Friday, December 7, 2012

Lolita Blog Carnival: My Lolita Inspiration


The Lolita Blog Carnival topic of the week was "Your Lolita Inspiration." I took the opportunity to just plain fan girl over some of my favorite fashion inspirations, so I hope you enjoy!

Pixie Late



Pixie Late just embodies elegance to me in her overall style while also striking me with her sweeter looking outfits. I feel like she exudes sweet sophistication in all of her outfits, something I would one day love to approach.


Princess Peachie
The first thing I ever saw from Princess Peachie was actually her sweet lolita transformation video.

From this video onward, I've really felt inspired at the idea that maybe plain little old me could look as fabulous as she does in this video. I also just love her sweet lolita and fairy kei fashion sense in general, and she makes me want to go more over the top and pastel. 




Pastelbat



Before I started following pastelbat and seeing all of her amazing photos, I just thought creepy cute style just looked kinda of like sweet lolita with eyeball bows and skeleton tights slapped on. She's really opened my mind on what creepy cute fashion can look like and how it can take many different forms. Though I haven't gotten much creepy cute in my wardrobe yet, I'm waiting for my pastel bone hair clips from Kittywood to come in, and I'm excited for the pre-order to close for Alice Doll's Twinkle Candy Bones so I can get my shirt. ~<3





 Annika



Even though I've never seen her directly do lolita fashion, I find a lot of ideas for my personal style through Annika on her blog The Pineneedle Collective. Her specialization in vintage fashion is really fun, and so many of the outfits she does are pastel cool and girly.



Thank you for reading this blog post! Be sure to check out the other participants in the Lolita Blog Carnival. 

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Recent Outfits + Gothic Lolita Wigs Customer Showcase

I have just a few outfits to share today along with my feature on the Gothic Lolita Wigs customer showcase today. ~<3

OP: Angelic Pretty Dreaming of Macaron
Wig: Gothig Lolita Wigs
Tights: Holley Tea Time
Bag: Bodyline
Shoes: Bodyline
Accessories: Claire's, Bowkuma, Forever 21
I wore this outfit to class one day recently. I like wearing a more over the top coordinate like this on campus more than most places since I didn't get weird stares from people. It's a college campus, so I think people just assume that they'll see slightly not ordinary things.

Top: Rue 21
Hoodie: Walmart
Skirt: Bodyline
Shoes: Claire's
Accessories: Rue 21
This was just a simple outfit for visiting the museum one afternoon after class. I liked how the colors matched the fall weather. 


And above is my Gothic Lolita Wigs customer showcase! They've already sent me my $10 coupon. ^_^ The only thing I'm upset about it that they listed the shirt as offbrand when I told them it was Tasty Peach Studios. Oh well. 


Friday, November 23, 2012

Lolita Blog Carnival: 5 Themed Meetup Ideas

The Lolita Blog Carnival challenge of the week is come up with 5 themed meetup ideas. I've had a lot of fun coming up with these meetup ideas. I tried to make them so that a large variety of lolita styles could participate and so that a wider variety of lolita wardrobes could participate. I've only listed a few examples for each theme due to time constraints, but I'm sure that each one could be taken much further than my limited listed.

1. Forest Theme

The forest can be the land of fairy tales to some people with small woodland creatures frolicking through clearings. It can also be a place of darkness and fright, terrifying as you run through it in the night.

I feel like a number of pieces then could fit the forest theme. For classic lolita, the first print which came to my mind was Innocent World's Lotta print. With prancing deer, frolicking bunnies, soaring birds and delicate butterflies, I feel like this print embodies a fantastic view of nature almost straight out of a Disney film.


Moving more to a sweet perspective, many sweet lolita prints are also populated with forest animals and nature motifs. One particular piece which comes to mind is Angelic Pretty's Milky-Chan the Fawn. Though this fawn seems a bit more into leaping into a pile of presents than prancing through the woods, I still feel like the print would work well for a forest theme. 


My final presented idea for a forest theme relates back to the dark, dank view of forests. A print which I really felt lent itself to the theme was Lady Sloth's Winter Cemetery print. Featuring eerie snow covered trees along with the somewhat desolate image of an old cemetery, I think this skirt would go well with a gothic lolita coordinate.


2. Over the Top Theme

Sorry to go for lower hanging fruit but I couldn't help but think an over the top theme would be easy and fun to coordinate an outfit for. 

The most common OTT style I see is OTT sweet lolita. Loads of star hair clips, candy necklaces and ice cream scoop rings abound. The picture below is a model in Angelic Pretty's Decoration Dream series. I feel like the picture sums a lot of the elements of OTT sweet. 


With classic lolita, I often see a different approach to going OTT than in sweet. Headwear will typically include bonnets and rather than having many accessories, the print of the dress will often be of a famous painting. Juliette et Justine often has dresses catering to this aspect with their La Danse de La Dame pictured below.


Gothic is a final sub style I thought up examples for an OTT themed meet up. Though gothic is a style I'm less familiar with, I've seen OTT gothic with tall lace up style boots, giant black headdresses with cameos in the center and skeletal hand hair clips. I've seen accessories which could go with this substyle even at Claire's with their two finger cross rings and cross finger tip rings also. 

Claire's Online, Y U So Bad At Photography?
3. Casual Lolita Theme

Flowing from the opposite of over the top lolita, casual lolita is the next theme I'll explore. I think many lolita wardrobes could handle this more toned down style. Most of the coordinates I see for it are a simple cutsew, skirt, tights, shoes and bam! Done.

I have seen Bodyline carry a number of cutsews which could accommodate this substyle. In particular, their Joli Petit Faon cutsew could fit a sweeter style easily.


A number of punk coordinates I see also make use of cutsews and more casual elements such as hoodies. Putumayo has a number of pieces for this substyle of lolita, and one piece I could see working would be their Butterfly Frill OP. 


I've also seen brands such as Baby, the Stars Shine Bright and Innocent World put out cutsew OP's made out of comfortable material. An example is Innocent World's Annette OP.


4. Day In the Garden Theme

Flowers blooming while dainty ladies sitting about having their afternoon tea! What a romantic theme to imagine for a lolita meetup. 

Classic lolita with an abundance of floral print would be easily able to match up with this theme. Pictured below are Innocent World's Emmelina along with Bodyline's L479. Many offbrand socks which I've seen at mainstream stores such as Forever 21 and Delia's could also compliment this theme. 


Some sweet lolita prints also depict garden type scenes or at least grassy motifs. The first example I thought of was Angelic Pretty's Happy Garden.


5. Night at the Ball Theme

The fancy and lovely nature of balls I figure would be a perfect match up with lolita style.

Bodyline's Cinderella Bunny print directly taps into this theme. 


Hime lolita is a substyle which I felt would be very well suited to a ball theme. Embellished with pearls, crowns and other royal motifs, the style would fit perfectly with the elegant theme of a ball.



Ultimately, however, I felt like this theme was the most open to interpretation by the individual. What do you consider formal enough to dance the night away? What makes you feel like the bell of the ball? I would love to see the many very personal interpretations of this theme. 

Well, that's it for this post! I hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to check out the other posts by the Lolita Blog Carnival on this topic which are linked to below. 


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Lolita Blog Carnival Acceptance



I'm very excited as I write this! I've been accepted to the Lolita Blog Carnival. If you haven't seen the posts around lolita blogs yet, it's basically a group which focuses on lolita bloggers which are all given the same challenge to write a post on said challenge. Then each participant links to the other blogs links so that readers can get a feel for what other girls did for the challenge.

While I may not be able to write much right now at the tail end of the school semester, I'm looking forward to the challenges and joys of being apart of this group.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Thrift Store Fairy Kei/Spank! Success

I've been wanting to expand my fairy kei wardrobe to be able to withstand the colds of Alabama winter. This basically means light jackets and sweaters most of the time. While lolita generally uses heavier coats and boleros, I've generally seen fairy kei use light pastel jackets which I've been having trouble locating. Inspired by Skiteanna Sweet's post on top places to buy fairy kei and my desire to explore more secondhand friendly spank! fashion, I decided to check out my local Goodwill thrift store to see if I could find anything pastel. 

I was surprised at what I was able to find. My first discovery was a basic white frilly skirt. I've been pondering doing a tie dye project for a while, so I filed this item away in my future project area. 

My second find was a very cute Grape Crush shirt. Not my photo below, but it exactly resembles the item which I found:




I love the softer purple coloring of this item along with the vintage feel of the logo.

My final find was my favorite. Remember how I mentioned preparing for winter? Well, I was able to find a pastel rainbow colored sweater.  ヽ(*≧ω≦)ノ

I coordinated the outfit below to be my first spank!/ 80s pastel outfit. I'm pleased with the results:

Sweater: Thrifted
Skirt: Delia's
Earrings: Darling Deers
Necklace: Forever 21
Socks: Target
Shoes: Bodyline
I was pleasantly surprised with how this outfit came out. I also messed with my hair, going for something more akin to an 80s top knot like I've seen in a number of photos of girls sporting the fashion. 

Also, for once, my wallet wasn't crying out in fear. I managed to snag all of the pieces for about $7 with tax. Pretty good deal to me.

The lesson of this story? Give your local thrift store a try. You and your budget may be pleasantly surprised. 

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Got My Gothic Lolita Wig!

I've been having a field day of getting items in the mail lately. The most exciting of my orders has been my purchase from Gothic Lolita Wigs. Below is the way the wig is pictured on their website:

Spiral Lolita Collection - Pinkie
While I don't think I nearly approached that level of awesome in the wig, I was very pleased with the results.


Wig: Gothic Lolita Wigs
Shirt: Tasty Peach Studios
Skirt: Justice
Tights: Sweetie Cakes
Shoes: Bodyline
Bag: Bodyline
I'm not really sure what to call the above outfit... I was inspired by fairy kei, but I also wanted to add in a number of the black bittersweet lolita elements in. The result is... dark fairy kei? Bittersweet fairy kei? I'm not sure. While I like pastels, I oftentimes yearn to add some black in with fairy kei to add contrast.




Saturday, October 27, 2012

Fairy Kei Meetup!

I missed the last fairy kei meetup my local group hosted due to school, but I was able to attend one today! Below is my outfit:

Shirt: Tasty Peach Studios
Skirt: Handmade
Tights: Holley Tea Time
Shoes: Bodyline
Accessories: Kittywood Designs, Claire's, Darling Deers, Angelic Pretty, Offbrand and Handmade
I really liked my outfit for today. I felt like it was a mixture of fairy kei along with casual sweet lolita. I also took the opportunity while at the mall to get a mirror shot, something which lolita has oddly made me fall in love with.


I also got the opportunity to hang out with Kawaii Barbie again which was super fun. I really loved her handmade accessories along with her pastel galaxy skirt from meltydream

As a final note, if you hadn't noticed, this is the first post where I've used purikura elements. I successfully attained a smart phone recently which has made me super happy. ☆*:.。. o(≧▽≦)o .。.:*☆ In posts soon, I hope to give a better idea of what app I'm using and talk about my upcoming project to decoden my phone. 

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Halloween Lolita Meet Up

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet up with my local lolita community this past weekend for a beautiful day at the botanical gardens.

My Outfit:

Skirt: Bodyline
Top: Crazy World
Necklace: Claire's
Hair piece: Rue 21
Shoes, tights: Random offbrand
This was an interesting outfit for me since it's much darker in tone than what I usually wear. I'm not sure if I like the general look, but I'm glad to have tried something different.

I was also glad to hang out with the wonderful ladies in my local lolita group. Hopefully, we'll be updating our Facebook page cover with photos from this event. <3

Friday, September 28, 2012

Angelic Pretty Dreaming Macaron!

Following along on my blog, you may have often noticed the sentiment of me wanting a brand lolita piece. Though Bodyline has some nice looking pieces, I've seen a lot of prints that brands have released that I'd longed to try. So, after saving up this summer, I finally took the plunge and purchased my first brand piece second hand. Drum roll please....


Angelic Pretty Dreaming of Macaron OP! I had seen the print before and loved how the delicious sweets lining its border looked, so when I saw it second hand, I had to snatch it up.

Though the official measurements of the OP on Hello Lace are for an 88 cm bust and a 70 cm waist, the full shirring of the piece provides much more room for fitting. I found a statement from a post on Pepperminttealove where she states that it can fit up to a 45 inch bust (114 cm) and a 40 inch waist (101 cm) for the maximum measurements. Though I haven't checked to confirm her listed maximums, I found that the dress fit me very comfortably at a 42 inch bust and a 35 inch waist. 

On to pictures of my particular OP:


The main difference I noticed between the Angelic Pretty dress and my Bodyline dresses was a heavier, thicker fabric on the Angelic Pretty piece and also the fully lined inside of the dress. 

I found the occasion to wear the dress at a wedding this past weekend. Below is a run down of my coordinate:

Dress: Angelic Pretty
Socks: Sock Dreams
Wrist cuffs: Claire's
Handbag (which I never got a good picture of): Harajuku Mini
Glasses, shoes: random offbrand
I also had the pleasure of taking a lovely picture at the event with my delightful boyfriend in this outfit:

<3 <3 <3

Sunday, August 19, 2012

And Those Long Summer Days

I haven't had much to write about the course of this summer. Living in the South with burning hot temperatures outside most of the day has put a serious damper on me wearing lolita most days. Luckily, the air is starting to have a slightly better chill to it, so I'm hoping to get back into the swing of dressing up again soon.

Bodyline, which has been a staple of my closet, didn't release many new prints this year during the summer also. Though with the announcement of Mr Yan's birthday party occurring in September and him wanting girls to pose in new pieces for him, I'm imagining a splurge of new releases will be coming soon.... The main piece I noted came out this summer was their L497 jsk.


While a kind of cute print with a theme of candy and donuts, I just don't see myself buying it for the list price of $80 when their better looking squirrels OP being sold for $47 and the Cinderella bunnies being sold at $60. 

I'd have to say the piece I currently have the biggest crush for is Innocent World's fawn jumper:

I've been warming up to more classic sweet style prints with frolicking forest animals on them. <3

Finally, is it just more, or has EGL Comm Sales gotten more sluggish with less activity / people buying things since the announce of the ban on replicas? I can recall that a number of girls in plus sized online comms I'm in mentioned that they would stop browsing there because of the vast lack of things that would fit them. What do you think?

Monday, July 2, 2012

Second Outfit for the Past Weekend

I was able to grace the wedding reception of two friends this past weekend. For the occasion, I of course decided to wear lolita.

Jsk: Bodyline
Socks: Secret Shop
Tote: Innocent World
Bolero: Worthington
Shoes: Limelight
Necklace: Forever 21
Bracelet: Rue 21
I went for a more sweet classic look after receiving my Bodyline Cinderella Bunny jsk in the mail. The dress surprised me by being more classic than I expected with nice thick off white lace. This is also my first time using my Innocent World Forest Animals tote! I bought this from a girl in my local community as soon as I saw her sales listing page. Even though I was initially somewhat concerned about the glitter print on the tote, my worries were quickly allied as I saw how well it was affixed to the item. I'm glad to finally own a piece of brand beyond just an Angelic Pretty mousepad and some random Angelic Pretty hair ties. As I continue to slowly slim down and save up money, I'm looking forward to acquiring an actual dress sometime in the future.