Tricolour of Boleros
Probably all Classic lolitas know that the ultimate of all
boleros is the one from Innocent World. I will let you in on a little secret:
they’re not all one and the same. You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise and
truth be told, I have learnt that only recently myself, after getting two more
of these. Because they are good enough to get them in other colours!
For a while I had wanted this bolero in navy. It was tricky
to find another navy bolero that would be as dressy and as flattering as this
one, although at the same time I genuinely just wanted this one. Unfortunately,
Innocent World has only ever released this bolero in navy with gold lace three
times (once it was all navy and once it was navy with gold lace, but chiffon
sleeves), so hunting it down second hand took time. And as soon as a friend
linked me to the Lacemarket listing, the ivory one popped up on Wunderwelt for
a price too good to pass up on! Only then, when trying to identify the release
years, I realised that they were all slightly different.
In the most lolita way possible, the lace was a dead
giveaway. I mean, even the listings distinguish the Millefeuille bolero by the
type of lace used! Hence we have here the rose lace bolero (wine, 2016 release), the
ribbon lace (navy, 2015 release) and the tulle one (ivory, 2011 release).
On the other side, the wine and navy releases have only a
singular layer of lace along the front, whereas the tulle lace one has two
layers and of two slightly different patterns (still custom made and with the
same flowers though).
Another thing I noticed whilst ironing the boleros was that
the newer releases attach the lace at the neckline with one stitch on the side, which the older design doesn’t have. This
ensures that the lace stays in place, displayed nicely, instead of folding in
on itself.
Last difference is actually not noticeable, but quite
crucial: the care tags. Whilst the ivory bolero’s washing tag happily welcomed
me with reassurances that it can be washed on delicate in 30°C, the two coloured ones have the ‘do not wash wet’ sign on. It can’t be
to do with fabric, as they’re all 100% cotton, so it’s either to do with colour
(although neither of the coloured ones bled when handwashed in warm water) or
year of release and washing preferences then. Needless to say, the ivory one
survived its washing machine treatment and from now on I will throw the
coloured ones in there too, although always on a cold cycle and in mesh bags
for extra protection.
Now I’m missing the black, brown, pink and pure white ones
to complete my collection. If I wanted to be really pedantic about collecting
everything, also the original, shell and cross lace (although from what I can
tell on Lolibrary, the original lace looks exactly the same as the ribbon
lace?), as well as the pure smooth bolero, which doesn’t state which lace it’s
using, but which is different from the other ones. And I’m not going to lie,
the prospect of gathering them all is pretty tempting!
Ahhhh so pretty! Once I get my weight to a point where I comfortably fit Innocent World I also intend to start a full on bolero collection, my goals are brown, wine and pink to start with...
ReplyDeleteI feel like this model is quite generous. Because it's cut slightly deeper on the bust and closes with ribbons, it can accommodate larger chests. All of mine are size L and at 94cm bust I can tie these without any gaps between the two halves, so there shouldn't be much issue with accommodating a larger chest. However, I would be mindful of the shoulder measurement. The official measurements chart says the L goes up to 35cm shoulders - I'm like 38cm and definitely can feel it. It doesn't restrict my movement that much, I can still raise my arms pretty much as normal (although the bolero usually rides up if I go too high), but I'm not sure if there's that much more room left to accommodate larger shoulder frames. If you ever get a chance to try it on first before committing to buying your own, I'd definitely recommend that, if your shoulder measurement falls into a more ambiguous category. If it doesn't, you're probably good to go with size L already :)
DeleteThat's good to know, thank you ^__^
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