39. Most versatile Lolita item I own

The number one versatile item I own is a plain black skirt with a plain old ruffle at the bottom that I made years and years ago. It's a great simple skirt on it's own and it makes for a great underskirt too since a lot of my coords feature black in there somewhere.

I've worn this skirt under other things to add just a bit of extra length to otherwise too short skirts :

And I've worn it all on its own in simple coords :

Post 14/52 of the Lolita 52 Week Challenge.

10. How I first found out about Lolita

Once upon a time, years and years ago at the height of my weeb phase, I came across the mv for Malice Mizer's Beast of Blood.

The lolita's gateway drug.

Like many other lolitas before me, I absolutely fell in love with the beautiful clothing the band wore, especially that of the guitarist's. I did a ton of research on the band, listening to all their music I could find on youtube and looking at many, many pictures all across the internet. The two most mind blowing bits of information that I found were that the fashion this gorgeous musician wore was called Gothic Lolita and that Mana was, in fact, a man.

To tiny-me, this was a huge deal because, even though (at the time) I identified as strictly male, I wanted so bad to wear cute clothes. Here was this beautiful person who identified as the same gender as me while still wearing clothes that I admired and envied, boldly and without shame. My gothy, queer boi heart would never be the same.

After my initial research binge, I revisited the beautiful world of lolita every couple of years, fawning over gorgeous dresses (I thought) I could never in a million years afford, let alone gather the courage to wear. Sometime in the middle of high school, I came across my first real lolita love, Mary Magdalene. I loved everything about the brand, from the jewel tones prominent in their solid pieces to the elegant and mature cuts. When I found their Enid OP, I knew that, one day, come hell or high water, I would wear this fashion.

My first love.

Fast forward through just a couple more years where I slowly reaccustom myself to wearing feminine clothing and adjust my gender identity to better reflect how I feel about myself, to where I actually start planning to build a wardrobe based around my love of Mary Magdalene. I do tons more research and plan my future classic wardrobe extensively and then fall ass backwards into being a creepy cute sweet lolita instead, but that's a whole different story.

Post 13/52 for the Lolita 52 Week Challenge.

Fremont With Friends

Yesterday my roommate Sam, her girlfriend Marty and I visited Fremont, a neighborhood of North Seattle, for their year round Sunday flea market. There were all sorts of vendors, from kitschy vintage clothing to handmade soaps and candles to artisan wood fire pizza and food trucks, and we had a great time looking around.

The market was a lot smaller than I anticipated, which was probably a good thing, because there ended up being a lot of stuff we wanted to buy. My roommate and her girlfriend are both steampunks and there was a bunch of really great stuff in line with that aesthetic, including a booth that was selling gorgeous jewelry made from watch parts and typewriter keys. Another booth had handmande jewelry made from reclaimed chandelier parts and old books. I absolutely fell in love with the ones that artisan made using medical texts and I'm pretty sure half the market heard me with how loud I got in my excitement.

My two big (lol) purchases were this nifty pair of sunglasses and a redbean taiyaki.

Taiyaki is basically a Japanese waffle sandwich shaped like a fish and it's super yummy. This food truck had a bunch of different flavours, including redbean (the one I got, pictured to the left), cinnamon sugar (the one Marty got), a peanut butter and banana one named The Elvis and one with spam and pineapple! I not so secretly actually really like spam so I was tempted to get that one, but Marty wanted to try the redbean after having the cinnamon sugar one and I love redbean a lot, so that's what I went with this time. It was super delicious >w< The taiyaki food truck is called BeanFish and you can visit their website here. If you're here in Seattle next weekend for SakuraCon 2015, look for them at Westlake park on Pine!

We also got shawarma, pizza, some delicious artisan truffles and organic honey! Can you tell we really like food?

Besides all the food, Marty bought a rose quarts orb and we each picked up handmade soap from a local artisan. I got myself a bathbomb to try after all the hype they've been getting on tumblr that I am super excited to try! After that, we had to hurry and leave the market before we spent any more money. We also wanted to check out a couple of interesting artwork a couple of blocks away before our parking ticket expired.

For some reason, Fremont has this huge bronze statue of Lenin that's actually from Soviet Russia as well as a rocket attached to a corner of one building and Saturn on top of the building next to it, all within a two block radius. It's a very strange collection of art, but still super neat.

Before we left Fremont for good, we went to see the troll under the bridge. Marty and I had never been before and Sam thought this was a travesty in need of fixing so she squeezed her car up the hill on Troll Lane (that is really the name of the street because Seattle is just that cool). Naturally, we took a selfie.

Order from Pastel Galaxyz

About two weeks ago, I placed an order for one of Pastel Galaxyz' Dreamy Bow Rings and I just got the package today! I'm super excited about it because it's even cuter in person >w<

I placed the order on March 15th and, since I am the worst at using paypal, I used the echeck option so it took a couple of days for my payment to be processed. Once it was, the package was shipped out the following Monday and it arrived today after the strangest detour to the town like fifteen miles away where I haven't lived for three years.

The mailer was pink and very well sealed with super cute Hello Kitty tape, and it fit into my apartment's very narrow mail box with room to spare, which is always nice. It felt much fuller than a single ring could warrant and my excitement skyrocketed.

Inside were two smaller packages sealed in the cutest little bags ever. The pink one held the ring I ordered and the blue one held not one, not two, not even three, but four extra goodies.

In addition to the ring I ordered, I got three bracelets and a second ring! The ring is a My Little Pony mold that looks kind of like Pinky Pie, but I could be wrong there. Whoever it is, it's super cute and a great surprise addition to my accessory collection. The candy bracelet and the heart bracelet are also super cute and will be great with some of my lolita. The third bracelet, the one on the far left in the above picture, is kandi style, with elastic string instead of metal findings, and is the most wonderfully absurd collection of adorable beads I have seen since I was actually a kandi kid myself.

The construction of all the items I received is top notch. The rings are both nice and solid and securely glued to the ring bases very neatly. While the bow ring has a perfectly flat back, the pony ring is not quite as clean and has a bit of a raised edge around the head. This doesn't effect wearability at all and, as a free surprise gift, I have absolutely no complaints. The kandi style bracelet is made with two strands of super strong plastic elastic string with a very solid knot and all excess strings neatly clipped. The two bracelets with metal finds are both very well put together with no gaps in the jump rings.

Over all, I am amazingly pleased with my order from Pastel Galaxyz. I definitely recommend them and I'll definitely be ordering from them again. Thank you so much Pastel Galaxyz for the amazing ring and all the amazing gifts <3

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< ).

31. Impulse buys that were totally worth it

From the Clockwork Rose tumblr

My very first lolita item purchase was totally an impulse buy and it's defined my entire wardrobe in a way that I really love. I came across the promo images for Clockwork Rose's Twinklebat series, pictured above, and absolutely fell in love. Then, a couple weeks later, it went back up for reservation and I jumped on the opportunity to buy this gorgeous piece of indie brand and I have never looked back. 

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18. Trends I thought I would never get into, but I now love

When I first discovered lolita, I fell in love with Mary Magdalene, so all the way up until I actually started buying lolita I intended on becoming a classic lolita. That didn't exactly happen so really, any sweet lolita trend I take part in was not something I ever thought I would get into, lol. However, a lolita wide trend that I didn't like at first was peignoirs. I thought they looked really silly in lolita at first but they've really grown on me the more I've seen coords with them. They make classic and gothic coords very elegant and sweet coords extra cute and over all, coords with peignoirs are extra princessy. I don't think I'll ever incorporate a peignoir into my wardrobe myself but I super love seeing coords with them.

Post 11/52 of the Lolita 52 Week Challenge.