The Most Unexpected Lolita Outing

There are certain things that I thought would never mix in my life. Lolita and work was one of them. Then I gradually began shifting my daily style to incorporate lolita pieces until I could no longer say that I’m not wearing lolita to work. But last week something even stranger happened.

Normally this is the part where I talk about my coord, but let’s flip the script on its head for this one post.

Over the summer I had moved offices – still doing the same job, still in the same department, just in a different building. I’ve gone from being in a large open space office, which I still shared with people, but we were so far apart we might as well have been in different rooms, to quite a small one shared with two other people. Both of them have been nothing but lovely and welcoming, and we quickly decided that we should aim to have lunch together every so often just to socialise and get away from our desks and work.

So far we had only had one in like November, but towards the end of January the topic crept up again. I was actually going home when it did, so just said that I’m free any weekday lunchtime, so can work around them. To my surprise, when I came back the next day, we weren’t doing lunch anymore.

We were going to afternoon tea.

Now, I was in as soon as the words ‘afternoon tea’ were uttered. The fact that it was at probably the fanciest hotel in my city and that we had a 2-for-1 voucher and would split the third one was just a bonus. However, I never anticipated that I would’ve gone to afternoon tea with people I knew from work! For me this is an activity I associate strictly with lolita fashion, since I either do it with other lolitas or with my Mum. So after doing a speedy pros/cons mental list, I decided ‘screw it’ and settled on wearing lolita for afternoon tea. With my work colleagues.

Total clash of worlds. Mind. Blown.

Ok, after that very long preface, I guess I can get onto the coord itself.

| After Midnight First Semester JSK | Axes Femme cutsew | vintage necklace | handmade
brooch | everything else is offbrand |

Light was a challenge that day, yet somehow the greens of my coord look pretty accurate here.

This goods lift mirror selfie is all I managed for outfit pic. Having said this, it’s winter, it was particularly cold that day, so I needed to be practical. Therefore everything from my skirt down was pretty boring, just some thermal black leggings and winter boots (same one as here if you’re very curious). I settled on this After Midnight JSK for two main reasons: it’s comfortable and I’ve worn it to work before. So I could be dressed up for the tea without making it too obvious at work that I have dressed up, since at this point all my co-workers know that my style is more dressed up. And even though the greens don’t match, I like how the cutsew and the JSK still complement each other.

Despite knowing that The Midland Hotel offers afternoon tea, I’d never been there, ever. I think it might be because of the two fancy hotels nearby theirs is a bit pricier (probably hence the voucher we had) – I had gone to the other one in the past. As soon as we walked in, I knew that this was definitely the posher hotel of the two, the interior décor simply screamed that.

What threw me off a little was that the café area was basically in a massive open plan space, which it shared with the reception. It was cosy nonetheless, even had fire burning in the fireplace, I’m just used to a little bit more separation.

Very lovely setup, I was genuinely really digging that tea set. (And the teacups were generous size too, which makes me think it may have been a coffee set after all.)

Our spread. Not used to having the schones on top, but they were so lovely I forgive that.

The tea selection was standard, so this is unexciting, yet still delicious Earl Grey.

Our voucher actually entitled us to afternoon tea with a glass of prosecco. I’m not big on fizzy drinks, alcoholic or not, and prefer my alcohols sweet, so after trying a sip I left it out. The tea was pretty nice though. It was standard, both in assortment and quality, when compared to what’s on offer nationwide, but still tasty. Compared to the other hotel, probably better tasting and higher quality – at least from what I can remember of the other one. The custard tart was delicious (and I’m not usually that keen on custard), it was probably my favourite of the lot, though I was impressed with the scones too. Not only were they big, they were still warm by the time we reached for them. I doubt that they were fresh out of the oven, but it was a nice touch.

And as such I had spent a late afternoon/early evening in lolita with people I know from work. I had a lovely time and it was good to know them even better, as they are lovely women. It’s simply the last thing I would ever imagine myself doing.