What Made Your Dream Dress Your Dream Dress and Has That Changed?

What makes something one’s dream dress varies from person to person. To me this means that all possible factors – the dress cut, print, colour, details, theme etc. – all come together into one whole that knocks me off my feet and wows me to the point of crying and thinking “Why are you so beautiful?!”. To put it a little dramatically… :P I’m lucky in that the majority of the dresses that I do own are my dream dresses, but if I talk about them all it’ll take too long, so I’ll try to narrow it down somehow.

"You can't jump with us!"

My first ever dream dress was Angelic Pretty’s Fantasy Theater Gilet JSK in ivory. From the moment I saw it in person in the AP shop in Kanazawa I knew that I wanted it beyond anything else. The combination of the adorable print which absolutely pops against the neutral ivory background and the very circus feel of the gilet cut is what made me decide there and then that I had to have it. I saved everything I could’ve from the various part-time jobs I held and then purchased it directly in the shop (and if you know that Japan is a cash society, you know how rich I must’ve felt dropping those Y26K or whatever it was in cash on brand). To this day I fall in love with the details on it every time I get it out. The fringe around the gilet is soft as a kitten and the buttons give it that true circus director feel to it. It’s also one of those prints where you see more the more you look at it – like the elitist horses or how cleverly they inserted the ‘AP’ into the print. Needless to say that this still is as much of a dream dress as it was when I first saw it.

They're detachable, but why would you?

Almost immediately after I bought this one, AP released what became many people’s dream dress: Crystal Dream Carnival Tiered JSK in navy. As you can imagine, I was quite gutted – I just spent all my money on another dress and there was no way that I could buy a new one nor was there any way for me to save up enough in the short amount of time that I had (that was around June). Besides, the dress sold out anyway. Again, it was the combination of the lavish cut, with the epaulettes, the full skirt and the overskirt, and the beautiful, magical print with the pegasi and the crystals. I was so, so lucky to get it and to get it at the price that I did (very little over retail for an item that was worn once), but only when I had it in my hands I realised just how detailed and beautiful this dress is. There’s glitter, there are crystal charms, there’s gold trims, there’s horses on the lace… I realise that I’m probably biased, but of all the carnival prints that AP has done this is the most beautiful one.

Hints of delicate pink and green amidst the reds.

Moving away from AP, I must mention Alice and the Pirates’ Sheherazade ~ One Thousand and One Nights ~ JSK I. I used to love One Thousand and One Nights as a kid, I read my copy to bits and knew some of the tales off by heart. It’s not a theme you see in Lolita prints often and I feel like here it’s executed extremely well. I was already back from Japan when it came out, but I saw it on the website. As a student with no income I couldn’t afford it and I thought that it’d be too small for me anyway as I gained a little bit of weight at that time. But I kept going back to it, then lost that weight, then found a job, then went back to the dress… and then found it on an auction, in the cut and colour I was after, and just went for it. My heart was in my throat as I put it on, but not only does it fit, it’s one of the most flattering cuts for me. I love the fabric that it’s made out of and could stare at the tiny details you don’t see on photos, like the little pink flowers or green leaves, forever. I also feel like despite being such a unique theme, it still lends itself to plenty of different styles and coordinations, both casual and OTT. Even though I don’t like the fact that I’ve had to take out the corset lacing to get into it and the straps could be positioned a little bit better, this is still an incredible dress which I doubt I’ll ever part with.

Such a cute bear!

In order to keep this post short, I’ll only mention one more dress, the last dream dress that I managed to obtain: Innocent World’s Revival Sweet Teddybear. You’ve seen me unbox it in February and it is a piece that grew to be a dream dress rather than instantly became one. I’ve only had it for a very short period of time, probably too short to really judge if it still is a dream dress or not, but it definitely is. Despite the eternal struggle of ‘my blues don’t match’, it’s incredibly easy to coordinate and to just put together an outfit. Innocent World is incredibly at balancing Sweet and Classic, so that their Sweet prints don’t feel too overpoweringly or sickly sweet and retain that aura of elegance and class about them. It was definitely worth waiting for and not giving in to temptations for the brown colourway as the blue one truly feels incredible and makes me feel incredible when I wear it. Besides, it’s bears with cakes, how could anyone resist that?

As I said, I could spend pages and pages just writing about every single one, but that’d be way too long – I had to make some selection and the ones here are the ones I feel strongest about. But if anyone’s interested, I could do a part 2 and talk about the rest of the dream dresses? Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to check out what the other bloggers have written:

Floating on Macarons