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.

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!

1. Number of times I wore Lolita: 22 – this works out at 1.83 times per month!
2. Number of meets attended: 8, including one big Lolita event and one hosted by me!
3. 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!
4. 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!
5. Is my wardrobe more versatile than at the beginning of the year: YES – see The Year of Many Outfits!
6. 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?