Lolita Blog Carnival: Share Your New Years Resolutions For EGL Fashion

First of all - Merry Christmas! I hope you had a wonderful day, whether or not your celebrate it. I did - lots of food, chill, and online shopping ^__^

I thought a lot about what I want to achieve in lolita in 2020 and kept coming back to a very simple answer - I want to fit more of my clothes again. I'm currently four-five dress sizes larger than when I was a pretty fit human being, and three-four sizes larger than my average before that. Because I love my clothes, and because I don't want to be my current size forever, I now find myself in a position where I can only wear about a third of my lolita clothes. 

And I am so sick of that!

I miss wearing this dress!

So my New Year's Resolution is to actually, properly, this-time-for-sure start losing weight in a healthy and sustainable way. The non-fitting segment of my lolita wardrobe is organised by size, and I would love to be able to fit into at least a third of what's there by the end of the year.

This isn't really the most interesting or exciting goal for anyone but me, and I won't give me anything to blog about, but it is what it is.

Do you have a lolita-related resolution for 2020?

Read more from other bloggers:

The Bloody Tea Party

Christmas Coordinates Without Christmas Prints

Festive season is upon us! In celebration of that, I took part in my first Lolita Fashion YouTubers collaboration playlist and you can view my Christmas coordinate lookbook here and the entire playlist here.

But, being me, I wanted to ramble on about my choices (and more) so here we are - exploring how to dress festively in lolita if you don’t own a blatantly Christmas print.

Festive Colours

This is the easiest - wear some red and green! Doesn’t matter if they’re Christmas themed in pattern, or even the ‘correct’ shades, it still gets the gist across. Other obviously Christmas combos are red and white or blue and white, especially if you can get yourself looking a little frosty.

Red and white is so Christmas-y, and leads me right to my next suggestion...

Tartan

Tartan fabrics just read festive to me, especially in red or green. And luckily, red tartan is quite a common fabric in lolita, so it’s easy to come by and while it works very well for the season, it’s not limited to it.

Christmas Character Motifs

Another way to get into the spirit of things if your wardrobe doesn’t lend itself to Christmas colours or warm tartans, is to add allusions to festive figures in your outfit. This can be done overtly - like my use of fawn fur to bring reindeers to mind - or more subtly. Some Christmas character ideas that I can see working well in lolita without having a restricted colour palette are toy soldiers, sugarplum fairies, reindeer (of course) and ice queens 

Any excuse to pull out the fawn fur!

Other Christmas Motifs

This is similar to the previous suggestion, but instead of adding character flair to your outfit instead make references to Christmas-y things. Some ideas here are gifts, candles, fireplaces, snow, swans...or blazing hot sun if you’re an Aussie like me!

Craft Accessories

Another option is to craft some easy, seasonally themed accessories. I’m having thoughts of bauble headbands and holly brooches, but there’s lots you could do with a brooch blank or a headband, some hot glue, and some Christmas bits and pieces from a dollar store. Or you could buy something! But if you’re anything like me, why buy something you use once a year when you can just make something ridiculous instead?

There are doubtless many, many more ideas than I’ve listed here of how to be festive without wearing a holiday print but I hope these ideas spark some coord ideas in you.

Lolita Blog Carnival: 5 Holiday Gift Ideas For The Lolita On Your List

Before you read any further, please know that I am a terrible gift giver. I’m bad at thinking of new and surprising things that may bring joy to the receiver - in fact, this year, my husband and I are just both going online shopping on Boxing Day rather than buying each other gifts. So take these suggestions with a grain of salt and let’s get to it!

Small accessories

Something that is nearly always welcome to any lolita, and are quite easy to pick up in local stores, are small accessories such as jewellery, hair accessories, ankle socks and the like. Things like bracelets and hairclips are probably the easiest to get right, since us lolitas are quite picky, but a pearly bracelet or some little hair bows in the right colours are generally pretty safe bets. Flower clips can also be good, but make sure they are nice quality and don’t look like what a mid-40s suburban mum would wear to race day!

Simple, classic, and $5 from a local chain.

Craft supplies

This is only relevant if the lolita in question is a crafty type, of course, but if you know what they like to make you should be able to pick something that suits what they might like to use. Or a simpler alternative is to buy a gift card from their favoured supplier. 

A wishlist item

If you happen to know their wishlist, buying something from it is a definite winner! This can be tricky but there are guides to buying from all kinds of lolita sites online, so if you're willing to put in the work to figure out how this is sure to be a 10/10 gift. 

Vintage items

Hunting for good vintage items generally takes a lot of time, or a somewhat deep purse. So why not surprise the lolita in your life with a one-of-a-kind item to enhance their collection? My first thoughts here are things such as brooches and jewellery, but if the lolita in question is okay with it vintage furs are a luxurious gift.

Not lolita, but I love the vintage foxes I was wearing for this shoot!

Photo by The Enthusiast.

A lolita experience

Lastly, if you're not confident picking out the right physical gift, why not gift an experience? It's a cliche, but lolitas and afternoon tea go together well so it's hard to go wrong in gifting them a voucher to a nice tea parlour! Some other ideas in the "experience" category could be a photoshoot, fruit picking, or a picnic.  It doesn't have to be something you buy, it can be something that you organise.

So those are my five ideas of gifts for the lolita on your shopping list! Have you ever received an awesome lolita gift? TBH my personal favourite gift I've gotten is when James paid for a custom-made dress for me, but that was a gift I was involved in from the start, not a "present under the tree" gift. But hey, consider that bonus idea number six - foot the bill for something your lolita would love.

This was a Lolita Blog Carnival prompt that I'ma  few days late on so please check out the other posts below.

Read more from other bloggers:

The Bloody Tea Party

Marnie Merriweather

Raine Dragon

Coordinates from November 2020

November was a quiet month in terms of wearing lolita. I did shoot a bunch of content for YouTube...but since I only ever got dressed from the waist up in lolita for those, I decided they don't really count as outfits. My coord count would be higher if I included them, but oh well, quality over quantity!

My first November coord was for a counselling appointment, and as it was a hot day I kept things really quite simple. But it was nice to dress up nevertheless!

JSK: Metamophose temps de fille Rose Stripe Shirring

Bolero: Lady Sloth

Socks: Angelic Pretty

Shoes: Bodyline

Flower: Offbrand

The following week I decided I really wanted to hit life hard, so started the week off wearing lolita to work from home. A super simple and casual outfit, because it was still hot, but still! Dressing up for work does motivate me for work and for life in general.

Skirt: Handmade

Everything else: Offbrand

The hot theme continued on and off for the month, so I didn't wear lolita much. November was just kind of a massive blur overall. However, on one 41 degree (105 in freedom units) day James and I went to some our friend's place for dinner and I decided to wear a simple coord since I was going to melt no matter what. I did forgo the petticoat though...there are limits! 

JSK: Metamorphose temp de fille Teddy Chocolatier

Bolero: Lady Sloth

Shoes: Bodyline

Bag: Coquettish Tiara

Everything else: Offbrand/Taobao

Sunday evening of that weekend brought with it a proper cool change, so I wore lolita to work from home on Monday. I also filmed a YouTube video in my lunch break in this, though I did forget to put on make-up...oh well!

JSK & Collar: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright

Socks: Innocent World

Shoes: Bodyline

Headbow: Angelic Pretty

Everything else: Offbrand/Taobao

And alas, my shoes started breaking this day. I've got no standards, so I'll probably wear them until they fully break, but I don't think that'll be too long coming...

So that was it for November! Not many coords, though I'm still amazed that 2020 has skewed my perspective so that wearing the fashion four times in a month is "not many". As the weather gets hotter and I transition back to working in the office I'm probably going to wear the fashion even less over the next few months, but I've learned never to make predictions so we'll just see how the last month of the year goes for me and lolita.