind of method, however, is that by growing the wardrobe piece by piece if you discover that you want to change directions or no longer like your starting point you're still in a good place overall.

This was a lot of fun to put together, and I hope it gave the person who posted initially some food for thought ^__^

Lolita Blog Carnival: Create A Coord To Best Fit The Season

Here down under, the current season is Autumn. But before you start thinking of crisp, chill days and gorgeous foliage let me disabuse you of the notion that our current Autumn is nice. Some days it's freezing, some days it's hot and sunny, and all in all it's not a picture perfect Autumn.

Buuuut I think this coord is pretty picture perfect, don't you? ^__^

I wanted to run with something classic and brown, because that feels super Autumn-y to me. But I wanted to avoid using my usual brown-and-fawn-fur combo so my new BTSSB capelet came in handy!

The vibrant red really brightens up the outfit, and I'm glad I stumbled onto this combo by virtue of avoiding one of my more common coordination options. I kept the accessories pretty simple since the pattern on the Innocent World onepiece is quite busy.

I did, however, bring in a tiny bit more colour with this Yumiyumyum Illustration brooch. I just liked the idea of bringing in some subtle floral elements into an Autumn coord - a hint of burgeoning warmth while things in the current world are getting greyer by the day.

Read more from other bloggers:

Ruffle Road
The Bloody Tea Party

AYWI30C #15: Follow the rules

Ahhhh “the rules”. Those lolita rules that are so hard to pin down and that really are, in the end, more guidelines than actual rules.

Generally speaking, when I think of the lolita rules I think of more traditional outfits – sweet looks with white blouses, classic outfits with crochet tights, gothic coordinates with chunky shoes. The main boxes are ticked; shoulders are covered, colours match in a predictable way, and nothing is too unusual. So that’s exactly what I did.

I made sure to stick with a pretty basic colour palette here. Black to match the main colour of the skirt, white to keep it firmly in traditional sweet lolita territory, and a bit of pink for interest. If I were to actually wear this I’d normally go with varied pastels for accessories, but I actually rather liked keeping things a little more limited this time around.

I did, however, make sure to include wristcuffs as part of my accessory choices! They're such a typically lolita thing that there's not way I could not include them. I ran with white, again keeping with the intention to keep things pretty neutral.

Another typically lolita thing (yes, yes, that's more convention than rules, but whatever) was making sure I used the one matching jewellery set I own!

Shoes and bag were both kept simple (sensing a theme here?). I honestly get so much use out of this bag though! One of my best purchases given how much I like to wear black and pink ^__^

I actually really loved this coordinate. Even though it's a lot simpler than I'd normally do, and I don't tend to do "sweet with white" coords, it was actually very refreshing to do a coord like this. I don't see myself wearing it any time soon but it was still a lot of fun to explore. 

AYWI30C #14: Inspired by a mainstream fashion trend

Here's a confession - I am so out of touch with mainstream fashion that I had to google what's currently in. And that was confusing! So many different (and often contradictory) styles are floating around right now, but in the end I settled on a few key features I seemed to see repeated. There's something of a 90s does 60s vibe happening right now, lots of beige with a pop of colour or alternatively bold monochromes, simple lines with structured blazers.

The problem with that is that nothing there immediately lends itself to a lolita coordinate! So I sat in front of my wardrobe and pondered what I could do. In the end, the main aspect I ran with was that 90s does 60s vibe, though I did try and go a bit beige as well!

It took a fair bit of thought to get to my basic idea, and from there it was a lot of tweaking to get to something I actually liked! Neither decade has silhouettes or general aesthetics read very lolita, but in the end I developed something I really do like.

Given that beige neutrals are in, especially with a pop of colour, I wanted to pull out one of my new Axes Femme skirts, with the vague idea of match it with a coloured blouse and legwear. I discovered the these Baby OTKS matched my pink Meta blouse perfectly in colour, and they added a bit more dark brown to match my chosen shoes.

Then, of course, I had to pull all those colours into my headwear. I continued to use chocolate brown in really light touches, but the tan beret perfectly matches the skirt and I was able to bring in both a soft pink and vibrant mauve kind of pink in the bows.

And I added a bow to my bag! Seriously, I don't know how I'd coordinate things without my mass of bow clips - they really help me so much. The heart bag also reads kind of 90s (and a bit 60s) to me as well so it was a good choice for more than just its colour.

I kept accessories pretty simple, but I liked carrying the bear theme of the socks into a general woodland animal theme with this Madillustration badge. I mean, I like to actually match themes properly when I can but I think it's okay in this coord. The only thing I would have liked better is is I had something in a chocolate brown, as I feel the chest is possibly too pink. But regardless, I really like this look. 

Ultimately, whether or not this outfit actually looks like the trends I drew inspiration from, I do like that this challenge has once again encouraged me to put together an outfit that is definitely not something I would have naturally pulled together. It’s a good thing!