2016 Wardrobe Post

Welcome to my first ever wardrobe post! I've been collecting Lolita items for about three years now but this January is the first time I've felt I've had a wardrobe impressive enough to warrant a wardrobe post. Mine isn't as impressive as some, but every item I have is one I love dearly.

Clockwork Rose's Twinklebat - My very first Lolita item and one of my dream dresses from the second I saw it. This dress is why I ended up wearing sweet Lolita instead of classic like I had been planning.

Rouge Aerie's Nightmare Rising - Another dream dream dress already achieved. There's not a single element of this dress I don't love and it's so comfy to wear.

Bodyline's L144 in black

Bodyline's L580 in pink - I've dubbed this Harlequin Witch.

Chess Story's Miss Bunny

Bunny & Black's Nurse in "Creepy" / Bodyline's L305 in grey

Handmade / Offbrand - The offbrand one has pockets!

Bodyline's L364 in black and off white - The "off white" is actually a super crisp pure white.

All offbrand - I picked up three of these for five bucks and the last one for ten, all on clearance.

Vintage - thrifted / Titina / Loris / Angelic Pretty

Target, Sock Dreams, Sock It To Me, Angelic Pretty, Sourpuss, Sock Dreams x2

Kate Spade - thrifted / Payless / Bordello - thrifted / Bodyline's shoes269

Ebay / Thrifted

Thrifted / LuminescenTea

Baby The Stars Shine Bright's Lillianne

Mostly handmade and offbrand. Some notable brands include Holley Tea Time, We're All Mad Here, Chocomint, Bonjour Honey and Pastel Galaxyz.

This isn't quite everything; I have a lot of offbrand I've managed to incorporate into my various coords but it's all fairly boring on it's own. Actually doing up a wardrobe post like this and comparing it to other Lolitas' has me realizing what sort of things I'm still missing. I guess I'll have to revise my goals for this year already!

Battling Anxiety Through the Power of Frills

I've touched on my being disabled briefly before, but in this post I'm going to go a little more in depth about one facet of my disability in relation to Lolita : Generalized Anxiety Disorder. GAD is one of my many diagnoses and, in short, is extreme, pervasive anxiety over normal, daily things. I'm constantly worried about things like misplacing my keys or my phone or doing something, anything, wrong. It's really stressful and impedes on my life in a lot of ways.

One of those ways is, it's really difficult for me to go out and do new things. This is where Lolita comes in. I am unbelievably passionate about Lolita and the more I involve myself in the Lolita lifestyle (such as it is), the harder I work at getting outside my comfort zones to achieve my Lolita goals.

Way back when, before I embarked on my Lolita journey, I did almost all my shopping in person. I had made a couple of purchases on Etsy and Sock Dreams and that was the extent of my online shopping experience. My biggest obstacle on the road to becoming a Lolita was my extreme discomfort with ordering things -- especially clothing -- online. What if I got my measurements wrong? What if it got lost in the mail? What if I ordered from someplace disreputable, despite all my research? Thoughts like these would (and still do) race through my mind.

I finally took the plunge when I fell head over heals for Clockwork Rose's Twinklebat JSK. I saw it and I had to have it. Hands shaking and heart pounding, I put in an order. Then I had a whole new set of worries to deal with : Are my outfits with this JSK Lolita enough? What if I spill something on this really expensive (compared to my usual thrift shop stuff) piece of clothing? It wasn't just purchasing Lolita I had to worry about, but the wearing of it too.

I tackled things one at a time, as they came up, reassuring myself that it was okay to wear Lolita items in non-Lolita outfits, that I knew my measurements so things I ordered would be almost guaranteed to fit. I ordered a skirt from another US based indie brand easily, thanks to it having the same sort of ordering system in place as Clockwork Rose did. Then, I branched out.

I moved on to the taobao reseller Qutieland -- little on the pricier side for a reseller but easy to navigate. This had me tackling multiple anxieties : ordering something from a new site, ordering something custom made, and ordering something from over seas. Everything I ordered was stuff I had been eyeing for ages, so I survived the ordering process but the wait for my order to be completed was awful. I was prepared though; I knew that Classical Puppets made things to order so it would take about three months to be completed, so at the very least, I was able to sooth my mind's worry for that period of time. Not that I had anything to actually be worried over, of course. Just after the three month mark, I got my shipping notification. All I had to worry about then was my package going through customs and customs was a non issue.

Bolstered by my success with these purchases, I went on to order more things online -- accessories from Etsy, Christmas presents, a Kickstarter project. Each was less stressful than the last. Then I made a Bodyline order and bought shoes. Then I made a second Bodyline order and it hardly phased me at all! I'm never not going to an extreme worry wart, but I was successfully dealing with my GAD.

Getting a real job recently has been a real game changer. All of a sudden I'm in a place where I can buy things without deliberating them to death. I've learned that it is absurdly hard for me to impulse buy things, even more so than I anticipated. At the same time, I'm in a better position than ever to continue working myself through the worst of my anxiety issues. After all, if I can spend fifty dollars on a head bow and play card games with a bunch of strangers with a common interest, I can totally make that call to my doctors office.

Lolita Goals for 2016

My very first post on this blog, despite being made towards the end of February, was about my Lolita goals for the year. This time, I'm making this post much closer to the start of the new year. Before I make goals for this year though, let's see what goals I actually accomplished from last year.

Rounding out my basics
This time last year, I had a very small wardrobe. Now, my wardrobe is still pretty small, but I have been able to beef it up some. I specifically wanted to buy Bodyline's L364 blouse in purple, a pair of wrist cuffs, one of the bat themed head accessories from my wishlist, and a star shaped bag. The only thing from this list I didn't get was the blouse in purple, but I did get it in white instead. I also got a bunch of other things, including two loliable pairs of shoes, two purses, two wig, a head eating bow, and a bunch of jewelry.

Buy either Guilty Meltin' Sweets or Merrymaking In The Ghost Town
This... did not happen at all. To be fair, I wasn't really expecting to make this goal, since, for most of the year, I didn't have a job and only brought in about 200 dollars a month.

Design my own border print/Make my own clothes
This didn't happen either, mostly. I did solidify one boarder print design but I didn't end up creating the art for it, let alone actually got it made. Again though, this was one of my loftier goals.

Drink more tea
For a while there I was drinking more tea than I had been, but that didn't last long.

Make a cohesive decor plan for my bedroom
I just barely squeaked by on this one when I put together an amazon wishlist to send to people who asked what I wanted for Christmas. I decided on black and white and pastels as my colour scheme, not just for my bedroom but for my entire apartment, with both gothy and nerdy decorations and a lot of string lights. I feel like this includes all of my interests without being all over the place. Now I just need to start pulling things together.

But that's what this year is for! This year, my goals are :

Continue beefing up my wardrobe
What I've got is pretty well rounded now but it's not very impressive . I still want to be able to wear lolita daily (or at least on the days I don't work) without repeating my outfits constantly. To do this I need a LOT more main pieces. This year, I want to buy at least :

• A plain black jsk
• One of the witchy themed JSKs on my wishlist
• Two pairs of tea parties, one in black and one in lavender
• A lavender peter pan collar blouse
• One Brand dress

Ideally, I want to buy something for my Lolita wardrobe every month and a dress every three months or so. Whether or not I'll actually be able to do that after bills, I don't know, but I want to at least try.

Take pictures of my coords

This is a pretty easy goal, but for some reason I am just so bad at remembering to take ootd pictures.

Be more active in the Lolita community/update this blog/make more personal posts on my Lolita tumblr

Combining these into one goal since they're all pretty similar. Since I want to try and buy something Lolita related every month, I should be able to post here at least once a month, and if I actually take coord pics I should be able to post more on tumblr. Then I can tag both of those things in the Lolita tags on tumblr, there by fulfilling all sections of this goal.

I do also want to try and go to some more meet ups though, which is both easier and harder now that I have a job.

Make some of my own clothes

This one's going on my list again because I have this great bat print fabric one of my friends got me that I really want to make into a skirt and I haven't. This goal will require me to buy a new sewing machine though.

First Package of 2016

My first new thing this year is actually something I ordered back at Halloween. I took advantage of the sale Holley Tea Time was having on their clothing in October to buy their Rainbow Spooky Bats skater dress in purple. I think it was for 30% off so I got it for 80.50USD instead of the usual 115USD, which was super exciting. I've been wanting one of their skater dresses for years and as of now, I have one :D

This is one of their made to order items, so there was quite a bit of time between when I ordered and when I received the dress. I ordered on October 30th of 2015 and I received the shipping notice on December 29th, making it almost two months between ordering and shipping. However, once it shipped, it came very quickly. It arrived only four days later, on January 2nd.

The package itself was a surprisingly small poly mailer. Inside, the dress was sealed inside a cello bag with business cards and a sticker sealed in a separate cello bag. The dress is so cute in person and it fits me like a glove. The material is very stretchy but the print doesn't distort in a weird way even at max stretch. The print is super crisp and the construction is very nice. It wasn't even very wrinkly coming out of the packaging!

I'm super excited to wear this dress. I'm already coming up with coords for it. Thank you Holley Tea Time for the wonderful dress <3

2015 In Review

Well, when I started this blog, I aimed to update it pretty regularly. That... did not happen. Oops. It's a new year though and so I'm going to try again, starting with a look back at what I did last year.

In the first half of the year I :

• Started this blog
• Started a Lolita aesthetic tumblr blog
• Got most of the way through the Lolita 52 Week Challenge
• Joined my local comm
• Actually went to a meet up
• Bought my first GLB
• Bought some main pieces and a lot of accessories.

Then I missed a week in the 52 Week Challenge, then another, then another. Then I got a job and things got crazy busy for me. I got hired on as a costume consultant for Value Village, which was awesome because I got to dress up like it was Halloween every day for two months. It was a lot of fun and it gave me a great excuse to wear Lolita, since my wardrobe is pretty spooky.

During September and October I :

• Bought three more GLBs and started myself a real collection
• Bought my first piece of Brand (a Baby headbow)
• Bought my second piece of Brand not even a week later (an AP purse)
• Wore lolita almost weekly
• Did not take pictures of 99% of my coords
• Bought an incredibly cute wig for three dollars
• Bought tons more accessories

I ended up being kept on permanently but dressing up every day for so long really burnt me out, especially since I only repeated two or three outfits the entire time. It's only been in the last couple of weeks that I've wanted to put in all the effort it takes to wear Lolita.

Which brings me to 2016. It's January, so I've started prepping for my first ever wardrobe post. I've got a full time job that will allow me to add to my collection much faster than I've ever been able to. I'm friends with not just one, but two guys who are interested in wearing Ouji who I might be able to convince to be my Ouji accessory. I've got an actual ironing board now so I can actually iron my clothes. It's only a week into the new year and already I can feel my frilly powers growing.