AYWi30C #25 - Latest Wardrobe Addition

Finally some prompts where at least picking the main piece is easy. It leaves more creative energy to focus on figuring out how to style the piece in question. Especially since, whilst this may not actually be the newest main piece, it’s the last one that I bought that I currently have in my hands.

| BtSSB Soiree of the Beginning of My Memories JSK | Innocent World Rose Lace Millefeuille bolero | AatP Lace-Up Ribbon OTKs | Angelic Pretty Classical Petit Rose headbow | Summer Tales Boutique necklace | Violet Fane brooch | offbrand blouse, shoes, earrings and rings |

I have been really feeling adding more greens to my wardrobe, and in fact I’d love to add more. In a way, whilst the dress may not be the actual latest addition, the bolero is one of the latest things that I’ve bought - and the newest item of clothing to have arrived. Since the main piece is still new to me, there’s a whole host of things I could’ve tried that I’ve not done yet and the greens, the spring vibes, the lightness and freshness of it all was what appealed to me. It makes sense for a look that would debut in early May at the height of spring, right?

The blouse that gets a tonne of wear, but hardly ever actually features in a coord.

Whilst there is a blouse in there, it barely shows up in the coord, both because of its cut and placement, and because it gets overshadowed by the bolero. It usually meets this fate because it’s on the sheer side, so no-go with skirts, and it’s light enough to make it easy to layer, so good for not actually going blouseless. It’s a bit of a shame because it has lots of lovely detail, but at the same time whatever does peek out helps to create extra volume and depth of layers to frame the JSK and the bolero.

Innocent World tied it into a much prettier bow for when it arrived to me. I still need to practice.

Whilst I would love more lace patterns, the rose one works well with the green.

Speaking of which - those who have been here for a bit will know that Innocent World’s Millefeuille bolero is my absolute king of boleros! It is flattering, it is elegant, it can be both quite OTT with the lacy frills and pretty toned down with the muted colour palette... It is worth its price and I genuinely will be that person who will have a curated collection of them. This one marks one down from this year’s wishlist and it’s the most perfect shade of light grassy green. I don’t know how Innocent World could get the colour so wrong on the mannequin stock picture, they’re doing this colour a horrendous disservice and I am angry on the bolero’s behalf. Let me also take this opportunity to ask that you hit me up with links if you ever spot the Millefeuille bolero in size L in black with cross lace, brown with shell lace and/or pink with any lace pattern on the second hand market.

The lace-up design is such a staple, my heart tells me to get more colours of it, even if my brain knows I have enough socks to cover all my pressing needs.

When putting them on for the lookbook, I did think to myself how lucky that past me gave in and bought these socks. They may not get a tonne of wear, but they are indispensable for when I want to pull out the light green accents out of any coord. Green in general isn’t particularly common in lolita, so finding things in this shade of it is amazing. It’s even more amazing that with it being such an uncommon type of green, pretty much everything that I have in this shade matches each other - that’s what we call a miracle!

I'm not sure how they do it, but these do not photograph as bad as I know they look irl. Tell me your secrets, cheap eBay shoes!

There was a time, round about when I bought these shoes, when it seemed like everyone had a pair of these in some colour. A lot of people still do, but with so many more options of affordable lolita shoes, fewer people are searching for loliable alternatives. And whilst over the years of owning them I’ve gone a bit back and forth with them, sometimes loving them and sometimes hating them, I can’t deny that they’re very versatile and genuinely comfortable. Downside? They are cheaply made and it shows. I cannot count the number of times one of these bows has fallen off and I had to glue it back on, but the most recent one was as I was about to film the shoe closeup for the lookbook. Which is just rude!

For once it doesn't look like much because that's exactly how I intended it to be.

My idea for this whole outfit was to keep it on the more subtle side. Calling it simple would probably a touch of an exaggeration, since there are still plenty of details and a fair few accessories - but they’re mostly unassuming, with only two being actually prominent. Whilst minimalism in fashion isn’t for me, I do feel that sometimes less is more when trying to go for a look that’s classic, elegant and more mature. It’s just that ‘less is more’ isn’t the same as ‘fewer is more’, if you know what I mean.

Occasionally I still think about the dress that came out with this. It was a cute design that I wouldn't mind owning.

When I wear greens, the Alice and the Pirates OTKs inevitably go with this headbow. They are a perfect match for each other, which makes balancing the colour so much easier. Although I’ll admit, I’m not and never was the most keen on the flowers AP put on this headbow or the way they put them on. They’re alright from a bit of a distance, but get too close and they look cheaply made. One day I may finally decide to either attach them a bit more securely or replace them entirely.

Both of these are items that I somehow ended up with, so it's good to see them come useful.

Amongst my many earrings there are still some pairs that haven’t been worn and I’m fairly sure this one was one of them. If I’ve ever worn them, I’ve forgotten about it and it was never documented. Now is their time to shine since the light green goes perfectly with all the other light greens, despite the fact that they’re silver based rather than gold. But if you’re close enough to spot that when I wear them, you’re not keeping social distancing and you should back off.

And to my own surprise my collection of necklaces didn’t have anything more neutral and more unassuming that would’ve matched. The neckline of the coord was left quite open, which I do like, but despite all the frills framing it there was just a bit too much of a gap to ignore and a necklace was needed. Don’t get me wrong, I like this choice, it sits precisely where I wanted it to and ticked the very boxes I needed ticking. It’s simply that had I had something else, I would’ve gone with that instead.

Don't tell me that you wouldn't walk in to a place that had this sign above their door.

A brooch so good I own it twice. Well, the other one was a Secret Santa present, who couldn’t have known that I already owned it. Though the fact that someone else thought of me when buying it while I had it already just shows that they got my sense of style and really paid attention. And it is a great brooch, I love Violet Fane’s more antique-y, vintage-y style pieces, whether they be clothes or jewellery. If this was available as an actual sign, I’d probably buy that to hang up somewhere as I’m narrowing down on my interior decor aesthetic and want to start getting pieces that fit that to make my living space match my style.

This year I have started tracking what I wear and how often down to the smallest accessories, so if these Primark rings rank highly, I won't be the least bit surprised.

Last but not least (but kind of least) are the trusty Primark rings. Did I mention that the point of this outfit was to be elegant and unassuming? The rings are precisely that, adding a touch of sparkle without jumping out at you in the coord. Just what an elegant lady needs.

I've kind of sworn off bustles because they're a chore to keep wrinkle-free and prevent dresses from being dressed down, but this one is proving me wrong by quite a lot.

I've gotten rid of my most yellow cream items, maybe I was a bit too hasty in that. A pale yellow coord could look so good...

Detail-I-Didn't-Know-Existed-Until-I-Started-Taking-Photos of the Month: this shoe cameo. Why is it there? No idea. But it is.

This dress… This dress! Now that I do own it part of me is surprised that I spent so many years dancing around it before finally buying. At the same time, another part is glad that I waited because now my wardrobe is at the right place to wear it in a multitude of ways. That and I caved in with the ivory rather than the green, which was my original colourway of choice. The colours and details pop so beautifully against the warm ivory and the fabric on this dress is so light with a beautiful texture. With all the many shades of green in the design doing a spring green coord was the perfect decision!

Miss Scarlett O'Hara who, for legal reasons, had to change her name.

Although the other ladies are not letting her outshine her, I'd 10/10 wear this green gown too!

Thos flower ribbons look incredibly festive.

For such a long time before I bothered to learn the proper print name this dress featured in my head as The Gone With The Wind Dress. The print does remind me of the barbecue scene in the film with plenty of creative liberties being taken (no-one was waltzing then for one). Whether it actually was inspired by that, I’m not sure, but I like to think that it doesn’t matter and that I would have eventually noticed the dress anyway, even if what caught my attention initially was the resemblance to the film. Some of the waltzing ladies on the print have some lovely hair do’s which I may one day try to recreate for another coord with this dress.

Question is: would I wallpaper my bedroom or living room with this? Or another room altogether?

It's not fancy enough unless there's a gigantic chandelier and a windy staircase, that's just the rules.

Two of the three types of lace featured on this dress. The third one is on the neckline and is actually a very similar rose lace patterb as the bolero.

Like all truly great prints, this one keeps on giving the more you look at it. I adore the composition of colours, how the various shades of green, pink and ivory/pale yellow compliment each other, creating highlights and shadows without needing to dip into other colours. Although I’m fairly sure that some of the truly dark bits and linework are done in a very dark brown, which allows for the print to have dark parts whilst keeping the overall look soft. All of those flowers and ribbons really do remind me of a ballroom decorated for the spring fête. And the stripy background, *especially* in these exact colours, make me yearn for a wallpaper just like this that I could have in this dream home of mine.

It was a good selfie day, that's all I can say.

In keeping with the ‘less is more’ I wanted to stick to less fussy hair and makeup. My go-to makeup but without the eyeliner, though with some smaller false lashes (they are meant for more natural looks, but I wish that the lash band was much thinner, since it still makes it look like I’m wearing eyeliner), and another attempt at a new hair curling technique (with hair straighteners). Which, for a first attempt at doing that, besides the 60s bubble hair [LINK], is really not bad. And not as time consuming as I thought it’d be, even given that I only have these tiny mini-straighteners meant for travelling. So this may be something that will make a comeback.

So far that's two outfits out of two that I absolutely love. This one is from January 2021.

Just like the previous prompt, this dress only got one coord so far, having arrived to me in January of this year and then patiently waiting its turn. The filming of this prompt actually coincided with it being time to wear this dress again, so after filming I wore this coord for the rest of the day and I am counting it as being worn. And I think that I’ll wear it like this, with all these light green bits, in the future again, I really liked the look. Although I also have some other ideas - like noticing the browns made me want to try styling this dress with browns. But maybe I’ll leave that for autumn.

Since the whole idea for the coord was to keep it from being too fussy, there was no point in overthinking the lookbook either. Not everything needs to be themed and elaborate, just showing off the coord is great too. So this is precisely that. I hope you enjoy it! And also damn, I only just realised that I forgot to include the glasses in the photos here. Oh well...