Ranking Doughnut Prints for Fat Thursday

One of my favourite pieces of Polish culture to introduce people to is Fat Thursday. (As a translator, my minor gripe is that Greasy Thursday would’ve been more accurate, since the Polish adjective “tłusty” carries both the meaning of “fat” and “greasy”, but Fat Thursday is what stuck.) In short, when the English gorge on pancakes on the Tuesday before Lent, Polish people gorge on doughnuts (and some other fried dough sweets) on the Thursday before. I don’t care whether you participate in Lent, everyone is welcome to eat some doughnuts on that day, go treat yourself next Thursday, February 16th.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

Very unfortunately for me though, I will be in Italy at that time and won’t be able to make my usual trip to get some Polish doughnuts - big sad. So instead, and to engage with doughnuts beyond just eating, as someone who doesn’t own a single print with these sweets and doesn’t feel any particular need to, I’m going to rank the ones that I’ve found on Lolibrary for everyone’s entertainment, though mostly my own. For clarity, I will only be ranking the print designs, not the dress designs, to keep things fair. All on a scale of 1 to 5 doughnuts, of course.

Angelic Pretty Melty Cream Doughnut

Photo from Lolibrary.org

Gotta start with the most famous one! It is a classic and the fact that it’s an all-over print appeals to me a lot. Whilst the glazed ring doughnuts make my teeth hurt just by looking at them, I like that the print includes the crullers doughnuts, which I used to love as a child.
4 out of 5 doughnuts

Emily Temple Cute Cutlery & Doughnuts

Photo from Lolibrary.org

The addition of the cutlery breaks the print up in a very pleasing way and tones down some of the sugar overload. At the same time, there does seem to be more cutlery than doughnuts, which in this particular ranking counts against the print. The crullers once again makes an appearance next to your standard glazed ring doughnuts, earning the print a respectable
4 out of 5 doughnuts

Leur Getter Doughnut Print

Photo from Lolibrary.org

Simple, but almost too simple for my taste. Although I like the almost cascading layout, as if doughnuts were falling from the sky and piling around the skirt in a more border print-like manner, there really isn’t much going on there to compliment the doughnuts. The chocolate bunnies distract me from the main dessert and the doughnuts themselves look pretty basic.
2 out of 5 doughnuts

V-Castle Cute Doughnut

Photo from Lolibrary.org

These doughnuts look a lot less oversweetened, almost a more mature treat for the sophisticated people. I would’ve liked to see a bit more colour variety, as the all-brown colour palette gets boring very quickly, but there’s also a timeless elegance about it. The mini doughnuts look the most tasty to me.
3 out of 5 doughnuts

Captain Meow Doughnut Cat

Photo from Lolibrary.org

They had me at doughnut and kept me at cat! The simplicity of these doughnuts looks as tasty as it looks cute, like straight out of a trendy cafe somewhere in Seoul (don’t ask me why Seoul in particular). The diagonal banners with the brand’s name having the most contrast in the whole print is a bit distracting and takes the attention away from frickin’ cat-eared doughnuts. If they had tweaked the contrast on this print a little, this would’ve been the one.
4.5 out of 5 doughnuts

Leur Getter Colorful Donuts

Photo from Lolibrary.org

We’re getting into the prints with the American spelling now. Although the doughnuts themselves still look toothache-inducing, the overall design is much more pleasing. I would’ve liked to see different background colourways - the muted tones help highlight the brighter tones of the doughnuts, but those shades of grey and blue are just weird. The pink colourway is the most pleasing one. Besides that, it’s a lovely doughnut print - nothing major to complain about, but also nothing major to rave about.
3 out of 5 doughnuts

Le Carrousel Dreamy Donuts

Photo from Lolibrary.org

Our first and only Western indie entry. And I gotta say, whilst I wouldn’t want to eat any of these particular doughnuts, at least Le Carrousel committed to making a sweet print. The colours are wonderfully bright and the doughnuts pop against the white fabric without straying into neon territory. I’m a magpie attracted to colours, so I’ll give this one a
4 out of 5 doughnuts

Emily Temple Cute Many Donuts

Photo from Lolibrary.org

Dare I say “hell yes!”? This is my favourite doughnut print of the lot. We have variety (ring doughnuts, crullers AND heart-shaped churros? Yes, please!), we have extras that don’t overshadow the main star of the show (and a tart cherry feels like a great palate cleanser after a super sweet doughnut), we have good contrast and complementary choices of colourways… And most importantly, I would quite happily nom some of these.
5 out of 5 doughnuts

Anna House Teddy Donuts

Photo from Lolibrary.org

Not that coming last right after such a strong contender was ever going to be easy, but I feel like Anna House didn’t really help themselves either with this choice of fabric. First of all, this is very clearly more about the teddy bears than about the doughnuts. Secondly, the entire design looks like it lived in the children’s section of the fabric shop and it’s overall a bit too childish for my taste to work in a lolita setting. I should probably disqualify it, but since it exists out there and does call attention to the doughnuts through the print name…
1 out of 5 doughnuts (just because there at least are some doughnuts on the print)


The above ranking focused on prints that included doughnuts in the name or otherwise made it clear that this was the primary motif. Browsing through the “doughnut’ tag on Lolibrary brought up several more prints that feature this tasty treat somewhere else in the design, but as they were made to share the stage with other motifs, it didn’t seem fair to judge them. In the end, I am sad to not see the Polish doughnuts, or anything similar to them, represented in any of the prints I could find, though I am pleased to have found at least one release that scored full marks.

As I said, Fat Thursday is for all to enjoy, so go treat yourself to a doughnut or two. Preferably two. I’m firmly of the opinion that doughnuts have to be eaten in even numbers as then they distribute themselves evenly inside your body.