Lolita Influences on My Daily Wardrobe

It’s very hard to believe that it’s been just over 3 months since I ditched wearing trousers in an attempt to get more wear out of my clothes, break myself out of a fashion routine and test whether transitioning to a Daily Lolita is something that I could do. It feels like a lot longer and already just the thought of putting on trousers makes me feel somehow uncomfortable and somewhat restricted?, can’t think of a better way to describe it. All of this is undoubtedly thanks to Lolita fashion, and even if what I wear every day is nowhere near Lolita, it’s had a big influence on my style recently. How big? Let me tell you!

I wore this to work for a training day.

For one, I feel that what I wear is generally better coordinated – by which I mean that it is coordinated, rather than just thrown together in the “this is safe to wear and won’t clash together” spirit. I stop to think about what I wear and make sure that I feel comfortable and cute wearing it. And as much as it is a struggle to remember to accessorise early in the morning before dashing off to work, I do try to prepare at least one bit of accessory, be it a hair piece or some jewellery, to add a bit of interest to my outfit. It’s a lot easier now that it’s summer, but I’m hoping to make this more of a habit so that when I get back to work, I’ll continue doing this.

Moreover, I found myself being a little bit more daring with what I put together, the best example of that being this outfit on the photo below. This is just a vintage-y inspired dress I got ages ago in Primark. Usually I’ve worn it on its own with a belt in the middle, but since my passion for Lolita is now bleeding into other areas of my life, I thought to myself: “Can I wear this dress with a blouse, as if it were a JSK?” And to my surprise, I could. And I have, when I received plenty of compliments from my co-workers. I wouldn’t have done that without one of the most fundamental Lolita rules, since blouses under strappy dresses aren’t particularly a thing in Western fashion – and now I have one more way of wearing a piece.

Instantly kawaiifying a fairly plain dress.

Although this hasn’t happened yet, being so engrossed in Lolita also made me consider wearing pastels on a daily basis. At the moment my normal wardrobe consists mostly of reds, blues and whites/ivories, all in either their true colour or jewel tone (except for one peachy pink skirt). I know that Axes Femme does very nice, mature looking pastel pieces, which I could probably wear to work, so I keep an eye for something that I could add and start wearing, leaning more towards pastel blues than pinks. I also keep checking DreamV/Yumetenbo, although they tend to have more cutesy things which I’m not sure if I’d be confident enough wearing to work (at least not all of them). It’s not that I never before considered wearing pastel clothes on a daily basis, it just simply didn’t happen – what you can buy on the high street doesn’t really go as far as pastel tones, unless they happen to be fashionable at the time, and even when I was clothes shopping in Japan my natural instinct was to go towards all the wine and navy pieces. Maybe it’s time I change that and introduce some sax skirts to my wardrobe?

Potentially my new daily makeup routine - less than 3mins and
just as effective, it's a win with me!

And finally, although I don’t do it every day, I started wearing some make-up to work (I stopped now that it’s summer). Usually I don’t bother, as I’d rather have those extra X minutes to sleep rather than paint my face, but I learnt that I could just apply some foundation and blush (which takes all of 2 minutes) and that’s enough to make me look that little bit more polished, as it evens out my skin tone. Recently I also (finally!) bought a neutral tone lipstick, which I could add to this mix, and together with a few new wardrobe additions, I almost can’t wait to get back to work and show it off. But yeah, just like no make-up with Lolita looks a bit unfinished (unless you’re staying at home), wearing a tiny bit of it just like that, with my regular clothes, gives me a little boost of confidence and finishes off the look I carefully thought of and prepared the night before.

As I said, still a long way away from being a Daily Lolita, but I can already see that I’ve developed some very useful habits for it. And even if I don’t end up wearing Lolita on a daily basis, I definitely feel more confident and pretty on a day to day basis, which I didn’t always feel before. Of course, even now there are good days and bad days, however, thanks to all of the things above even on worse days I feel a lot better than I did during my “black jeans and one of these tops” days.

How about you? Has Lolita fashion influenced your style outside of Lolita? Or maybe it’s the other way around and what you wear regularly is influencing your Lolita style? Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to check out what the other bloggers have written:

Pastel Peggy
Rose Nocturnalia 
Poppy Noir