Frilling in Poland

This post could also work as a mini-study of packing a working capsule wardrobe of frills with you. Because for the 5 days that I spent in Poland, I wore lolita on the various stages of the casual/fancy spectrum every single day. In fact I ended up packing one or two items too many, as those didn’t see any wear, as well as bought one during my stay which did end up being used.

THE OUTFITS

Five days in a row of frilling, from the moment I left the house to the moment I came back.

I'm actually a little impressed with myself at the variety of hairstyles I managed to accomplish and how they affect the looks.

Minimum accessories doesn't have to mean minimum detail.

Rather than go through what each outfit consists of, let me run you quickly through what the various elements are, since they do repeat themselves:

• The main pieces are Violet Fane’s Otome Nostalgia skirt, Violet Fane’s Charming Town skirt, and Angelic Pretty’s Cinema Doll JSK.
• The tops are a Lazy Oaf pink turtleneck cutsew, a pink Axes Femme knit cutsew, an offbrand white cutsew, a DreamV beige cardigan, and a Pretty Rock Baby green cardigan.
• The pink tights are from Red Maria, while the white ones are Uniqlo leggings.
• The Oxford shoes are from Clarks, while the pink ones are from Laura Ashley.
• The beret, pearl hair clips, the bear necklace, and the folk scarf are offbrand.
• The D4 wooden brooch is from Amadea Kingdom.
• The heart earrings are from Big Pink Boutique, while the pom pom ones are from Axes Femme.

As you can see, the selection remains a very practical one without losing anything of the cuteness. Moreover, travelling in lolita can be a far more practical choice than people give it credit for. Despite it being November and a pretty crisp one at that, I was rarely actually cold (and when I was it was mostly my hands because I forgot to bring my gloves). Mixing and matching the base sets with different main pieces, as well as variance in layering (e.g. the green cardigan being left out with Charming Town and tucked in with Otome Nostalgia) help create distinct outfits with fewer pieces necessary. Diversity in hairstyles also helps to further distract from the fact that some of these are just rehashed versions of each other.

THE TRIP

My trip was part necessary (i.e. I had a document I needed to collect) and part nostalgia (wandering around my own home city for the first time in over a decade), so I won’t go into too many details of what I did. The trip itself was not lolita at all, though I couldn’t help but appreciate how beautiful my city is and how many places would make splendid backdrops for photos. So I will leave you with a few prettier snaps to give you an idea and hopefully inspire you to visit Poznań if you can.

THE REACTIONS

More importantly though, this trip was an interesting insight into what sort of responses I elicited by just being out and about dressed as I was. This is something that people wearing lolita are universally concerned with, particularly those newer to wearing the fashion out in public. As someone who regularly wears it around the UK in places big and small, I am now used to attracting a certain degree of attention and if I’m on my own I rarely notice it unless it’s very obvious.

Anyone in Poznań or planning to visit will be pleased to know that my experiences were not at all different from what I get in the UK. As I said, usually I’m on my own, so I tend to get wrapped up in my own little world and ignore a lot of what’s around me as a result. This time I had the benefit of being out in company a few times, so if I missed that someone was staring, friends who were with me pointed it out (mostly with amusement). And from what I gathered, it wasn’t even a particularly rude type of staring, simply that I stood out from the crowd that much. I feel that in Manchester or even generally around the UK it’s much more common to see someone dressed in some form of alt fashion, recently and most notably various levels of weebs and e-girls with a few punks or rockers here or there. This isn’t quite the same in Poznań, despite it being a large city of around half a million people, frequent international trade fairs taking place there and one of the largest cons currently in the country. Though I have passed a handful of younger people, my age or younger, who fit the minor weeb/e-girl moulds, as well as the odd hipster, so it’s not that isolated either.

Besides that, exactly like in the UK, the direct interactions with people that I have had were all positive. A compliment from a stranger, a smile, a bit of kindness once shown to me by a random lady on the street as she pointed out that my skirt had caught and risked indecent exposure… There wasn’t a single point in time where I’d feel uncomfortable or unsafe for standing out from the crowd as much as I did. The worst that I can claim is potentially causing a bit of inconvenience, mostly to myself and potentially for others, as my petticoat has to occupy a certain amount of space, which is again nothing new to anyone who wears this fashion frequently.

AND NEXT TIME

I will definitely plan something a bit less casual and take advantage of being in Poznań by taking some fancy outfit shots on that gorgeous Old Market Square. And hopefully that next time will be in spring or just sometime warmer than November, because as lovely and crisp as it was, it did not inspire me to take my jacket off for an outfit shot.