1 Dress 4 Looks Take 15

This dress turned out to be a surprise in more ways than one. Having received it in a lucky pack this January, Innocent World’s Strawberry Tart first surprised me with the fit and how much I ended up liking it and now with how easy I found it to coordinate in new ways. My worries about reaching another writer’s block point were entirely unjustified and I ended up having to select which outfits to put here.

Look 1: The Wrong Fruit

| Bodyline L553 bolero | AP Drained Cherry OTKs | AP
Twinkle Sky heabow | offbrand/Etsy jewellery | Bodylune
heels |

Although the dress features strawberry tarts, I have exactly zero strawberry themed or strawberry shaped accessories, so opted to do a cherry outfit. Although in all fairness, if you don’t look at the dress too closely, it could literally be any red fruit on it, so since the colour scheme works, so does the coord. Sometimes simple is the best way, so no point going against the current.

Look 2: Autumn Warmth

| Innocent World Torchon Crown Embroidery blouse |
Mufish tights | offbrand boots, beret and bow clip | TPC
x AP collaboration 10th anniversary pin |

The blouse under an OP thing reminds me a lot of oldschool Lolita, when it was a common trend, but here it’s gotten a bit of an update. Because of the theme, the gingham pattern and the cut this dress can feel very much stuck in the summer, which is sad when I’m not always guaranteed a warm enough weather to wear it. So I tried to make it something more appropriate for the colder months and I quite like what came out of this. Still need to see whether this would actually be comfortable to wear, but it’d certainly be toasty!

Look 3: Casual Cookie

| offbrand cardigan | Innocent World Lauretta OTKs | Cutie
Creator headbow | Sosic Shop heels | offbrand bows |

While there aren’t that many browns or beiges in the print, there are some, so why not try a casual sweets-based outfit? The bows on the shoes look awkward on the photo, but work surprisingly aright in real life. Though to be fair, this is actually such a casual outfit that I’d literally put it on with no shoes, just to stay indoors, drink hot beverages and chill!

Look 4: OTT Sweet

| Angelic Pretty Twinkle Sky headbow | Sheena's Bella Bows
apple pie headdress | After Midnight whipped cream
headdress | Innocent World Wendy OTKs | Bodyline heels |
Peacockalorym wrist cuffs | offbran/Etsy jewellery |

Strawberry Tart is the most casual piece in my entire Lolidrobe. it is also the only one to explicitly feature tarts, which makes it perfect to go with my apple pie headdress. I had to try something crazy and see if I could style this dress up to get anywhere near something wearable for a Lolita event or a con and I’m pretty happy with the result, although you kind of have to look beyond the flatlay and imagine it with massive hair and sparkly makeup. This would probably the most comfortable OTT outfit out there, in all fairness, so maybe I will try to give it a spin one day.

As I said, I surprised myself with how easily I put together these coords and how many more I still had in the bank that were left unused. This post also goes to show that you don’t always need entirely different colour schemes to make an outfit that’s clearly different from the previous ones. It’s just as possible to make very varied and distinct outfits whilst sticking to the same two or three colours (in this case: red, white and beige-brown), as long as you have pieces in different styles in these colours and can think creatively when putting them together. This is an important lesson for me personally, since I have a tendency to think that I need to buy something new and different to match my coord, when in fact I probably already have what I need and simply am not thinking enough outside the box to see that.

Do you have a main piece you could style in different ways without changing the colour palette you use? How do you find coording OPs in general? I’m always grateful for tips on styling OPs, since I’m far more used to JSKs and feel like I need loads of cardigans to change up OPs.