Advanced Coordinating: #10 - How to Look Expensive in Lolita?

We all know that lolita fashion is expensive, but we’ve also been saying for years that having the brand tag does not automatically protect one from their outfit being painful to look at, i.e. ita. And whilst the greater popularity and accessibility of the fashion has opened the doors to more inexpensive pieces being made, there are and always have been ways to make the cheaper items look more expensive. My plans for the Advanced Coordinating are culminating now, in this final instalment of the series - unless someone suggests a topic that I feel simply compelled to tackle, I don’t have anything more to say that wouldn’t be repeating the advice that’s already been given. And considering how some people out there just seem to have a knack for turning inexpensive or even offbrand pieces into stunning looking outfits, demystifying some of that process feels like the perfect end to the work involving building on all of these skills over the last year and a half since this series launched.

To start off I would like to explain that whilst I will be using adjectives like “expensive” or “cheap”, they’re not being used to describe the actual costs of things. Nor are they used in a similar vein as you may have seen this type of advice posts and videos aimed at mainstream fashion trends. The goal isn’t to look like a socialite of any sort (old money or new, from this place or that) nor to encourage you to buy everything brand new from the major brands. My use of the word “expensive” here is to describe the look of a polished, intricate coordinate that looks like it’s been put together by an experienced lolita. Not everything that looks expensive actually is (and vice versa) and how much you spend on a fashion that’s intended to be a luxury hobby is your business, not mine or anyone else’s.

Similarly, this instalment isn’t going to be a guide on how to ‘shop the look’, if you’re from a generation that remembers those in women’s magazines. By all means, do sit down and reflect on what are your actual wants - sometimes it may be that you’re after a button-down floral OP, not this specific button-down floral OP, and there may be alternatives that fit your taste and budget if you shop around. Deconstructing if what you want is a specific item or the vibe it gives off is generally a useful skill to have, so I encourage you to work on that. However, in this post I would rather focus on the tricks that you can employ right now, with the items you already own, that will elevate the overall look of a coordinate and make you look the best that you possibly can.

The first thing that you can try is something that you probably already do: mix cheaper pieces with the more expensive ones. Sounds silly when it’s phrased like that, aren’t we all throwing in the odd hair clip from the proverbial H&M into our coords? Well, yes - but what have we learnt from that? What has adding cheaper small accessories to our outfits taught us that we can extrapolate further? Is it possible to reverse the script and instead of adding cheap accessories to an expensive dress make a cheaper dress look more expensive with other items? I’m here to tell you that it is.

Like everything about advanced coordinating, it’s not as simple a recipe as that. Everything else that goes into making a good-looking outfit: colours, themes, balance, accessories, styling etc., still applies here. But if you pay attention to all of that, then the only thing that could stop you from elevating the look of a cheaper main piece is what you physically own and can work with. And if you own some more elaborate builder pieces, the ones that every coord needs, then they can lift a main piece that may be slightly lacking in polish here or there - as long as that main piece is still made for lolita fashion and with the understanding of what lolita fashion is.

Take this Resailan Jewelry Box JSK (and try to look past the change of cuts that took place over the years). Whilst it’s not the cheapest looking dress, it is a lower quality Chinese brand and the difference is clear in comparison to other creators. Similarly, whilst the Bodyline blouse worn with it in July 2017 isn’t objectively bad and it helps achieve the desired effect, it is on the cheaper end of that style, both literally in that it’s an inexpensive blouse and figuratively in that it’s details are quite small, so it doesn’t read as anything overly exciting. Given that besides the dress, the blouse is the next most visible element in the coord, followed by the tights and the hat, there isn’t enough in the whole look to elevate the dress besides what it brings to the table. I still think that it’s an ok coord, but wouldn’t call it a standout one nor would I say that it looks expensive. Unlike this other one from August 2021. It’s funny how it uses the exact same pair of tights and how the blouse is a very similar style, but… bigger. Where the gathers on the sleeves of the Bodyline one are adding only a little bit of shape, the gathers on this L’Esprit de la Noblesse one are much more voluminous - and we all understand that excess of fabric reads as more expensive, whether we understand the historical origins of that or not. In fact, seeing the two coords side-by-side, it is interesting to see just how many elements they have in common, from something light-coloured across the waist, to simple hair and makeup styling, to minimal accessories… Yet elevated by the blouse and then the corset, the later outfit offers much more that is intrinsically nicer quality and looks more intricate, which help mask the areas in which the dress itself isn’t quite as expensive-looking and highlight those where it is. This is one of the reasons why investing in detailed blouses that match your chosen style is so important. They aren’t just protecting your modesty, but can literally lift a look to something so much nicer than what the dress alone brings to the table. And the more builder pieces you do that with, the less you’ll have to worry about not having an appropriate enough element or whether your dress is ‘good enough’ to create a great, expensive-looking outfit.

The same principle done with more intricate pieces achieves a much more polished result.
July 2017 vs August 2021.

Once you start paying attention to things like this, you will also realise that what we interpret as a garment looking expensive is basically one with enough detail to add a lot of depth to a coord. And it makes perfect sense - once again, when you consider why historically clothing is expensive, prices rise proportionately to the amount of detail within a garment. This isn’t to say that throwing everything and the kitchen sink into a coord will magically make it look more polished and elaborate. This is the tenth Advanced Coordinating post, if you’re not new here you should already know that, and if you are new here, I suggest reviewing the series up to now to understand what I mean. But the better you get at improving your coords from the point of view of including plenty of depth and detail, the more elaborate they will look and by extension the more expensive they will look and feel. Why? Because our fashion is based on the dresses being elaborate and full of detail, so they need builder pieces that match that energy or if the dresses themselves are lacking in detail and/or quality - the builder pieces need to make up for what’s missing.

The examples from the post about depth should give you an idea on how much difference this concept makes in outfits. However, to make this clearer specifically in the context of making outfits look more expensive, let me use one of my most inexpensive pieces, this OP from Grove Deer. Both of these are relatively recent coords, since I’ve only had the dress for a little over a year. The left one from February 2022 is purposefully kept simple, both for practical reasons (I could only pack so much) and as a result of aiming for something more ero lolita. Although it doesn’t lack detail or depth, it also doesn’t have that much of either, and whilst the individual pieces used to coordinate with the dress are more expensive and elevate the OP itself, there isn’t that much that a corset, printed tights and some jewellery can bring to the table. By lolita standards, the coord from October 2021 looks considerably more expensive not least because there is far more depth within it to draw one's eye to. Whereas the left coord relies on an obvious connotation of fancy jewellery equalling something expensive, the right one utilises the layers and textures to hint at being expensive without being obnoxious about it. And as almost all the mainstream guides to looking expensive will tell you, the key is in the detail and in subtlety. Although those rules rarely apply to lolita fashion, considering our fondness for excess, there is something in favouring less flashy construction details over an overload of accessories that we too can appreciate as reading more expensive.

Sometimes simplicity is necessary, but in a fashion like lolita depth catches our attention more.
February 2022 vs October 2021.

The final suggestion for making a coord look and feel more expensive lies in tricking the eye with seamless blending of multiple individual pieces. Just like makeup looks more polished when rough edges are blended, finding two or more items that work like one, as if they were meant to be together, can create something magical within an outfit. This sort of thinking outside the box when it comes to layering and achieving a seamless look can help make up for whatever the main piece or the coord is lacking or at least mask that a little. Think combinations such as a blouse and JSK that look like an OP or a hair clip that matches a shoe so perfectly that it doesn’t look detachable at all. Applying such thinking to builder piece sets, which, granted, relies more on luck in finding items that match each other so perfectly, helps achieve an overall impression of wholeness and cohesion. And as we all know, the more cohesive a coordinate is, the more polished it looks. But until your collection has grown enough in those perfect builder piece sets that can be swapped out amongst different main pieces, you can rely on what you already have, trying different options with the various detachable/separate elements that you have and seeing if they work together. Whilst sometimes these things are obvious, allow yourself the room to be surprised and don’t take any less seamless attempts to heart as failures. Trial and error requires both before you arrive at the one that sticks.

Think about underskirts, for example. Whilst a very useful garment for those needing the additional length, often underskirts prove to be tricky to make them seem, well, not so obvious. Where the end of your petticoat sits is higher than the end of your underskirt, but it’s not always possible to lower the petti without unsightly peeking. Moreover, differences in fabric between the underskirt and the dress it’s under can ruin the impression of them being one since the weight and drape of the fabric affect how it moves and behaves. This is why the chiffon underskirt under this polycotton Bodyline Sweet Macaron JSK, as worn in January 2017, doesn’t work too well. It does the job of adding the length required, but it’s very obviously a separate garment, both thanks to the colour difference (ivory underskirt vs white lace, as well as ivory underskirt vs pink blouse) and the different fabric weights. It’s not necessarily offensive, however, it’s only successful in adding some extra length, not in doing so seamlessly. On the other hand, using Bodyline’s L380 skirt as an underskirt with the same JSK was far less obvious. It helps that the two garments are already a very similar shape, further aided by very similar fabrics, which respond to the petticoat in compatible ways, with a bit more bounce and flare which loose, drapey chiffon is not capable of achieving. Furthermore, the colour difference is much less noticeable on photos and having a blouse collar in the same shade as the underskirt further helps blend it into the outfit. By giving the impression of being one item instead of visible layering of two, the October 2020 coord achieves a look that reads as more polished than the 2017 one, which in turn make it appear as the more expensive of the two coordinates (despite costing me roughly the same amount, from what I can remember)

If it looks like a layer that belongs, rather than one that was just tagged along, then the whole look will seem more cohesive.
January 2017 vs October 2020.

Balance, cohesion, depth, experimenting - if it sounds like I’m repeating myself, then that’s because I am. Over the course of these ten instalments of the Advanced Coordinating series I’ve reiterated these ideas more times than I can count. Ultimately, this is what stepping up your coordinating game is about: keeping the overall look in mind whilst considering everything that goes into an outfit, not just doing the ‘does my coord include X’ tick-box exercise. I’m sure that beginner lolitas don’t think that coordinating is easy, it’s ok to find things challenging when learning something completely new. But building your first coordinate is easy because all that’s being considered is those boxes that need ticking, getting it right before doing it your way. The more you learn about coordinating lolita fashion and the more you find your feet in putting outfits together, the more nuance you see and the more you realise that the answer isn’t always straightforward yes or no, black or white. And the more this nuanced approach becomes second nature, the less you have to consciously think about what goes where because balance equals this and depth equals that - the more detailed, interesting, and expensive your coordinates will look. As always, some people will arrive there sooner than others, but with enough patience and will everyone can get there. Just keep putting that one step after another. And if sometimes it doesn’t quite work out - that’s ok too. You don’t owe anyone perfection 100% of the time.

For the last bit of inspiration I would like to share with you someone whom I have been looking up for actual years, a lolita who to me has always looked so expensive I still sometimes struggle to believe how much of the outfits that I admired were offbrand: @sanakanin, who is also on Wordpress. I’ve been gushing about her style for as long as I can remember and whilst her style seems to have shifted from the intricately layered classic to really fun and colourful sweet lolita, she’s not lost her magic touch. Do read the breakdown of her outfits and realise how much clever coordinating goes into creating the depth and level of interest. Read the outfit breakdowns and be amazed at how much was sourced not even from cheaper lolita brands, but completely offbrand. To achieve this level of skill certainly takes a keen eye for detail, which comes naturally to those who already have a sensibility for visuals and quality. But the rest? Lots of patience to build a wardrobe, to wait and hunt for the right piece rather than the next available one that will do, a bit of thinking outside the box in terms of what can be added where or how, and undoubtedly lots of trial and error to test these ideas in practice. Our fashion places so much value on having things be branded and with the right label, but all that all-brand coords teach a person who doesn’t want to dig deep is to buy brand. Whereas someone like @sanakanin, who for a variety of reasons keeps a significant portion of her wardrobe offbrand, forces you to question the notion that only brand = looking expensive and to acknowledge the level of skill and creativity that anyone can achieve if you only try.

You want style versatility? She gives you style versatility!
Images shared with permission.

This is, I believe, the most apt end for this post and for this series. The main thing that I wanted to achieve through the Advanced Coordinating posts is to inspire people to try. Try something new, try something outside the box, try something that’s not explicitly listed as ‘the lolita rules’ anywhere. To borrow an analogy from the world of creative writing, writers divide themselves into artists and craftsmen. The former believe that writing is a talent and you either have it or you don’t; the latter believe it to be a skill that can be taught and learnt, so that anyone can do it. Hopefully, after ten lengthy instalments about advanced coordinating, you see putting together lolita outfits more like a craft that anyone can hone than like talent that only a select few have. Armed in my experience broken down into words and somewhat tangible concepts, go forth and carve your own niche within this fashion. I’m sure you will learn things that I haven’t even considered - and if you do, all I ask is that you pass them on to those who come after you, so that we can all enjoy this wonderful style, hobby, and community.

Thank you for staying with me for this journey and all the best of luck on yours!