Review: Meta bolero and OTKS

Wow, it has been a very, very, VERY long time since I wrote a clothing review on this blog.

There are two main reasons for that. Firstly, I haven't really been getting much by way of new lolita over the past four-ish years - haven't been wearing it much either - and secondly, I've been way more into the YouTubes over that same period of time.

I did get that epic cloak from Lolita Inside almost two years ago, which was pretty dang cool. Before that, I bought the Princess Bonbon Cutsew from Sleepyland Shop but I only filmed an unboxing and didn't make a dedicated post here. I also know I bought a few things from Maxicimam, probably in 2022, but I didn't record anything about that at the time. And that's it. I basically stopped buying much and sharing purchases here in 2021. Camellia Cat was the last thing I documented "properly"

But I'm back! As I've mentioned, I want to revive this blog a little and get back into lolita overall so I figured that as well as doing a little unboxing video (which will be up on YouTube soonish) these wardrobe additions deserved a written review.

 

It's a small haul, but it means a lot to me. It feels like a sign of getting back to who I want to be.

It's also some really nice clothes, so let's just focus on that element rather than getting too personal ^__^

 

The first item, and the main reasons I made this order, is the [Plus Size] Diamond Openwork Long Sleeve Bolero in red. I was eyeing this off for months, well before it went on sale, but I kept telling myself "no".

Then eventually I had something of a personal revelation. I can just buy things. I was having a shit week (work's been rough this year) and was looking at it again thinking "I'd love to get something like this someday"and something clicked.

I think the thing for me is that lolita is expensive, and it's a hobby, not anywhere close to being everyday wear for me, and I've spent the last few years really trying to be frugal and sensible. But it brings me joy and I could afford it. So I did and it really felt like it unlocked something in me.

I also decided to throw in a pair of their Raschel Lace Over the Knee Socks (Size 2) in pink. This was more frivolous, but I gave myself permission to be a little frivolous  ^__^

(and yes, I realise I did just get personal after saying I was going to try and avoid it. Oh well, my blog, my rules, my ramblings...it's literally in the blog name)

The bolero fits perfectly but the socks area little too tight. I'm okay with that though, I thought that might be the case and they still work at UTKS.

The package also came with a Gardening Teddy flyer and a little sticker, both of which made me really happy.

So yeah, I'm a happy Roli with this purchase. And I may buy more of Meta's plus size boleros in future because I love this so, so much - super comfy and super cute.

PS I know no-one cares, but I'm not longer numbering reviews.

A punk lolita capsule wardrobe

It's been a little while but I am back on form with another hypothetical capsule wardrobe, this time punk lolita inspired by the colours of the bisexual pride flag ^__^

This wardrobe was one of the most challenging yet, for several reasons. 

Firstly - choosing a non-typical colour scheme made it very difficult. Black x red x white would have been easy as, but when do I take the easy route? You'll also notice the purple of the flag hardly features, just in that one tartan JSK and matching beret. Oh well. Regardless of difficulty, I think having more colours and having them not just be the stereotypical red tartan really makes this wardrobe pop.

Secondly - I'm not (aesthetically) punk. I struggle with punk looks much like I struggle with goth ones...oaky, punk is a little easier but not much! So realistically this wardrobe and the coords have more emphasis on the lolita rather than the punk.

Thirdly - a lot of punk vibes come from the person and styling of the person wearing it. If the wearer has a mohawk and tattoos and piercings, they'll immediately look more punk in any of these coords than say, me. 

However I still had a lot of fun putting it together and I like the end result. Speaking of the end result, here's four coordinates with each main piece ^__^

So I never liked leopard print before this. And now? I'm kind of vibing! I feel this JSK was surprisingly versatile. My fave is the leopard on leopard of the second coord, but I also enjoy how one and three are so similar yet so different.

I actually don't have too much to day about this set of coordinates. In retrospect, much as this OP has interesting details it feels a little too "safe" compared to the other options. Which was deliberate! I do try and have something that can be worn in an unremarkable way but I don't know. I feel like maybe I should have ignored that rule in this wardrobe.

Pink tartan, my favourite! Coord one is very safe, but in a way I prefer to the OP. I included the matching blouse and OTKS so that I could make this almost typically sweet coord, but felt they were still useful elsewhere too.

An unexpected love was coordinate four here. It's a mess, but a hot mess, and I would 10/10 wear that coord. I'm thinking that when I get into sewing more I may need to try and make a dupe of this Angelic Pretty cutsew because I am so into it.

Punkuma! There was no way I would do a punk capsule and not include something from this iconic Meta series.  Again, loving the sailor cutsew but my favourite here is coordinate three.

And lastly, the sole purple representative! This JSK was an interesting inclusion for me. The cut is unusual, and combined with the tartan felt like a good fit for the wardrobe, but it also feels very lolita. It was a fun one to work with. 

As is usual lately, I did also make a YouTube video about this wardrobe, link below if you're interested. 

What did you think of my attempt at a punk lolita capsule? Punk enough? Lolita enough? Bisexual enough (lol)?

I have one more capsule video/blog post int he works, and have an ongoing list of prompts to work from when inspiration strikes, so if you have a concept you want to see me try my hand at making please let me know ^__^

More lolita YouTube videos

In keeping with the theme of "I'm very bad at updating this blog" it turns out it has been a while since I last shared my lolita YouTube videos here. So here's a little round up of some of my recent offerings, most recent first. 

2026 is (hopefully) going to be a big year for me in lolita fashion! I even have goals and plans and such, and naturally shared a video talking about them. In short, if you don't want to watch, I've got stuff in train to be more active in lolita as this year goes on ^__^ 

An EGL Fashion YouTubers prompt came up on the theme of "luck", which I enjoyed. I've had a lot of good luck in lolita - supportive partners, some very good bargains, and so on - but I decided to take a different tack on this topic and talk about how you can build your own luck in lolita. 

 

Last year I bought a NWT Metamorphose blouse secondhand off Facebook, and since it was new and also a fairly recent release decided to do a little unboxing/review. 

 

And we finish of this post with another EGL Fashion YouTubers collab - this one was for Halloween last year! I decided to talk about how you can possibly incorporate lolita pieces when creating Halloween costumes, since I figured that was perhaps a slightly unexpected perspective on the topic.

I'm never going to be the kind of person who shares every video I post on the blog when I post it, so if you enjoy my YouTube stuff then subscribing is the way to get it in a timely manner. But I'll still enjoy things here sooner or later ^__^

A big little life update

Currently I'm prepping a post to share some of my recent YouTube lolita content (would love it if you subscribed wink wink) and when I checked my blog to see what I'd said about the tumultuous life events of 2025 I realised that at least here on the blog I'd said basically nothing. And in fact, two posts ago I mentioned my husband and then in the next one I mention my girlfriend which might seem a lil confusing lol. I know I don't owe anyone an explanation of what's going on in my life IRL but I want to at least give an abridged version.

At the end of 2024, with my husband James's full support and encouragement (I cannot emphasize how lovely he was about this!) I got myself onto a dating app. See, I realised I was bisexual once we were already married and while I was like "oh well, doesn't matter, don't need to explore that" his attitude was "well, maybe you should and I'm 100% fine with that". Several years later we were living in Tasmania and I finally felt like yeah, maybe I should.

In April, I matched with my now-girlfriend Maisie and we had our first date in May. I think you can guess how well that went ^__^ 

 

Maisie always has great nails ^__^

Then, completely unrelated, in July James and I decided to separate (we're currently still pending divorce due to compulsory waiting periods). We're still great friends, house-sharing until later this year, and overall it was as amicable as a breakup can be - there was no great drama, just a realization that it wasn't working any more and in hindsight hadn't been for a while. 

So that was...a lot. Good things, bad things, all the things. While life has settled down for me now, I'm sure you can imagine how weird it was for a while. I love Maisie so much and I wouldn't change a thing if it meant not meeting her but it was a really strange time for me to transition a marriage into a friendship, and be mourning that whilst at the same time embarking on something new and wonderful.

In less impactful news, a huge project started dominating my time at my day job and I was also flown back to the mainland office twice in the end of 2025...and once already this year with some more on the books in the near future.  

I was also in a play, so that was another big thing in the latter half of the year. And weirdly, in the face of everything else 2025 held it's a thing I keep forgetting even happened!

 

I loved getting back on stage!

And to top it off...in January this year my Facebook and Instagram were deactivated for reasons presumably related on me referring to lolita fashion as lolita fashion because, well, I don't post the kind of material that was supposedly why my account was deactivated. Ugh.

All in all, I've been busy. Many of my hobbies - including lolita - have taken a back seat while I've been getting myself sorted out.

I won't go into it, but for a while it felt like every week I was getting my mind blown by some realisation about myself, my values, my goals, my desires, my weaknesses, my strengths, just...me. It's still happening, just a little less frequent. I was already seeing a great counsellor which has helped a lot with clarifying all the chaos of my mind over the past year.

I feel like now I am really getting in touch with myself. I've been taking all the change and upheaval as an opportunity to actually stop and ask myself what I want to do, who I want to be, how I want my life to look. I'm grateful to have such a strong support network - including James and Maisie! - while I do this.

In terms of this blog, which has always been almost exclusively lolita-focused, I may actually come back to blogging a bit more in future. No promises, but I've missed writing - all kinds of writing, including this blog. I should be getting the last of my lolita wardrobe out of storage within the next few months, which will open up so many avenues for enjoying this hobby that I haven't had for years. I could do flatlays again!

 

A very old flatlay I still like.

So that's my life over the past year in a nutshell. It hasn't been easy but I've come out the other side feeling more me than I have in a long time. I'm not entirely sure what that'll mean for me as a (shudder) content creator but hey, the fun is in the journey ^__^

Coordinates from July - December 2025

It took so long for the weather to warm up enough for me to even contemplate wearing lolita outside of filming for YouTube that for a while I thought I may not get any coords in at all in the latter half of 2025. But I did!

On November 1st, I had to run some errands and to my surprise I felt like wearing lolita. So I pulled together a quick casual coord and very much enjoyed wearing it ^__^

JSK: Metamorphose temps de fille Teddy Chocolatier

Cutsew: Handmade

Shoes: Bodyline
Everything else: Offbrand/Taobao

Since it was the day after Halloween I was half expecting to get some kind of "Halloween is over" comment, but the only reaction I got was a nice lady in Kmart saying my dress was cute, so that was nice.

In mid-December I had finished work for the year, the weather was nice, and I was hit by a sudden urge to wear lolita to my last counselling session of 2025. So I did!

 

JSK: Baby the Stars Shine Bright Shirring Princess

Blouse: Metamorphose temps de fille

OTKS: BTSSB

Shoes: Bodyline

Everything else: Offbrand/handmade/Taobao

I took a car selfie and weird hand picture because I wanted to show off my handmade necklace and bracelet. I got into beading/jewellery making in 2025 and have had a lot of fun with it so far! Definitely planning more lolita pieces in future ^__^

And that's me in lolita coords in the latter half of the year. TBH by the time the weather got warm enough to consider wearing lolita I was away from home for two thirds of the time, so didn't have that many chances to wear lolita. However, in that time my girlfriend and I hit our six month anniversary and I got to be back in NSW twice and see a bunch of family and friends (and bring back more lolita stuff for my no-longer-a-capsule wardrobe) so I'm absolutely not complaining ^__^

Coordinates from January - June 2025

Sooooo the first few months of this year kinda sucked, not gonna lie. Life was just a ridiculous comedy of errors like you wouldn't believe. And after that things were better but incredibly busy. So my lolita tally for the last six months was one entire coord.

Oh well. I'm just glad I managed one!

I wore lolita to have a table with my husband James at the Burnie Geek market hosted by TasPop. We're starting to sell our handmade and curated things under the name Unidentified Items - there may be some lolita stuff in future so, y'know, maybe you'd like to follow our Instagram ^__^

 

JSK & Socks: Metamorphose temps de fille

Cutsew: handmade
Shoes: Bodyline

Everything else: Offbrand/Taobao

 

 

And a little glimpse of our table!

It was nice to have an excuse to wear lolita again ^__^

Recent lolita YouTube videos

Ahem... So yeah, I've made videos about a few lolita things that I have not blogged about so I figured it was high time I shared them here! In no particular order:

I shared a gift giving guide for anyone unsure of how to give a lolita fashion enthusiast a lolita gift. I think I did a good, thorough job if I say so myself. This was a Lolita Fashion YouTubers collab, so click through more videos on the theme of "gifts".

Another LFY collab was this topic - what is uniquely you about your lolita style? I found this a challenge to actually define and therefore an absolutely worthwhile video to make! 

Most recently I shared a quick upcycling/DIY video showing how I turned a thrifted shirt into a cute lolita cutsew. It was fun and as I mentioned in my last post, I have a LOT of sewing and DIY plans for my lolita wardrobe.

If you like watching as well as reading lolita content, I hope you enjoy my videos ^__^