15. 5 Tips For Newbies I Wish I Had Found In A Guide

Late last week a new guide for newbie lolitas went live. I was super excited because, as a relatively new lolita, I love to read more knowledgeable lolitas' guides to the fashion. Unfortunately, this guide was very disappointing for many reasons. You can read my beef with the section on body modifications here on tumblr as well as some incredible takedowns here by lace-a-la-mode and here by lapinchocolat.

This post is not about that guide. This post is instead about some tips I would have loved to have seen in a guide when I first started out.

1. Don't be afraid to mess up!

A lot of what I see from newbie lolitas is them being afraid that they'll mess up a coord and be shamefully labeled ita. Even with a year's worth of practice under my frilly belt, I still sometimes worry if the outfit I've put together is good enough to actually be called lolita. However, I have learned a lot more about putting together coords from trial and error than I did from the two or three years of research I did before I took the plung and bought my first jsk. There's definitely a lot a newbie lolita can learn from more experienced lolitas -- good cheap places to buy from, what sites to are scams, reassurance that not everything has to be burando -- but when it comes to learning how to put together well balanced cords, experience tends to trump research.

2. Don't be afraid to experiment!

It seems that the western lolita community as a whole sometimes gets stuck on some guidelines taken as gospel truth as to what is or is not lolita, which can be really intimidating to newbie lolitas. I know it was something that intimidated me a lot and, like I said, I still sometimes worry whether my coords are lolita enough. However, when I look at Japanese lolitas, especially old school lolitas, I see a lot more willingness to experiment and that leads to some really neat coords. I feel like as long as something is good quality and matches the color scheme, theme or tone of a coord it can totally be used in lolita. Besides, at the end of the day, lolita is just clothing so people should be free to wear their lolita items however makes them happy.

3. Just save up!
One of the big reasons why I didn't actually start building a lolita wardrobe earlier is because of how much things cost! Yes, there are some places to get things for pretty cheap, such as Bodyline, but over all, lolita is a very expensive fashion. Even a coord made completely from Bodyline items can easily run up to 100 usd! Compared to all the thrift shop clothes I had been buying, that's a ton of money to spend, especially at one time. However, it is totally possible to put away a little money at a time to save up for a Bodyline order, or a Taobao order, or even burando!

4. Ordering clothes online isn't as scary as it seems.
The other big reason it took me so long to start buying lolita is because I'd have to order things online. Part of my hesitance was because I'm super busty and dramatically proportioned, so I have a hard time finding clothes that fit me well in person. Ordering something online before I've even tried it on was terrifying! Armed with my measurements though, from bust circumference to foot length, I've been able to successfully order clothes that fit me surprisingly well. The only problem is, once you make that first order, you just want to buy more.

5. Accessories can change the tone of the entire coord.
I recently achieved a couple of large, chunky ring that look great with my lolita wardrobe and with them I learned how much accessories can change the tone of a coord. My coords went from casual and mature to youthful and kawaii just from going from a slim, understated ring to a big ol' huge one. Even just a few larger accessories do a lot to making a coord seem more over the top than slighter accessory equivalents. Keeping this in mind, it's much easier to achieve the specific look I want for each coord.

Of course, information such as the anatomy of a lolita outfit and run downs of the main substyles are very helpful to newbies, but every guide has those. These are the top five things I wish I would have found in a guide when I first started.

Post 15/52 of the Lolita 52 Week Challenge (that I accidentally did before I knew it was actually one of the questions >n< ).