Very, very few of us are blessed
with unlimited funds or storage space. While budgeting, being strict with
yourself, selling things off or swapping are all great ways to manage that,
there’s another one that I’d like to discuss here: combining wardrobes.
Although casual and oldschool Lolita
are experiencing a bit of a revival as people try to get more wear out of the
piece they spent a lot of money on, the majority of us still have ‘the Lolita
wardrobe’ and ‘the non-Lolita wardrobe’. Both of which consume space and funds.
Sharing pieces between styles is a great way of reducing how much room your
clothes take and you get a better value for money as you can wear things with
various styles. Yes, this approach requires a bit of planning for both (all?)
your styles and may initially cost a bit more, as you’d rather invest in pieces
that can withstand more wear, but will pay off as a long term investment.
Fortunately, there are quite a few styles that would work with Lolita, which I’d
like to introduce to you now.
Tigermilly.com |
Style: Rockabilly/Vintage
Works with: most Lolita substyles,
but especially Classic
Things you can share: blouses,
outerwear, shoes, bags, accessories…
Rockabilly fashion offers so many items
which would easily work with Lolita, available in a vast array of colours and
fabrics. What’s even better about it is that you could hunt bargains in charity
shops and at vintage fair, but you could also buy new items from vintage
reproduction shops such as Hell Bunny or Banned Apparel, and both shopping styles
offer options for a wide variety of sizes. On the other hand, your Lolita
blouses, petticoats, heels and even some dresses (like polka dot or marine
ones) would easily blend with rockabilly, so definitely good styles to blend.
Style: Larme
DreamColouredLife. Wordpress.com |
Works with: Sweet and Classic Lolita
Things you can share: blouses,
outerwear, socks, shoes, bags, accessories
It seems a little obvious, as it’s a
style that many Lolitas will already be aware of, but now that Western high street
shops carry many Larme-appropriate items it is easier to find pieces for
cheaper. On top of faux fur pompoms and chokers we’re now seeing tops, socks,
dresses and skirts that fit the Larme-kei aesthetic in places like Primark,
H&M or Claire’s Accessories. Not all of these would be high enough quality
to combine with Lolita, unless you found items in slightly more upmarket shops,
but certainly good enough for more casual coords or for accessorising. And again,
Lolita blouses and cardigans, as well as some dresses and shoes were made to go
hand in hand with Larme.
Style: preppy fashion
Works with: Classic and Sweet Lolita, potentially some gothic
Things you can share: outerwear, bags, accessories, some tops, some socks and shoes
Pinterest.com |
Style: “geeky” fashion
Works with: Casual, Sweet and some
Gothic Lolita
Things you can share: bags,
accessories, some tops
Amazon.com |
I tried to avoid listing fashion
styles with a more direct connection to Lolita, such as Otome-kei, Goth, Visual-kei or Fairy-kei – we all know where and how these overlap. My aim
was to bridge the gap between Lolita fashion and some common “normie” styles and encourage you to either look for decent loliable items
offbrand (because there are some good ones out there, you just need to look
hard enough and remain patient) or brave using your Lolita items with whatever it is that you wear
daily. Or even to experiment with what it is that you wear outside of Lolita, if you feel like trying something new. And if you can think of any other fashion styles, especially Western
ones, whose items would work with Lolita, then put it in the comments. It could
make for a good resource for all of us thinking of key words to put into search
engines.
One trend in normal fashion I think what would work with lolita as well is maximalistic version of Preppy, the grandmother look. As oddball between Preppy and rockabilly, it does more in huge collars, mixmatched patterns, vintage pussybows, the skirt is not as full as rockabilly, but it is less kitchy look, even it is more clashy pattern mixing, a statement piece, or overload of accesory, again a full range of pastel to dark colours.
ReplyDeleteAlso it has 50-60s dresses, 70s blouses and 80s collars with a sweater over, so it is easily to incoperate it casual. Oxford, cunky soles and kittenheels tends preference, so it is not so hard find something to match.
When I think of what elderly ladies in the West wear, it's not a very flattering image. To me what you've described fits with the true vintage fashion (i.e. no reproductions), maybe mixed with the whole 'grandma's couch/Victorian wallpaper' look that some Classic Lolita dresses go for. Unless we're misunderstanding each other in what we mean - maybe you could link me some photos of what you have in mind?
DeleteVintage or inspired by era, but just no reproductions, since they usaully it is not so great quality.
DeleteFrom my experience, reproduction is kinda like Lolita - there's a lot of poor quality stuff around, but if you know where to shop from they're amazing. All of my reproduction pieces are absolutely top notch quality!
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