What Is Your Most Memorable Moment Since Joining The Fashion

The wonderful thing about Lolita fashion is that it’s so much more than just fashion. We have created ourselves a community, be it in person or online, and even when we don’t consider ourselves to be lifestyle Lolitas, the fashion has become an important part of our identity and daily routine. So it’s only natural that we build a whole bank of memories – some better and some worse – to look back on throughout the years.

I struggled to pick just one moment. Despite first wearing Lolita six years ago, I only really embraced the community spirit about three years ago – but in that time so many things have happened that I love to look back on as these memories bring me joy. Granted, some of these were little things, comments someone has made that built me up more than any other compliment could have done, so my focus here will be on the bigger things that I’ll recount in chronological order.

Which means that I must start with my first meet. Specifically, the part where the official meet was over, most people went home and a handful of girls, including me, stayed behind to chat some more. It was a pretty massive meet, so while the organiser made sure that people spoke to each other through games, as is common at meets like this, people broke off into smaller friendships groups. As a newbie, even one who chatted to people on the comm’s Facebook page before, I needed that moment with fewer people to feel really comfortable and get to know people – and even though they were sometimes discussing things that were new to me (e.g. referencing past TPC events), they never made me feel excluded from the conversation and treated me just like they treated themselves. Thanks to this and to these ladies I felt like I really was a member of the comm from my very first meet.

Image from ParfaitDoll.com

Then there was Wicked and Whimsy – I could just leave it at this because every single part of this was an utterly magical experience, full of firsts, yet at the same time feeling somehow like a reunion. It seems fair to say that everyone remembers their first big Lolita event. However, from all this one thing stand out to me as particularly memorable: the hostel experience. Whether it was luck or divine intervention, I’m so grateful that I got to share the hostel room with Tinker Tale, for whom this was also the first TPC event. We hit it off straight away and hardly ever had a quiet time (except when we slept), we were able to help each other out and get into that sisterly spirit of Lolita fashion through this. While I would’ve been fine if it was just me in that room, sharing it with her made the trip infinitely better and I’m so excited to share the room with her again this year (and two other lovely Lolitas, no muggles this time!).  On top of this there were the long talks and random shenanigans in another group’s room, which ended up almost like a Lolita Fun HQ, where we congregated before and after official events and just chatted. This year it seems like our last year’s group is a little bit more spread out, we have a few breakaways who are in a different hotel/hostel altogether, but I’m sure we’ll still be meeting up for dinners etc.

A start of a wonderful friendship

Organising a meet myself was another one. It’s almost like I’m going through the steps to a rite of passage here with these examples, but it’s no surprise that the firsts are the most memorable moments. It felt all the more special as I put extra effort in to make it something different and introduced something that was part of my cultural heritage. Because of this it would’ve been all the more upsetting if the meet was a flop – but it didn’t flop. It wasn’t perfect, I have reflected on the things that I could have improved upon and will put that knowledge to work when organising the next meet, however, hearing positive feedback at the end was absolutely amazing! And it made me want to try harder for these amazing people next time.

Photo by Holly.

As I said, many of these memorable moments were little comments made by various people that have stuck with me: a comm member saying that I looked different every time she saw me, Haenuli calling me a ‘perfect cupcake’, someone’s surprise at a reminder that my first meet was only 8 months prior to that conversation… There are also some typical Lolita memorable moments, like getting your dream dress, crafting your first item for a coord and having it come out good, or someone sharing a blog post you made because they thought it was useful/well-written/helpful to others. What’s memorable will vary between individuals because it’s grounded in our personal experiences. Probably everyone will find their first comm meet memorable, but the reasons why will be different for each person, which makes posts like these utterly fascinating to read.

What have been your most memorable moments since joining the fashion? Have you had anything out of the ordinary happen to you that stuck in your head? Any funny or weird (or even scary) stories that you feel comfortable sharing? I’m very curious indeed and can’t wait to read what the other participating bloggers have written!

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