This is a blog entry of my lolita-related thoughts on this year. To view the photo post of my full wardrobe please click here:
If you'd like to see all of my coord photos over the past year(s), check out my instagram
The past year has been… interesting haha. It was better than 2020?
Honestly, I’ve been a lot more focused on life stuff outside of lolita- graduating college, finding a job and an apartment- so I haven’t really done much fashion-related stuff this year. However for those personal things it was a really good year for me, so I'm very grateful for that even if I had to put some of my hobbies on pause to get my life stabilized.
There’s barely been any meets with my old comm since the pandemic, but I’ve met up with my new comm a few times already and I love them! Everyone has been unbelievably kind and everyone is really fashionable and talented; it seems like everyone I meet has a special talent, and it’s so cool to be a part of this community. There’s quite a few lolitas who have been in the fashion for over a decade as well, which is super impressive! They’re living lolita histories :D
Sugary Carnival MTO
-no image yet, in the mail-
Nakayoshi Bunny MTO
Eternal Carnival JSK
IW Forest Animals Skirt
-no image yet, in the mail-
BTSSB Hime Blouse (Sax)
There’s a few things in the mail as always, but that’s about it. The two MTO’s took up most of my budget since they’re a lot more expensive than the price I’d usually buy dresses at, but I definitely think they’re worth it; Sugary Carnival is one of my favorite prints, and Nakayoshi Bunny has been on my wishlist for a while, especially since I managed to find the socks a few years ago! I really don’t have many matching sets except for those I purchased as a set (I think Bonbon Bunny is the only exception, where I was lucky enough to find the tights a year after I got the dress, in the same colorway even!), so the MTO’s are a rare occasion to get matching items which I appreciate.
I still don’t have the budget to get new releases- and I don’t track them that closely tbh- so I don’t think I’ll be getting new items very often, but rerelease MTO’s are a special event :)
Eternal Carnival was a nice find on fril, where I’ve been doing most of my shopping lately. I really want this dress in pink too, but the sax colorway is also nice. While pink is generally my favorite colorway of anything, second is usually sax (and sometimes mint! Pink and mint is such an underrated combination). I don’t think I’d sell this one if I got the pink colorway, but we’ll see- it would depend on how much I would wear it.
Forest Animals is one of my favorite finds, I got it off of Closet Child I believe. It’s not my usual sweet style but I’m such a sucker for these cute animal/berry/woodland prints, they’re very cottagecore! I do a lot of berry picking, mushroom foraging, etc. when it’s warm out so these prints are perfect for that :D I wear them casually a lot, unlike my sweet lolita, so I always pick them up when I see them at a reasonable price. I usually pair these with my vintage Gunne Sax blouses.
I’m really happy to have picked up another blouse, I have very few of them so I really need to focus on building up that part of my wardrobe. Sax is a new color of blouse for me, and I’d love to have more hime-sleeve blouses, so I’m really happy that I found one for a reasonable price!
It’s not a new purchase, but I finally cleaned up my Angelic Pretty Bunny-Chan Coat and I’ve been wearing it almost every time I leave the house now! It’s so, so beautiful, it’s genuinely one of my most favorite things I own, it makes me feel like a princess when I wear it! It was really dingy before- I don’t think it’s ever been cleaned before I got it, gross- so I never wore it, but after an oxyclean bath it’s doing much better! I think I’ll give it another soak after the end of the winter season since there’s still some spots, but it’s such a trial to wash and air-dry a wool coat this big that I didn’t have it in me to do it again right after I finished the first wash so it’ll wait haha.
Finally, I went to a convention again! TeslaCon was able to convene this year, and honestly I really needed it, it’s been a very difficult year+. Paradiso is postponed again, and I really hope it happens next spring! I keep saying I’ll go to more conventions every year, but in my defense for the past two years there haven’t really been any to go to :( Maybe next year!
I also went to the Rennaissance Faire for the first time this year! I’m surprised at myself that I’ve never been before considering how close I live, but honestly my anxiety made it really difficult to try new things for a while. I absolutely loved it (of course), it was like a full historical-reenactement village, and all of the costumes were amazing to see! I also really enjoyed the jousting; there’s a sport I can get actually enjoy watching, haha!
I love taking cool and interesting photos, I think it's really fun to try and take more 'artistic' photos than just regular coord shots, so I try to do some cool stuff every year. I got to take some ice skating pics again this year when my family went up north for New Year's, and I've been ice skating a lot this winter too so there should be more on the way! I also got to take pictures in the Museum of Ice Cream in New York which has really cool photo setups, and my friend Cassie helped me take pictures in a full lolita coord in her pool this summer! Also a really fun shoot, though it definitely felt really bizarre to sit in a pool fully clothed lmao.
Overall, while my participation in the fashion has slowed down over the past year and a half since I just haven’t been able to go to as many events or make many purchases (and let’s be real, I think we’ve all lost motivation to do things over the past two years), I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things again with a more active comm, change of city, and my new job- since it’s remote, I can basically be a lifestyle jfashion wearer and don’t have to have a normal wardrobe, which is perfect for me :D I basically wore himekaji or lolita every day anyway, and now I don’t have to maintain a second normie wardrobe on the side haha.
I'm also hoping that more events/conventions come back so I'm able to socialize more with fellow alt fashion wearers. I have a lot more flexibility to travel now that I'm not a student anymore, and it looks like events are starting to happen again. I'm hoping Paradiso will be able to take place this spring, then I plan to go to the Ren Faire again in the summer and to TeslaCon and other conventions in the fall. I'd be interested in traveling (and taking lolita with me) again in the coming year, but I'm not sure how possible that will be.
I feel like I’ve more narrowed down the style and colors I like, and I can better tell what pieces will fit in to my wardrobe and what might be cute, but that I won’t really wear. A lot of the pieces I bought at the beginning of my lolita hobby I’ve sold or plan on selling, since I just haven’t ended up wearing them a lot for some reason. A few I’m hanging on to though for sentimental reasons- Night at the Museum was my first ever lolita dress so I won’t ever sell it, and it’s a really beautiful print, but I just haven’t worn it in ages. Hopefully there’ll be a museum meet soon that I can wear it to!
I really want to get more pastel yellow into my wardrobe- both casual and lolita-, it’s such a cute color but for some reason I don’t own any of it??? A mystery. I’m warming up to lavender as well, I’m not really a fan of the color purple but I don’t mind it as much anymore, and there’s a few dresses where I like the lavender colorway a lot.
I also need more blouses really badly, haha. I’m good on white and black ones for now, but other colors are really hard to find at a price I find reasonable so it’s been slow going. I love detachable sleeve blouses; it’s two in one, and something about the way that detachable pieces of an item button or tie together really appeals to me. I love buttons and ties on clothes, way more than zippers- they just make for a really cute detail, I’m not sure how to describe it but they feel satisfyingly ‘historical’ I guess!
