Planning for the Airline JSK

The thing about the Airline JSK is that I knew fully what I was getting myself into. It’s a hard thing to match, though certainly not impossible. But even with my wardrobe, which can be called many things but certainly not small, there is only so much lateral thinking that I can do. I accept that there’d be some things that I simply have to get to make the most out of it - but the key here is that this needs to be done with reason. So let’s plan what I might need to invest in, shall we?

What I have so far?

The good news is that I already have some bits. Not many, but it’s always better than nothing at all. As well as the neutral items, like various builder pieces in white and things in complimentary colours, I also have two bits that were obtained specifically for this dress. The hat I made by hand. Garrison hats like the original matching one for this release are very common in general, we see them in use today, so getting a pattern was super easy. I actually like mine better because it’s full size as opposed to mini, which should make it easier to balance out. The sneakers, on the other hand (and I will not excuse the pun), have sneaked up on me. I think I was just looking for some cute sneakers in general, Vinted presented me with these at a more than reasonable price of like £4, so I felt compelled to. Fortunately there are enough other neon colours to make them work with other things, but that orange was what called out to me and for this dress. Those two pieces have set me up for a really nice start.

Two quite opposite ends of the spectrum here too.

What else do I want?

This is where the boundary blurs a bit. Because again, I can’t necessarily talk about needs, I don’t need anything, I can make do with what I have. We are talking about things that I would like to have. But I also need to be mindful that if something is too specific to this dress, then I will struggle to make it work with other things, so I need to keep things realistic.

Image from Lolibrary.org

The biggest thing that I’d love would be some matching legwear. Metamorphose never released any and the only promotional picture of this colourway that they provided shows it worn with white. That’s neat and great for the job of showcasing the dress, but not very helpful for finding inspiration. To make things extra hard, the world of orange lolita fashion legwear tends to be firmly in the Halloween territory, with a few more rusty/muted options. Nothing quite like this neon here. If I could ever find something in white x orange, something simple, that would sort me out pretty well!

Bad photo editing is bad, but you get the point. If MuFish made these tights in white x orange, that'd be all that I need.

Having said this, my chances of ever finding a piece of legwear like this are slim to none. I have a much better chance of finding some appropriately orange shoes instead. In fact, I know that Irregular Choice has released two different models in a glittery orange that, whilst not quite neon, is bright enough to be able to work with this JSK. Of the two I am leaning more towards the Ban Joes, as they are a slightly lower heel, which hopefully translates to higher comfort of wear. This would be the biggest expense since shoes like these would be the trickiest to find other uses for and other dresses to wear with them, but if I can find them inexpensively enough, I might be able to justify them.

Irregular Choice does re-release the same models frequently, but not always in the same colourways.

A much easier (and cheaper) thing to obtain would be some bracelets. Whilst I have considered wrist cuffs with maybe an accent bow for a second, which could also be made fairly easily, I generally get more use out of my bracelets. Going full white with just pops of this neon orange is the best way to bring colour balance to this JSK, so I could buy some orange beads and make myself a pair of bracelets. And if I feel very crafty, maybe even a choker necklace to go with it. But bracelets seem more pressing.

Some random bracelet I found on Pinterest, I'd make something nicer.

Last thing I was thinking about was some more ‘basic’ piece of headwear. The hat is great, since it’s basically ‘completing the set’, but it won’t allow me to make the most use of such an out-there dress. There’s always the white beret + orange hair clips option, which whilst I may consider, I’m not actually sure I am that into? I dunno, the typically lolita part of me just wants a headbow. Of course that finding one would be nigh impossible, so again I’d have to look into making one that balances out everything that I like with the unusual colours because predictably Lolibrary has nothing even close to what I might have in mind. Which makes this arguably the hardest thing to find since I’m not sure myself what it is that I actually want here.

I'm not sure why, but somehow my brain keeps going back to this headbow as a potential example. Which is ironic because for the versatile white x gold colourway I wear it very little!

Anything else?

If there is an upside to neon orange, then it’s that there is probably a whole bunch of things that I could find offbrand if I really put my mind to it. Neon orange mesh tops seem perfectly plausible to find on Vinted after people were done with raves and festivals, which could provide a bit of variety here. Similarly with jewellery in general, whilst it might not all be neon orange, by expanding into broadly aviation themed things I will no doubt find lots (and not just easyJet memorabilia). But for the time being if I could get even a couple of the things above, it would open up all sorts of coording possibilities. And coording possibilities is what I would like to have to prove to everyone that this dress is not a one trick pony. Because it isn’t. But it’s a point that I can prove better with those few bits than without.