Five Year Loliversary

At the beginning of the month, when browsing my Facebook news feed, I stumbled upon a post on Closet of Frills. I can’t remember the exact coord on the photo, but that was not the point – the point and the occasion why that Lolita posted was that in lieu of her 10 year Loliversary (anniversary of getting her first Lolita dress and getting into the fashion) she and her comm celebrated with a meet up. It was a themed one as well, asking people to wear the earliest-released piece which they own. And this got me thinking…

First I decided to establish if I could pinpoint the exact date when I got my first Lolita dress. Luckily for me this happened during my first trip to Japan, so I had the year – I just had to browse through the photos to find the one, and then to find out the date it was taken.

Fortunately it turned out to be as easy as it sounds, and my Loliversary date was revealed: May 26^th; this is also when Mother’s Day is in Poland, which should make this easy to remember. What’s more, that was May 26^th 2011, which means that this year is exactly 5 years since I first got into Lolita (never mind the fact that for the first two and half of those five I knew and learnt next to nothing about the fashion and was awfully ita).

26.05.2011

It’s definitely been a long journey since that first dress. It was also an enlightening and enjoyable journey, one where I got to really understand what the fashion is about, grew a lot as a Lolita and learnt quite a bit about myself, met some wonderful people and now share many happy, heart-warming memories with them. Even that same dress which I bought that day in Bodyline’s Shinsaibashi branch in Osaka I now wear differently than on that awful first photo. (In my defence, at that point I didn’t really knew that Bodyline only aspired to be a Lolita brand, didn’t know what Lolita was, got the dress for its 1950s-esque appeal and only took the photo to send to my boyfriend at the time to show it to him and wasn't going out like this – if that excuses me in any way. :P)

Since it’s a bit late to call a meet up with my comm to celebrate that, big or small, I decided to do a mini-celebration at home. I have also picked the earliest release which I own and created a coord with it.

I quickly realised that I should’ve been more specific with how I phrased that, as my oldest main piece wasn’t nearly as old as the oldest Lolita item of clothing which I own. I could’ve taken the lazy approach and do a coord using both of those – but that’s no fun, is it? (Although considering that they’re different colours, it would certainly be very challenging!) Instead I’m presenting you with two coords: one featuring my oldest main piece, which actually turned out to be my Merry Making Party OP from Angelic Pretty (2010 release), and one with my oldest Lolita item, which is the red and white stripe OTKs from Baby the Stars Shine Bright (I believe they’re a 2002 release [!], although could be 2008).

Coord 1: Oldest main piece

| Angelic Pretty Merry Making Party OP | offbrand pearl
necklace, boots and cameo brooch | vintage gloves |
handmade hair clip |

This OP is my most challenging piece to coord, I’m really struggling with it. One because it’s an OP, and I’m used to being able to simply switch a blouse to change the look of the outfit, and two – because the colours and the print are very out there, and I don’t necessarily have anything in that shade of pink (I have hardly any pink in my Lolidrobe) nor do I own any yellow items. I also didn’t want to go down the lazy route and link my picture from Easter when I wore this, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what to do with it.

In the end I decided to try to tone down the crazy sweetness of this OP, which I think has worked alright. I wish I had a lacy white bolero to add a bigger splash of white and make this whole coord flow a bit more. I was also looking at how summery the gloves and the short boots made it look, which made me think how well a straw hat would look with this. Overall, there’s a lot of potential with this look, but at the moment I don’t have enough pieces to really tie it together. But just this one look made me think twice about whether I really want to trade this OP for something easier for me to work with – and that’s a good sign.

Coord 2: Oldest Lolita piece

| Axes Femme blouse | Magic Tea Party Bears Paradiseskirt | BtSSB Border OTKs | Angelic Pretty Twinkle
Sky headbow | offbrand heels |

It’s very difficult to create a coord where the OTKs are the focus point, especially when the OTKs are simply striped. As you already know, I don’t own any block colour pieces, all my dresses and skirts are printed, which makes it even harder to put together an outfits where the OTKs stand out. I’ve already used those OTKs for circus-themed coords, but I wanted to push myself and make something new. Even if it wasn’t easy.

In the end I picked Magic Tea Party’s Bears Paradise skirt, simply because despite the very busy print it’s the closest thing to plain I have (since Bodyline’s L262 is polka dots it’d clash with the stripes). It’s certainly so after removing the brown accent bows and pairing it up with a blouse in a similar colour – this creates the illusion of a blank-ish canvas. And against all this beige, the red stripes really stand out, which is what I wanted to do. I threw in a red headbow for a little bit of balance, but it’s not enough to draw the attention away from the socks. If I’m totally honest, I’m not too keen on this coord, but it’s the best I could do without doing the same thing again; I think that what I’m not keen on is the overall casual feel. It’d still benefit a lot from an actual solid colour piece though.

It’s odd how both of those pieces turned out to be pieces which weren’t the easiest things to coord, I certainly didn’t plan for that – in fact I was hoping that it’d be the same Bodyline dress that was my first purchase which would prove to be the oldest piece by release date which I own. Having said that, it made for a more exciting post and, rather adequately, made me think that little bit harder and more outside the box with my Lolita outfits, which is something that I should be better at when celebrating five years of being into the fashion. :P

To wrap up these celebrations I got myself a little sweet treat and stuck a birthday candle in it. The wish? For another five years in Lolita, and for them to be filled with pretty things, fabulous meet ups and great friends. Isn’t that what every Lolita can hope for? I certainly wish it to all of you, regardless of whether you’ve been into the fashion for years or are yet to get your first Lolita item.