Musings on My Lolidrobe
I’ve had a look at my Lolidrobe a
while back and two thoughts crossed my mind. The first one was “God, I need
more room, how I wish I could have a separate room just for Lolita”. The second
one was simply: “Wow, I’ve been very lucky”.
*
Not just the basic kind of lucky
where I can indulge in a hobby such as Lolita fashion, although I think about that
quite often as well. But lucky in the sense that the majority of my Lolita main
pieces are my dream dresses.
A wardrobe full of
just dream dresses is something that many Lolitas really wish for, no doubt. There are
plenty of reasons why this doesn’t always happen: dream dresses being unattainable,
wanting to participate in the fashion so much that exercising restraint on
wallet is difficult, simply too many bargains around, finding something that you really like although wouldn’t call a dream dress, and a whole tonne of
other ones.
At the moment I own 13 main pieces:
2 skirts, 1 OP and 10 JSKs, with two more JSKs pending (one’s with my shopping
service waiting for socks to be released and the other one’s a Taobao reserve
waiting to be made and shipped out). Out of all 15 of those items only 4 are
not my dream pieces, although 2 of those I have very strong feelings for and wouldn’t
want to part with. So that’s good 84% of my Lolidrobe that is made up of dream items, and that really is a lot and a reason to
feel lucky.
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There’s no shadow of a doubt that
most of those weren’t easy to obtain – in fact, only those last two items I
could safely say were fairly effortless although still somewhat stressful as I
was worried about them selling out. However, most of the other ones, especially
the big brand pieces, involved months of fruitless searches on every single
used clothing website that I know of every single day. I’m not kidding: Closet
Child, Maiden Clothing, Usagi Youhinten, Wunderwelt, Violet Blue, Tokyo Alice,
Lolita Desu, Lacemarket, Mbok, Yahoo Auctions, and recently Frill and, when I
remember, Mercari as well – in that order (it’s a routine by now). All of this
being in addition to Facebook sales, where I set myself notifications for
everything that’s posted in all 6 sales groups. Sometimes there’d be nothing
for months on end, but once I had two dream dresses appear within a few days,
maybe a week of each other and I had to make decisions quickly.
Let’s not forget the cost either. I’ve
been cursed with an expensive taste in popular prints, so a lot of my dream dresses cost me more
than they originally retailed for. And even if they didn’t, for example like
with Fantasy Theater, getting them
involved months of careful saving and trying to keep myself motivated so that I
wouldn’t give in to temptations to spend on other things. We all know that
Lolita is an expensive fashion and don’t expect dream dresses to come cheap,
ever, so the fact that I’ve managed to accumulate so many, including some very
popular releases, is mind-blowing when I actually stop to think about it.
Now I’m in a position where I’m able
to indulge in Lolita a lot more as I’m working full time and have recently
received a pay rise as well. But although this means that I could get a new
brand release if I wanted to, old habits die hard and I’m still quite reluctant
to just buy everything I like the look of – even some of the new releases I keep coming back to or the
smaller builder pieces. Having taken the “buy only the things you really love and desire beyond words”
approach to Lolita so far, as well as having somewhat established my style,
preferred colours and cuts, and what other pieces I’m missing, accepting that I
could just splurge on impulse buys if I wanted to comes surprisingly hardIn a way, that’s not a bad approach, as you get to love each piece properly and make yourself happy with things that made up your dreams not that long ago. It’s less good when trying to become a daily Lolita and finding it hard to fall in love with solid colour pieces, but I don’t think I’m quite at that stage yet.
At the same time, I think this way is that little bit more exciting. I don’t know what my next main piece purchase will be, even if I can suspect that it’ll blow my mind somehow and will make my eyes turn into two massive saucers. And I can be sure that it will bring me a lot of excitement and joy because it will be something that I anticipate a lot (at least before I have to figure out where to squeeze it in my already packed wardrobe). And that is quite a lovely thought to have, don’t you think?Is your Lolidrobe full of mostly dream dresses or are you still working on that? I’d love to hear from you (and link me your wardrobe post pictures too, if you can)!
* Photo in the thumb taken from http://reinodemorango.blogspot.co.uk
** All photos taken from Lolibrary.org
I have wishlist dresses, but then I see dresses in sales posts or on secondhand sites and go "oh! That's so much better than the stock photo - I need it!" and they get added to my wishlist (or wardrobe). There's also been dream dresses that I've fallen out of love with, and I wouldn't say I have a definite ultimate dream dress at the minute. I'm just buying what I like (and trying to focus more on accessories and wardrobe widening through blouses and things)
ReplyDeleteI never had the "must buy only dream dresses" approach, and it is fun - I had a dress that I was going to buy from CC this month, and then the AP sale happened and now I own a gorgeous sparkly unplanned pastel explosion and I love it! It works for me because I'm not set on one style (and my wardrobe is nicely rounded so most colours fit), but I can see that if I'd started off with wishlist dresses or at least a set of goals (like, "buy creams, wines and browns") I'd probably have had a more cohesive wardrobe earlier, as well as pieces I'd still be in love with, instead of selling off.
I definitely know that feeling! Sometimes stock photos really don't do Lolita pieces justice - just yesterday I found myself gasping at someone's Rose Stripe Shirring Pinafore JSK from Meta, even though when I look at the stock photo, I think it looks meh. But it has to be the right price, I'm trying to build up my accessories collection as well. I feel as if every time I look through someone's FB sales post, especially with Leaving Lolita type sales, there's never enough hair accessories or socks for me to free them of. :P
DeleteTo be fair, I started with getting pieces that I love. It's mostly accidental that I ended up with certain colours more than others, if I had the money, I know I would've ended up with a lot more colours to try to make work together. Now I've also accepted the bargain hunt approach, although with dresses I tend to keep them bookmarked/saved somewhere and return to them daily to check if: a) the price hasn't dropped further by any chance :P; and b) I still like it just as much as when I first discovered it. Most of the times I end up saying "nah, not this one/not for that price" and move on, but this is also the way I got my first Metamorphose JSK, which I now love to bits, and recently some brand blouses (which were very cheap due to "stains pictured", which I could not make out on those photos at all - we'll see when they arrive).
In my early days in the fashion I created a wishlist of pieces I really loved. I've acquired many of them by now which was been awesome, but I've never been someone who gets too caught up in "needing" to own anything. If I see a wishlist item going for what I consider too much, I won't shell out for it, and will just let it go.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the pieces I own were never on my wishlist, but I saw them up for sale in various places (either online or in person) and immediately fell in love with them. That feeling is special in itself. I like having a set list of pieces as a buying framework, but there's also something so thrilling about unexpectedly coming across a piece you may not even be familiar with and thinking wow, where have you been all my lolita life!?
I'm glad that I don't seem to have very expensive taste for the most part XD
Here's my most recent wardrobe post: http://egl.livejournal.com/20027662.html
That's quite a good strategy. I have sort of a wishlist, and like you - if I spot something I like, but for more than I'd be willing to pay, I move on and hope that next time I'll be more lucky.
DeleteBut I like your way of looking at purchases outside of that wishlist, I think it's a very healthy approach. You're right, sometimes people get too caught up about "needing" something more than anything else in the world, which can blind you to the beauty of other pieces. But if you're willing to look around with an open mind, you can even surprise myself. I thought I was a proper print hoarder and couldn't ever get a plain dress - until I found one or two that really caught my eye, one of which I ended up getting.
Haha, you know, I only just saw your wardrobe post yesterday, but never looked at the username! xP In my usual "get ahead of everything by like 6 months", I was looking at this year's wardrobe posts to figure out how I could improve on my one for next year, and yours was one of the ones which I kept open the longest, as I found loads of things that I could employ myself next year.
I agree-- open-mindedness is really great for wardrobe building! It can be tempting to just go for everything on your wishlist as soon as possible, but you mind end up finding you're left with a wardrobe that's not very cohesive, and full of items that you struggle to wear very often as they are too fancy, seeing as you went after them because they excited you, rather than because you saw yourself wearing them in practical situations! This isn't a problem if you only plan to wear lolita once in a blue moon, but when you want to wear it more regularly, this can cause challenges when coordinating!
DeletePrints are wonderful, but I really love solid colour pieces, too! I think it's because with these pieces, the focus is on the details and construction. I particularly like old school non-print items, and hope to add more of them to my collection.
Haha, that's a funny coincidence! I'm really glad you enjoyed looking at my post :)
That's so true. As much as I love my OTT prints, I find that I don't wear them as often as I'd like to because for more casual situations pieces that are less in your face work a lot better. Hopefully this will change though, the more active I become in my local (and slightly less local) comm.
DeleteThe older non-print pieces are definitely nicer, there's a lot of attention paid to details, but without making them 'too much'. When I look at the non-print series that are coming out now, I find that AP has 1 or 2 go-to themes (e.g. school or polka-dots), Baby tends to just shower things in ruffles and lace way too much and Innocent World does either sailor stuff or pieces that could be vi rage reproductions. I'm still new to following Meta, but I think they might be the only ones who still do nice plain dresses with lovely details, but without making them too much so that you couldn't really wear it casually, if all that makes sense.
I personally went for the dream-dress hunt approach. When I started to wear lolita, I went through lolibrary and through wardrobe posts of people whose styles I liked and made note of the dresses I liked. The wish-list has changed as I got a better grasp of my own aesthetic preferences, but I feel like a print hunter sometimes, since I really fall in love with specific prints!
ReplyDeleteI'm not necessarily attracted by new releases, but I definitely follow a sweets/food theme and collect halloween prints. The most important thing to me is for there to be colorways that match my wardrobe! Pink, Brown, Black, or Ivory, though I will bend the rules sometimes for red or gold if I can still coordinate a piece with what I have.
Other than that, I spend my time stalking sales sites to find that perfect cut/colorway! Though that often means that I neglect accessorizing...
Do you find trouble getting inspiration for the finer details of an outfit (jewelry, headwear, outerwear, etc.)?
I definitely fall in love with prints! It's starting to get to me a little now, when sometimes I might want to wear something a little bit more toned down, but all that I own is big in-your-face prints that are challenging to dress down - but at the same time, I find it more difficult to spend the same amount of money on a non-printed dress that I would on a print one. ^^"
DeleteBut you HAVE TO have the perfect cut and colourway! How could you not? O.O
Hmm, I don't think I have issues with the inspiration part - yeah, I don't always think outside the box, but looking at how other Lolitas accessorise their outfits helps a lot. But I definitely struggle with the actual act of accessorising as I don't necessarily own the things I'd like to pair my JSKs with :P