Outfit Double

I have returned from my trip to Belgium, half refreshed and half tired (a lot of sightseeing and a lot of catching up with long-unseen friends don’t make for a lot of sleep), and I’m all ready to resume business as usual. Despite taking only a small suitcase for a 12 day trip, I manage to pack two Lolita dresses and my Classical Puppets petticoat – packing skills acquired as a student came incredibly useful here, but they did require a little bit of magic as well.

However, although I had enough things to wear a few different outfits with what I brought, I only ended up wearing Lolita twice: on date night with my boyfriend and then on a visit to the Royal Gardens in Brussels. I had packed for a slightly warmer weather, but I’m still happy that I managed to wear both dresses out.

I hope the mirror selfie isn't too poor.
| BtSSB Sugar Bouquet Shirring Princess JSK | IW bolero |
IW Rose and Diamond OTKs | Bodyline tea parties | offbrand
jewellery and hair accessories |

Our date night involved going out for a curry, so I pounced at the opportunity to wear something fully shirred and elegant. And it indeed turned out to be the perfect choice as I felt dressed up enough for a date, yet could have all the curry I wanted (still not managed to finish it, but I enjoyed it all the same). A pair of heels would’ve looked so much better with this outfit, but having packed all my stuff I only had enough room for one pair of shoes so opted for these as ones that go with both dresses. I love how many detachable parts are there on Shirring Princess, the dress almost never looks the same. Next time I’ll definitely do something a bit more well-rounded and suitably Classic.

| AP Diner Doll JSK | AP Creamy Shirring blouse | Metamorphose Heart
Ladder Lace OTKs | Bodyline tea parties | BtSSB ribbon combs (borrowed) |
Peacockalorum wrist cuffs | After Midnight doughnut brooch | offbrand jewellery |

Now, you may wonder why I wouldn’t wear Shirring Princess again, since the Sugar Bouquet print would fit the theme of visiting the Royal Gardens. The answer is that I needed some fresh shot in Angelic Pretty to submit with my modelling application for DMC and out of all AP that I own Diner Doll felt the most wearable in a slightly more casual way. With the friend whom I was visiting, who also wears Lolita, we actually came up with two different versions of this coord before deciding on this, the third one, which mixed elements of the other two. As I didn’t bring my matching cardigan, I wore my leather jacket over this most of the time when not being photographed and discovered that it actually kind of goes (it’s a mocha/light brown biker-style jacket, which fit both the 1950’s diner aesthetic and, surprisingly, the colours) and I’d love to try something more in that direction at some point.

After the gardens, having walked so much throughout my entire stay, we deemed that cake not only was appropriate, but necessary and turned to TripAdvisor for some suggestions. As that was Easter Monday most places were closed, significantly narrowing our search. Mostly at random we picked this place in Etterbeek, just outside Brussels, which is called Au Vatel and we were totally stunned with how utterly divine their cakes were! And this was number 18 on the list of best bakeries/patisseries in Brussels too (probably because it’s not actually in Brussels, so fewer people would’ve reviewed it). If you’re in the vicinity I wholeheartedly recommend this place – the cake pictured here totally blew my head off, I melted, died in a rich chocolate-y nirvana and never wanted to return to any kind of reality.

Absolute foodgasm from Au Vatel <3

I won’t go into detailed accounts of my trip to Belgium, I’ve done so much and this blog is intended to be about Lolita fashion. Overall our focus seemed to have been fashion (we visited three separate fashion exhibitions and would’ve been to a fourth similar one had we not missed the opening hours), food (duh, waffles, chocolate and fries!), strolling around the cities and finding all kinds of weird and wonderful things in each of them (we’ve been to Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, Hasselt, Brussels and very, very briefly to Namur and each was charming and amazing in its own way) and reminiscing about Japan (which is where we met on an exchange programme). I honestly can’t pick a favourite place of these, I’ve seen too little of the French-speaking part of Belgium than I would’ve liked and as I said every city charmed me with something different, though as a total city rat craving city life and luxuries I could imagine myself living in Antwerp – and then travelling around to revisit all the other lovely places!

And there it is – very brief outline of what I’ve been up to this past week, where I’m so happy I’ve managed to squeeze Lolita in. Usual blogging will resume (this trip gave me quite a bit of inspiration, for general posts as well as for getting stuck with some crafting) and I’ll speak to you soon!