End of Year Lolidrobe Reassessment Post
2016 simultaneously feels as if it
flew by and as if it dragged on forever. I’m glad to see it off and focus on
the adventures ahead, yet at the same time I can confidently say that despite
the political upheaval and so many famous people passing away, it was a good
year for me. Especially in terms of Lolita.
As mentioned in the last Lolidrobe
Reassessment Post, as well as what’s suggested by the title, here I will focus
on recapping the whole year. While the format will remain more or less the
same, I’ve had to make some minor tweaks, like subheading changes, to make it
work.
The
Year of Shopping
There is no shadow of a doubt that
2016 was the year when my Lolidrobe absolutely ballooned! Luckily, it didn’t
expand in new main pieces only – whilst when counting each individual item I
bought absolute loads, these are the items that make my wardrobe that little
bit more cohesive. Although I slowed down with the shopping a little after the
last post, I still bought some new things, which I’ll list briefly in the
brackets (as usual, things marked with a * signify an item that hasn’t arrived
yet). But generally speaking, over the past 12 months I bought:
This is how I felt this year! |
- 8 main pieces
- 16 blouses/cutsews (Classic brown)
- 11 cardigans/boleros/overwear
- 26 pairs of socks/tights (Classic lace OTKs, Classic white x wine tights)
- 6 pairs of shoes (Sax/Aqua tea parties, Classic brown heels)
- 3 handbags (Sweet cookie bag)
- 3 wigs
- 4 pieces of underwear (i.e. bloomers, petticoats, underskirts etc.)
- a whopping 58 sets of accessories (Classic brown headbow, Country ivory headbow, Classic red headbow, Sweet brown hair clips)
- and 1 lucky pack*
Yeah, I know: absolute bloody loads
of stuff. No wonder that I can’t close my wardrobe properly!
The
Year of Many Outfits
Fortunately all this shopping didn’t
go to waste. I started the year with one fairly complete-ish outfit (the one pictured) and a bigger
main piece to builder piece ratio. Now I have enough items to mix things up and
put together a whole variety of complete coords – not only that, should I
decide to go for a look that I can’t quite complete I shouldn’t need more than
a couple of small accessories to finish it off, instead of having to buy a lot
of big pieces. This puts me in a very comfortable position where I can
concentrate on trying to wear out all the looks that I created over the past
year, mainly in my 1 Dress 4 Looks posts, rather than fretting over not having
a versatile blouse or a piece of headwear to match. This doesn’t mean that I
have everything that I need or would like to have, certainly not! But the bits
that I do need are a lot fewer in numbers and should be a lot easier (and
cheaper) to get. Except for additional storage space, that I’ll struggle to
create.
I specifically picked these two photos to show how much has changed this year. And not just because they’re almost exactly one year apart – I chose these primarily because they both have the same dress in it. So rather than show the new main pieces I got you can see how much my coording skills have grown.
I specifically picked these two photos to show how much has changed this year. And not just because they’re almost exactly one year apart – I chose these primarily because they both have the same dress in it. So rather than show the new main pieces I got you can see how much my coording skills have grown.
December 2015 |
December 2016 |
The
Year of Meeting Goals
Entering 2016 I had very clear goals
which I wanted to meet. Rather than your usual New Year’s resolutions, which
often don’t last more than a month, I focused on how I wanted to engage with
the fashion more and phrased these goals in a way that fostered success. You
can read the original list here, which includes some extended descriptions of
what I’d consider a met goal, but below is a quick summary on my progress.
Success across the board! |
- Number of times I wore Lolita: 22 – this works out at 1.83 times per month!
- Number of meets attended: 8, including one big Lolita event and one hosted by me!
- Did I have the agreed amount of money in my account at all times: Yes – and I only needed that amount for one of the dream dresses I purchased!
- Did I pay more attention to seasons with Lolita: Yes, I am now able to create coords for every season of the year and (mostly) regardless of weather!
- Is my wardrobe more versatile than at the beginning of the year: YES – see The Year of Many Outfits!
- Boyfriend Ouji-kei-fication status: will resume in due course.
I admit that at one point I thought
that I wasn’t doing too well, especially with goal no 1, but then things picked
up at a brilliant pace! Adding the fact that I kept this blog going, sometimes
at a furious pace, and got more involved in the online community, particularly
via Amino, it’s safe to call 2016 the Year of Lolita for me.
I won’t go into goals for 2017 just
yet – there is a separate post waiting for that, besides, this is a summary
post. For similar reasons I won’t do my usual list of items that could make my
Lolidrobe go further, that’ll be added to the 2017 goals.
Final thoughts? I think I’ll
continue with the regular reassessing of my wardrobe. It was a very effective
way of keeping my spending at least a little bit in check, as well as keeping
track of the things I really needed, the two being very strongly linked to each
other. I’m not really anticipating myself buying as much as I did this year,
although that will be quite dependent on the things that brands will release in
2017 (I can’t really predict a new dream dress appearing, can I?). Having said
that, I am planning on going to Japan, where I could end up impulse buying a
lot easier than I would protected by the physical distance and only seeing the
items on a screen. So we’ll see how that goes.
How was 2016 for you? Did you buy a
lot of things or focused on a few that were really needed? Have you managed to
attend all the meetups that you wanted to go to? Did you wear Lolita as often
as possible? Was it generally a good year for you?
The amount of blouses is stunning. I did buy 3... I kept ny plan to only buy 2 mainpieces, sadly was bourbon dynasty not one of them.
ReplyDeleteAlso aded 2 blazars and 3 pairs of otks.
Next year I would add more red & black, more skirts, more of everything.
The fact that this year I was working full time and actually could afford to spend quite a lot of money on Lolita contributed a lot to this. If I had to save for things it wouldn't have been nearly as much.
DeleteI'd love to add green to my wardrobe, but that's a very tricky colour to find, actually.
Green is a shade I want more in wardrobe together with mustard(a weird shade, but I look good in it). But tricky colour indeed if you looking something else than mint.
DeleteMustard was so big in regular fashion a few years back and I really didn't like it then. Now I accept that other people can look good in it, but I wouldn't go for it myself.
DeleteI never like mustard when it was fashionable, but it is colour I look really great in. In my ordinary wardrobe I want more jewltones, since I look great in them.
DeleteI like jewel tones too, definitely something that suits me and that I could use more of in both my wardrobes.
Delete