Most Worn Items of 2020

I love a good reflective look on what I wear here on this blog. It can be enlightening to see what things you actually wear and whether those you bought with tonnes of coord ideas in mind turned out as we thought. Way back in 2018 I wrote a post about the pieces that I’ve gotten a lot of wear out of (though it appears that the pictures are all broken now, sad times). Considering that 2020 was the year when I wore lolita fashion more than in three previous years combined, this seems like an excellent time to see whether anything has changed and what were the pieces that I actually, verifiably wore the most.

You can read about a broader breakdown/analysis of what I wore last year in the 2nd Half of 2020 in Coords post. Because throughout the year my aim was to wear main pieces as equally as possible, I will not include those here. Instead this post will celebrate the builder pieces and show how versatile they can be. To make this fair, instead of competing all against each other, they will be split by type: top (blouse and/or cardigan, whichever was the most visible in a coord), legwear, shoes, and hair accessory. Jewellery was also going to be included, but because I didn’t think of this post until late in the year, going back on all of those outfits and picking out jewellery would’ve been too much. Maybe for 2021 I will find a better system of tracking what I wear to make for a more informed summary next year? I’ll certainly try!

TOP

Despite my love of a good cardigan or bolero, the winner was Lady Sloth’s Glitter Mesh blouse. I’ve worn it 6 times in 2020 and while the coords are pretty varied, they’re all classic, all jewel toned or black, and all what I’d consider the more dressed up kind. Whilst the very first one was worn to visit a local Tudor manor on a Sunday on a solo trip, it’s not exactly a casual look, certainly not against the supremely casual looks that followed since then.

The fact that half of these coords use the Boguta starry underskirt also feels like the universe is trying to tell me something.

At first I was a little surprised, but the more I thought about it, the more that feeling left. Gold is probably one of the most common accent colours in our fashion, working well with all three substyles. In that sense we can think of it as a neutral colour, just like we do with white, ivory and black. But while white/ivory/black tops are common and easy to find in a variety of cuts, gold blouses that work with lolita are rare. This is the only one that I own, so it makes sense that I pulled it out whenever I needed the coord to have that extra sparkle. Although I personally haven’t worn it with my non-jewel tone pieces much, I know that it could work. It’s one of those blouses that matches every single JSK that I own, which further explains why with the boom in outfits it also saw a boom in wear. And no doubts it will see more wear as time goes on.

LEGWEAR

To my own surprise, it’s a three-way tie! Between the ivory ankle socks from Tutuanna (kind of expected), the Violet Fane Antiquite tights (not something I expected, but I’m not surprised either) and the Enchantlic Enchantilly The Crown of the Rose Princess tights (that I was surprised to see). Each of these was worn five times across the year, though so spread around it that I wouldn’t have noticed without this post.

The ankle socks are the most understandable due to being the most seasonal item. As awful as 2020 was, we’ve been blessed with a few hot spells and what’s better for those days than ankle socks? In fact, they’re so good that a while back I stocked up on them and I still have a few pairs that have never been worn.

Pretty much all of those are from times of warm weather, spanning April to August. And two are twinning outfits, yay!

On the other hand, both pairs of tights were probably the most all-year-round kinds of items. What separates them, in my eyes, is that while the Violet Fane ones are more of a neutral pair, the Enchantlic Enchantilly ones were worn for more themed coords. Though I guess for someone who enjoys classic all-ivory-with-pops-of-red coords, they are also a perfect pair for that. These have proven to be a lot more versatile than I expected, so here’s to hoping that they stay in good shape for a long time to come.

And to think that I almost didn't buy these...

As for the Violet Fane ones, they somehow ended up being a more casual choice on a lot of occasions. They’re not too busy and the muted neutral colours really help keep some interest in the coordinate without overwhelming it. Thanks to that, more like the ankle socks, they got worn with a whole variety of colours and I know that I could do quite a bunch more. So I guess in the end two pairs of neutral legwear and one that works with one of my favourite colour schemes isn’t that surprising after all.

For how nice and detailed these tights are, it is surprising to see them in mostly casual(-ish) coords.

SHOES

With a whopping 11 coords (whole 2 more than the runner up pair), my blue Sosic Shop heels take the crown as the most worn shoes of 2020. Once again, although at firsts I raised my eyebrows, the more I thought about it, the more this made sense. Sax blue is notoriously awful to match and across all my sax pieces I only have two items that are an exact shade match (a cardigan and a pair of wrist cuffs). Putting sax legwear against sax dresses can end up drawing too much attention to the fact that the shades don’t match, which means that for most of my sax coords it’s better to have contrasting legwear to distract from the fact that the shoes don’t match either. Moreover, when I wear my sax pieces in sweet coords, I tend to reach for other shoes, and having worn classic more, this really is the best shoe choice. I mean, just look at the photos here - see any common threads?

Spot the dresses I struggle to match in terms of shade...

HAIR ACCESSORY

Now here is a story of how badly something was needed in my wardrobe! Ever since I made this pink headbow, it’s worked so hard that it took the top spot as the most worn head accessory of 2020, featuring in seven outfits. Granted, I have been wearing pink as a secondary colour a lot more last year - but could it be because I finally had a headwear option to balance that colour out properly? We might never know. It’s probably a little bit of both. And as you can see, although it led to some really nice sweet coords, as you’d expect from a pink headbow, it got its fair share of wear in classic too. When you factor in how cheap it was to make, both in materials and in time, just across those seven wears it paid for itself several times over!

This is exactly why you need basics within your accessory collection.

CONCLUSION

This has been a truly interesting look back at my style, a lens I haven’t thought of previously. Then again, finding most worn builder pieces has a different weight to it when you do it out of 53 coordinates (2019) than out of 132 (2020). Not everything is as I expected it to be, I thought to see more neutrals and fewer colours. If I had to guess what would’ve come out on top, my bets would have been placed on some sort of ivory blouse, ivory legwear and gold shoes. The hair accessory was the only one I really had no way of telling since I own too many, but I probably would’ve guessed one of the berets. Since this post highlighted 5 items, to have 3 be considered neutrals is technically accurate with my predictions, but they still feel off.

Will any of this influence my choices in outfits going forward? I doubt it, certainly not consciously. Of course, given what my wardrobe is like, chances are that I’ll inevitably reach for those shoes when wearing sax (particularly the pieces shown above) or for the pink headbow when coordinating with pink. It all depends on where my inspiration takes me - but this is certainly not the last that you’ll see any of these items. A more pressing question is whether I should track things similarly in 2021 to return to this post idea next year. What do you think? Because if that’s something you’d like to see, then it’s best that I start now rather than frantically try to count things retrospectively.