So Long, 2017

Hello, 2018.

My year ended up finishing itself on a really awful note. Like... probably the worst way I could have immediately envisioned. But the only thing to do for it is to keep pushing forward and create goals for myself, even in Lolita fashion.

That being said, here are my 2018 Lolita Goals:

1. Purchase something from a brand I've never owned before

A JSK from Chocochip Cookie. They are still super old-school.

This might be a little weird, but with the mass-death of several Lolita brands, I keep finding myself thinking, "Wow, I really should have gotten something of theirs when I had the chance." I already have a few brands in mind: Chocochip Cookie, Victorian Maiden (closing soon), Putumayo (also taking its death rattles), Moi-Meme-Moitie, or even h.Naoto.

2. Buy a lucky pack

I actually really love the idea of the traditional lucky packs (the ones where you legitimately don't know what you're getting, only what kinds of pieces may be in there). There's something enchanting about having surprise items and then figuring out ways to work them in with your wardrobe. I really wanted to pick up one of the BtSSB packs from the NYC store this year, but things came up and I found myself without the funds I thought I would have. There's always summer!

3. Continue pulling together a cohesive wardrobe

This was a big year when it came to living expenses (I moved, had medical bills, etc.), so I wasn't able to purchase as much as I would have liked, but I feel pretty good about how the things I did get work with my wardrobe as a whole and I'd like to continue moving in that direction this year. My main focuses are still shoes and tops, but I'm also starting to look at a few new headpieces, as well.

4. Wear Lolita at least once a month

I really just don't wear Lolita so much anymore, but I really would like to! Something I'm going to try is getting back into casual coordination to make it easier.

5. Go to a meetup

It's no secret that I'm terrified of my comms and going to meetups, but I'd really like to change this about myself. Even if it's just for the next convention, I'd really like to join a group of my fellow frillies and just do something fun.

6. Try a new sub-style

Isn't this a weird thought to have when I'm trying to work on having a cohesive wardrobe? Definitely. But I also want to try something new, and I've realized that I do have a few pieces that can be worked into substyles like Gothic or Punk if I just put a little effort into collecting the right accessories. I've wanted to branch out from Sweet for quite a while.

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These are my Lolita goals for 2018. What are some of yours?

LBC: 5 Pieces You Regret Not Buying When You Had the Chance

We've all had the feeling. Why didn't I reserve Holy Lantern, why didn't I snatch up that bolero before it sold out, why did I wait until the last minute to bid on that JSK - it's a common thing in Lolita. It also makes for a fun LBC topic. Here are five pieces I regret not buying when I had the chance!

1. Angelic Pretty's Victorian Tassel JSK

I had the money. I had the desire. I just didn't have the card to use to purchase it when it was on sale, and I was too afraid to ask anyone I knew for theirs.

2. Baby's Fawn Fur Beret

This is a hard piece to come by, and I've loved it since my early Lolita days! Someone was selling it as a set with a matching scarf or muffler or something for a pretty reasonable price, but I didn't get it for some bizarre reason. Next time!

3. All of the yellow Kumya-chan's Glittery Milky Way accessories!

When these were released, I got so excited because I had been searching for yellow star-themed accessories to make a coordinate for my Candy Bottle JSK, and these were so perfect! But in the few days it took for me to get my next paycheck, they were all sold out in yellow.

And let's be honest: blue just doesn't match the same way.

4. Innocent World's Patisseries de Paris Just Waist JSK

This was another one from my early Lolita days, and Innocent World ended up putting it on a decent sale. But at the time, I was still leery of spending so much money on a dress, so I just didn't get it. Now, though, I would absolutely buy it if I ever saw it pop up in the secondhand sales.

5. Angelic Pretty's Chocolat-Chan Going Out JSK

I've mentioned this before on one or two dream dress posts, but I've only seen it pop up in the secondhand sales once. I should've just bought the damn thing, but again, I was intimidated by conversion rates and the price. Oh, well. Next time, I'll be more prepared to pounce.

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What are some Lolita pieces that you almost bought and then didn't? Let me know in the comments below!

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~Other Participants in the Lolita Blog Carnival~

✿ Cupcake Kamisama ✿
✿ Sweet Expedition ✿
✿ Poppy Noir ✿
✿ Roli's Ramblings ✿
✿ The Bloody Tea Party ✿

Do the Damn Thing: 5 Things for Newbies to Avoid or Not Do

This week's Lolita Blog Carnival topic was one that I knew I had to post for, even though I haven't been keeping up on this blog like I've wanted to. The moment I saw it, I knew that I needed to write about it - if only for myself. I have such very strong feelings that apply towards it, and I really want this to be a lesson for new Lolitas in making good choices.

Because these are all things that I have done and continue to do because I'm the biggest chicken on the planet.

Without further ramblings, here are my Five Things for Newbies to Avoid or Not Do:

1. Don't be afraid to be active in your comm.

Really, no one is going to be a snot to you for being a newbie. If you're a part of your comm's Facebook group or other form of social media, go ahead and introduce yourself in a post! Comment on other posts, start RSVPing (and going) to upcoming events, and strike up conversations with your fellow lolitas! I remember when I first posted in my comm (a comment on a photo), they were nothing but lovely to me - even though when they first met me, I was definitely still grossly in my ita phase.

I've never been wildly active in either of my comms - Ohio EGL was mostly due to distance, and by the time one of the main meet-hosters moved closer to my area, I was planning on moving to Michigan! But I have no real excuses for never seeing the Michigan comm - except for the fact that I'm easily intimidated and they're all vastly more lovely and more put-together than I am.

Which leads me to another thing: don't be intimidated by your comm! I wish I could take my own advice, but just go make yourself some friends. Even if you're not good at that sort of thing, I promise it'll be worth it. I still wish I had the courage to make friends in both of my comms. They seem like wonderful people, and I dearly want to be friends with these people. I'm just super socially awkward and bad at befriending others.

2. Don't wait until you're "thin" to wear Lolita.

theprintfiend.tumblr.com

Seriously - don't. This is something that a lot of us plus-sized women already do in the "regular" fashion world. "I'll buy a new wardrobe once I've lost a couple of pounds!" How often do we end up doing this? Rarely. Seriously, find clothes that fit and make you happy and just wear the damn fashion. You'll be much happier for it in the long run, even if you do end up dropping weight.

It'll be harder if you're plus-sized to find good Lolita pieces that fit, but that'll make it worth the effort. Handmade is an option, and Taobao is more popular than ever. It might end up being just as expensive as buying brand, but you'll be far happier wearing it than waiting for a moment that might honestly never come.

I know, I know, this might sound really tired and overused, and as a plus-sized Lolita, I get it, but it needs to be said: you can be cute and plus-sized. The two are not mutually exclusive.

3. Don't buy something just because you can.

This will just make you have a collection of things you don't really love and an incapability to buy things that you do. I can't tell you how many times I've done this. I have money, I can't find anything on my wishlist that's in my price range (looking at you, Melty Ribbon Chocolate), so I just buy something else that I've convinced myself to like.

That's when you end up buying a skirt that definitely does not fit you because it's a damn steal at $40, and you're left to realize that you have a spending problem.

The image above is totally not related, and I have no idea what you're talking about.

4. Don't think that you have to look like a good Closet of Frills coord.

Everyone has their own style, and you need to find yours. By all means, take inspiration from Closet of Frills and other lolitas, but never see a Paradiso coordinate with a foot-tall headdress, angel wings, handmade props and an overskirt with LED lights sewn in and feel like that's the look you have to achieve to truly be a Lolita. Wear your Ribbon Berry Bunny JSK with converse and a denim jacket with pride.

(Note: This isn't me giving permission to shatter every last Lolita rule, but at least have some fun with it once you have a decent grasp on what you're doing.)

5. Don't be afraid to wear Lolita for mundane things - even just to wear when you're at home.

"Get on the couch, losers, we're watching Netflix."

If you want Lolita to be a special-event-only kind of thing, then cool. Do it. But if you want to wear it without a reason, then do that, too! It's a street fashion, casual coordination is a thing, and it'll make you feel good! I'm not saying clean the house in it, but if I've had a long day at work, maybe I just want to take off my work pants and throw on my Sugar Bouquet OP or my Garden Alice JSK to lounge around in. Not only is this good practice for coordination, but it also lets you get used to wearing Lolita in a (relatively, depending on your family) safe, low-stress environment.

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All in all, even though this list is supposed to be about what "not" to do, the main idea I want newbies to take away is this: just grit your teeth and do the damn thing.

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~Other Participants in the Lolita Blog Carnival~

✿ Cupcake Kamisama ✿
✿ Petite Tomoyo ✿
✿ Gotas de Baunhila ✿
✿ Queen & Commander ✿
✿ A Princess' Fairytales ✿
✿ The Bloody Tea Party ✿

Candy Bottle Unboxing!

So, last Friday and today have been kind of special for me: I ordered a new dress from Metamorphose! Not only is this the first thing I've bought for my Lolita wardrobe in more than a year, but it's also the first new-straight-from-the-brand dress I've ever purchased! I can't say first order ever, because I once bought a parasol from Baby SF, but this felt different.

Remember how I said in this post that I was in love with the Candy Bottle print? Well, guess what's on sale?

I ordered it, the dress shipped out on Monday, and I can't tell you how pleasantly surprised I was to find that it arrived yesterday! I was expecting a far longer wait.

Meta sent me a bunch of little things along with the dress, too!

In addition to the obligatory shopping bag, there's also a nice little sticker, and fabric swatches from their Matryoshka Doll print!

There are also two spreads of the Cherry Berry Song series, and Crown Label's Bakery Cafe.

... and two sets of design sketches! One for the Dim Light series, and the other for Bakery Cafe! That bear is so cute.

Alright, of course, now for the main event:

The JSK! I went with off-white because it just seems like I can coordinate it with more things. It's a nice, soft cotton, and it's super girly, even though construction-wise, it's almost the same as my more Classic Wheel of Time JSK. The fabric almost has a pink hue to it!

I'm in love with these buttons down the front! No, they aren't functional, sadly!

The little, pink satin bows are a great addition, and the lace on the hem has the Meta Swan Logo!

Here's a shot of it from the back - and the only thing about this dress that's off are the waist ties. This is my second-shortest dress, yet it has the _longest_ waist ties I've ever seen. But it's not a big deal in the slightest.

Have any of you gotten anything in mail recently? Let me know or link me to more unboxing videos in the comments below!

Keeping it Together - How to Prepare for Wardrobe Cohesion

You've fallen into the Lolita Pit of Hell: all you've bought are main pieces. Sure, maybe you have a blouse or two that match your first couple of dresses and nothing else, and the same might go for headwear. You look around; do you even own any other accessories?

Or, maybe you've suddenly found yourself with a complete 180 degree change. Your closet used to be sweet and pink and full of cupcakes, and never stopped to remember that when you just started buying up Moitie pieces.

Maybe you bought this bag and have no idea
what to wear it with. The eyes are just too cute!

How do you claw your way out?

Note: I'm only speaking for my own wardrobe. You do whatever works for you.

1. Reorganize Your Closet

This might not seem like an intuitive Step One, but this is actually where I've started from. I finally decided to buy a free-standing closet (not a wardrobe) with the express intention of having somewhere to bring all of my Lolita out of storage, and going through how it has to be organized has really made me take a look at everything - both individually, and how it all looks together.

Reorganization gives you the opportunity to think about a few things: do you even still like some of your pieces? Where did these socks come from? What will work with multiple main pieces, and are there things that you want that will make a nearly-complete outfit with what you already have?

2. Make a List

Well, I made two lists: things that are going to get sold, and things that I'd like to have to make a more complete coordinate with each piece.

I made a list of each main piece I own, complete with what colorway it was, and then added a bullet-pointed list of bits and bobs that would look really nice with them - I absolutely wrote down duplicates. Like, if I had more than one dress that would look nice with brown shoes, I wrote down "brown shoes" for each one. It's going to look really long at the end of it all, and that's okay! We'll take care of that in the next step.

Have a snippet of my list:

I used my wardrobe post from last year to make the list, and simply deleted the things that I had sold or am now planning on selling. It was helpful because I could look at images of my clothing without having to either pull them all out of their storage space or looking them up individually on Lolibrary.

3. Condense the List

Once you figure out everything - what shoes you need, what purses or blouses you're missing, all that stuff - now you can start deleting duplicates.

First, take out the names of all of your dresses. Then, as tedious as it sounds, start going through and taking out the doubles, triples... quadruples, even. You'll find that your pages-long list will quickly trim down to far less!

4. Put Everything Into a Category by Item



This one's only necessary if you're like me and you really thrive on putting things into categories or labels. Re-sort your list by:

Shoes
Blouses
Headwear
Socks
Accessories
Purses
[Insert Other Categories Here!}

5. You Have Your Shopping List!

Behold! You now have a pretty clear shopping plan to put together, and maybe some things you can sell off to contribute to the fund, as well. I've been having some very strong urges to reorganize everything - this was simply a side-effect! And I like having a clear-cut idea of what I have to do in order to make more wearable coordinates out of what I have already, and I'm excited to start rounding it all out again.

I hope this has been as helpful for you as it has for me! What are some of your favorite methods for organizing or figuring out how to reach better wardrobe cohesion? Let me know in the comments below!

Lolita Blog Carnival: Pet Peeves; Five Things You Hate About Prints

This week's topic was actually really hard for me to put together! There are so few pet peeves I have with prints, really - sure, there are prints that I actively dislike because maybe it's just not my style, but it's probably not some single element that immediately turns me off from it. So, I ended up branching out a little bit.

That said, the following accounts for a very small majority of Lolita prints in the world, and if you love these things, then that's awesome! You rock it! Just know that I'm probably not ever going to try to outbid you for something that I'm describing.

1. Prints Over Pinstripes

I will say that this personal pet peeve doesn't always apply to everything that goes over pinstripes. I mean, AP's Chocolat-Chan Going Out JSK is still one of my dream dresses. The difference is that the applique or print needs to contrast well enough with the stripes to not either blend in or hurt the eyes. Even with the dress above, AP's Lucienne Dream, the brown colorway actually does this pretty well! But the rest of the colors, particularly the black, sort of flop.

Baby, the Stars Shine Bright did this, too, and quite recently with the My Dear Sweetheart Regimental JSK. The print is metallic, so maybe it looks better under different lighting, but in the stock photo, it just looks... not great.

2. Crosses in Non-Gothic Prints

Angelic Pretty's Romantic Little Garden print.

There's a whole discussion out there about whether or not using crosses in Lolita or "Nun-Lolita" as a substyle is cultural appropriation, and that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm down with crosses in Gothic Lolita, and if you want to throw on a veil and Ista Mori's Nameless Poem OP, then you go for it, but when I see it pop up in sweet prints, I'm just... eh. I don't even know what it is, something about it just makes me cringe away from an otherwise lovely print.

3. Great Prints, Bad Cuts

Meta's Cherry Berry Song OP

Maybe this one isn't so much a pet peeve I have with prints, themselves, but with something annoying I stumble upon every now and again. The print's gorgeous, or really cute, and I really like it, but then the cut of the dress is just terrible. Luckily, most prints come in more than one cut, and if you can fit into the nicer option, then there you go!

For us busty girls, who often can't... learn to love the sack dress? Or, more likely, to live without that print.

4. The Extra-Overt Brandwhore Print

A ton of Lolita prints in the world feature the brand name in some way, shape, or form, whether it be Angelic Pretty's monogrammed lace, Baby's hidden, scrolling cursive name nestled in the background of its prints, or anything else. And then there is the occasional piece that has the damn thing plastered onto its fabric. As much of a self-described brand-whore as I am, I didn't buy the dress out of brand loyalty, I bought it because I liked it, and I don't feel like being that much of a walking billboard.

5. Meta's Skirt (and Occasional JSK) Thing

Meta, why do you do these things you do?!

This is Meta's Mermaid Princess Ribbon Shirred JSK. It's a perfectly standard print, an interesting take on the whole "mermaid" theme, I think. I can dig it.

This is the skirt.

Meta does this with so many of its prints: they take one of the pieces, and strip it down to its least-cluttered section of fabric. And for some of them, that's fine! I even like them better that way (like Wheel of Time in its fully-shirred JSK version - at first I was a little salty about the lack of clocks, but now I really prefer the toned-down version of gears and keys). But for others, it just feels... lacking. Like Mermaid Princess.

And this will be different for everyone depending on their preferences. For instance, the Matryoshka Doll print skirts come in two flavors: one with the full print, one without. The one without the full print is the longer of the two, and unless you're very short or really into their mini-skirts, maybe you'll feel like you're missing out on something.

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That's all I've got for this one! What are some pet peeves you have with prints? Let me know in the comments below!

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~Other Participants in the Lolita Blog Carnival~

✿ Cupcake Kamisama ✿

Lolita Blog Carnival: Beat the Heat

I ended up falling asleep without remembering to post this week's Lolita Blog Carnival topic! Oh, well. This one's perfectly suited to early June - start planning ahead your coordinates for summer with Beat the Heat - 5 Tips to Beat the Heat While in Lolita.

1. Chiffon Blouses

There's no doubt that the layering is really what kills most of us during the summer, and I'd rather just avoid JSKs altogether, or dare to go blouseless with the right dress. But if you really want to stick with your JSKs, then finding the right blouse will be vital.

Many of the brands are putting out chiffon blouses and have been for quite some time. It's a light fabric that's not nearly as stifling as the cotton, and many of them have lower necklines to help keep you cool. And don't count out long sleeves - on particularly sunny days, long, breathable sleeves can actually keep you cooler by keeping the sun off your skin!

2. Parasols

Following that line of reasoning, parasols are also going to be greatly helpful for keeping out of the sun and keeping cool, like having portable shade. I would recommend going for something with a longer handle, rather than something shorter like Baby's Petit Ribbon Short Umbrella, just because a longer handle will let you hold the parasol farther away from your head. You'll get all the shade, and less of the stuffiness.

3. OPs

F Yeah Lolita already wrote a post about this, but Miss Caro raises a lot of good points about why a onepiece will be your best friend during the hotter months, and it's worth sharing! Light fabrics, short sleeves, breath-easy necklines, OPs provide endless options that won't suffocate you in the heat!

4. Go Wigless

Chrissy from her Tumblr page!

I don't personally wear wigs, anyway, but I know for a fact that they get warm and fast. If you feel comfortable with your own hair, use it! There are tons of tutorials and inspirations on the internet (and in the Gothic & Lolita Bibles) if you need a little help. Easy staples usually include braids or buns, but there are plenty of other options!

5. Swap Out the Bloomers

Bloomers are great for keeping warm come Autumn and Winter, and even early spring, but you don't want to completely skip them during warmer weather. Why? Thigh chafing. Not only for those of us with wider thighs, either, you'll want to be wearing something beneath your petti to avoid the pain and discomfort! But bloomers, particularly longer ones, can be really warm.

How do we fix this? Swap out your bloomers for something that's not particularly Lolita, since no one's going to see them as part of your coordinate, anyway. Athletic shorts are designed to be breathable and help keep your body cool, and would be perfect.

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~Other Participants in the Lolita Blog Carnival~

✿Vanilla Bear✿
✿Poppy Noir✿