No Buy Support Challenge: Least Worn Piece 2 Ways

A new coord challenge? Sure, why not. This one really spoke to me since it’s explicitly about encouraging wearing what you already have instead of trying to match any themes or enabling further buying. So whilst I am ignoring the timelines suggested in the post, going with a once per month instead, this is definitely something that I would like to complete.

Courtesy of my Discord server, though this isn't where the challenge originated.

To make things extra spicy, I also started this out of order, by doing the second prompt before the first. Wild, I know, someone stop me before I turn the entire world upside down! I love all kinds of prompts that ask for doing one piece multiple ways (as evidenced by this entire series), so this is very much up my alley! And to show that even the hardest pieces to coordinate don’t have to be restricted to just the safe and simple looks, I made this extra challenging by picking Meta’s Airline JSK as my piece here.

Coord 1: Dotty for a Bag

| Metamorphose Airline JSK | Laura Ashley blouse | Angelic Pretty Drained Cherry OTKs | offbrand shoes, scarf and earrings | Dream Masquerade Carnival pin | Banned Retro Bella belt | bows from Haenuli’s Whipped Cream Kitty JSK | Boguta bag |

That feeling when your beehive turns out the way you wanted.

No waist ties could ever compete with this.

The first coord here was entirely inspired by my new Boguta bag, which arrived earlier this month. I’m not sure if it’s the combination of two dumb items or whether something else within this bag made me think that it would go with this dress, but I had to try. The result? Very fun, very colourful, and one that I am very pleased with.

To start off with, I leaned into the polka dots of the bag and tried to include as many as I could have. The blouse does a good job at introducing them as the main theme, and even though the cherries on the socks are a bit distracting, there are also polka dots there. Besides, both the cherries and the buttons on the JSK itself could be seen as just another form of polka dots. In absence of any more orange bits I decided to ignore the orange completely and focus the colours on the whites and the reds.Thankfully, both orange and red are warm colours, so although the combination is still a little odd, they aren’t fighting each other that much, especially not in ratios that this coord introduces.

Once all the clothing and accessory elements were sitting where I wanted them, I decided to take the styling towards the 60s and modlita. The dress somehow feels more 60s to me, besides I’ve recently been thinking about how I didn’t do 60s retro as much despite liking the look, so that was as good an opportunity as ever. The makeup was actually kept pretty simple, just white eyeshadow with a buttload of mascara and a tinted lip gloss, probably not that far off from what it would have been in the 60s. To compensate for that and turn the mod vibes up, I went with a beehive, which for the first time I was actually pretty pleased with, I think I’m getting the hang of it?

Even though this isn’t a typical look for this JSK, when I compared it to the very first time I wore it, I have to admit that I enjoy it a lot more. The first one was great by virtue of being simple, allowing me to enjoy a newly arrived dream dress and have some silly fun - but this is what I would consider a coord. Some actual thought went into this to ensure balance, an overall pleasing look, and that the end result wouldn’t be offending to the eyes.

Coord 2: Mixed Transportation

| Metamorphose Airline JSK | Hell Bunny cardigan | Snag Take a Selfie tights | offbrand boots, beret and earrings | bow clip from Lady Sloth’s Winter Spices skirt | vintage brooch |

I was going to put eyeliner and/or lashes on, but then I decided that I couldn't be bothered. Also, shoutout to these earrings, which I only just realised featured in both coords.

A few hearts for the lovecore season that is February.

To balance out the more themed look, here’s something significantly simpler, though no less comfortable. The original inspiration for this was, believe it or not, the colour theory. Remembering my own advice to use the colour wheel in its entirety to help with coordinating, when this dress arrived I used it to find contrasting colours to this neon orange, which turned out to be blues. So why not turn an aviation uniform dress into a nautical themed one?

There are certainly a few tweaks that I would love to see (though am not sure if I’ll ever have the will to make them). Having some neon orange laces in these boots could’ve pulled that colour in a bit better without the need for a whole new shoes option. I also would’ve liked to have a necklace of some sort, preferably an anchor shaped one, but something else that was on the larger side, in white acrylic maybe, would’ve worked too. It’s not that this coord is lacking without them, but having those would’ve pulled it together a little bit more neatly.

Still, working with what I had available to me yielded a result that I am very happy with. The tights had arrived the day before (I was actually waiting for them to arrive before wearing this look for a work from home day) and added that touch of interest, even in the process they led to an even more confused theme. It’s a worthy trade off for a bit of comfort. And the bow pin from my Lady Sloth Winter Spices skirt, although very clearly not neon orange, is similar enough in tone to work with that extra bit of separation. This is probably the first time I’ve actually used it, so knowing this may mean that it will come out a bit more often when this JSK is involved.

Final words

Whilst I don’t think that either of these is something that I otherwise wouldn’t have come up with, having the challenge prompt there encouraged me to wear them sooner than I otherwise would have. And anything that gets us to wear our dream dresses is good. These coords manage to be so different from one another and, even more importantly, make this dress look and feel significantly different. The worry with it was that it was going to be a one-trick pony, but I’m not even out of ideas for it yet, though you’ll have to wait until the 1 Dress 4 Looks post with it (probably next month, actually) to see more. I guess my goal is to become the number 1 person people in our community think of when they think of this JSK. Very lofty ambitions, I know, but I can't say I know of anyone else who owns it, let alone anyone else who actually wears it, so I think I stand a chance!

Anyone else going to give the No Buy Support challenge a go?