A Slightly Different Kind of Lolita Lifestyle

The one that doesn’t presume that you want to dress in frills every single day and engage only with activities that the upper classes in Rococo or Victorian times would deem appropriate for women. Rather than about creating your lifestyle around lolita, this post will talk about bringing some lolita into your current lifestyle in tiny ways.

The real preface to this post centres around an app called Fabulous. In short, this app is a combination of a daily planner/organiser with a lot of self-care tools, designed to introduce meaningful, positive change into your life through small steps repeated regularly and based on the principles of behavioural science. It’s a lot of big words and admittedly if this was my introduction to it, I probably never would’ve tried it either. However, I was introduced to it by a friend who uses it to keep their pretty scarred mental health in check and who found the app to be helpful in creating the habits that a lot of people take for granted, such as maintaining a sleeping routine. Based on their recommendation, I’ve been using it since February and although the motivational talk was a bit much for my Polish-British consciousness at first, I stuck with it and found myself doing things that I previously shunned simply because the app is very non-judgemental and praises effort more than results. The whole idea of introducing change into your life not through big overhauls but by tweaking your environment to make desired change easier (or undesirable change harder) works really well and helps break big goals into more manageable bitesize pieces, though at the expense of quicker gratification.

Ok, so what does all this have to do with lolita then, since I’m certainly not trying to sell the app to you? I’ve found the notion of doing one tiny thing every day so easy to implement, whilst yielding substantial results over time, that I began to look for ways of applying it into how I engage with lolita fashion. And because you don’t need this exact app in order to do any of these (all you need is a timer and a reminder, which every smartphone can do, all the app does is add the extra layer of encouragement and an element of accountability), I thought I’d share some of these to potentially encourage everyone out there who wants to engage with lolita fashion more meaningfully, but finds the very prospect overwhelming.

1. Wardrobe overhaul one item at a time

This is by far the biggest one that I have implemented, not least because a wardrobe overhaul was one of my goals for this year. Every time I thought about it, about having to spend a whole day trying things on, realising that some things might fit differently just based on the bra I’m wearing, as well as realising that it would take literally the entire day, I grew tired from just thinking about it. Didn’t make the goal any less desirable though. Until one day I was confronted with the idea of clearing out just one item instead of everything. Which led me to wearing one item for a full day before deciding what happens to it. Making the wardrobe overhaul more manageable, if also more drawn out aside, this gave me the opportunity to really check how I feel about everything before deciding an item’s fate. Knowing how a blouse behaves as you move, eat, try on different underwear options, what marks it may leave on your body, what kind of maintenance it needs at the end of that day etc. gives me way more information than a quick try-on would. But crucially, instead of having to set a whole day aside for one big task that kept getting postponed, I can implement it into something that I already needed to do (i.e. get dressed), make some comments on the side, and at the end decide immediately whether to keep, replace or get rid of something.

Whilst I'm not aiming for a fully empty wardrobe, freeing up some hangers would be great.

s

2. A lifestyle activity for a mental health break

The latest habit to join my daily routine is one that I’ve been telling myself for years that I’d like to get into and always failed after one or two attempts. Drinking a fancy flavoured tea from a porcelain cup doesn’t have to be restricted to afternoon teas, weekends or those whose work pattern allows them more energy to do that. Moreover, we all need to make sure we take care of ourselves by taking regular breaks. What could be more lolita than bringing the two together, having a short break scheduled for every day when what you’ll do is drink a favourite tea from a teacup that makes you happy? At its most basic, the idea is as simple as deciding a time, setting a reminder, and then honouring that time, maybe setting a timer for however long you want your break to be to ensure that you don’t overstay if you really have other things to get on with. The more advanced approach involves taking a few extra steps before to make doing this is quick and easy: making sure there’s water already in the kettle; putting the teacup out with your tea of choice as in advance as possible; clearing the space you want to use for this before sitting down to enjoy your tea. Everything that could be an obstacle to doing it should ideally be tackled as much before the tea downtime arrives so that all that needs to be done is the water to boil, the tea to brew and you to sit down. The tea doesn’t need any special clothes to be enjoyed, you don’t need to be in lolita to have such a quintessential lolita ritual, you don’t need extra snacks if you don’t want to, none of that affects the quality of your quiet me-time - all that matters is the tea and having that moment to yourself regularly to give yourself some breathing space.

The first one in what became a new routine.

3. A nightly habit of laying out an outfit

This may seem a bit obvious to some, especially those who do want to commit to wearing lolita daily, but the number of people I meet regularly to whom preparing their clothes the night before is not part of their routine continues to remind me that we don’t all approach the same thing in the same way. Granted, I’ve been laying my clothes out for the following day since I was about 8 - purely out of laziness because every minute in the morning that could be spent in bed was one I was not willing to sacrifice. That habit stayed with me all these years and transferred onto lolita very naturally. But to anyone who doesn’t already do that, getting into this routine will make wearing frills that much more accessible. There is no science to it, all the same things that I imagine people consider the morning of still apply when doing it the night before: what does the weather forecast say, what will I be doing, is there anything else that needs preparing (e.g. an umbrella or a bag) etc. For me it also helps to lay the clothes out in the order of what goes on first, so underwear at the top all the way down to outerwear at the bottom of the pile. Other than this, all that’s required is to set a reminder to do it and then, well, do it. It may feel like a drag at first, despite all these years there are still evenings when I can’t be bothered either - but once it becomes second nature, the extra minutes saved on deciding can be put towards something else that’s important to you, whether it be a nicer breakfast or taking that mirror outfit selfie before leaving.

Even a pretty simple work outfit like this gets laid out the night before, ready to be put on.

4. Regular practice of a small skill

Lastly, whilst this isn’t one that I have implemented yet, this is the idea that’s the most immediately applicable to lolita fashion. Putting together a coordinate of any sorts involves all kinds of mini-skills that seasoned lolitas don’t even notice (unless it’s a skill that they don’t possess). Things such as tying waist ties, doing a particular hairstyle, applying false eyelashes, posing, taking that perfect mirror selfie, you name it. Whatever it is, incorporating practice of those into your lifestyle will eventually mean that you have it nailed and can rely on it whenever needed. It doesn’t have to be major things, that is the point that I’m trying to relay - just something small that can be done every day, little by little. Practice those waist ties with an apron every time you get cooking. Apply only eyeliner every day until your hand has it on muscle memory. Take one picture of yourself in the mirror with a pose that you like, even if you delete it afterwards. Braid your hair every night for going to bed and eventually the braids will start becoming more even and quicker to do. And again, all that you need is a reminder to do it and maybe to lay out a few things, almost in a way that you have to stumble upon them, thus forcing yourself to do them, like leaving the eyeliner in front of your mirror ready to be used. Little by little change will come and then, when you do finally have an occasion to dress in lolita for whatever occasion, somehow that thing you struggled with before is no longer a problem.

My hair styling skills today were at least 8 years in the making and I'm still learning.

As my lifestyle continues to evolve, finding new ways to incorporate lolita fashion into it becomes a continuous source of fun, adding that element of something nice into my everyday life. Even if I’m not dressed in frills on a given day, I can still wear a cardigan with whatever I am wearing to decide its fate and then have that tea break at my set time. And I am still at the beginning of that journey - who knows what it will look like once I’ve been at it for a few more months or even years.