2nd Half Year in Coords

As I’ve done a review of the first half of 2019 through my lolita outfits, it’s only fair to look at the second half too. I remember it being very fun to do last time, so let’s do it again!

Coords from July to September.

Coords from September to November.

Coords from November to December.

Last two coords from December 2019.

These are all the outfits I’ve documented between July and now, excluding most of those from the Around Your Wardrobe in 30 Coordinates challenge (since those were taken off as soon as I was done filming/photographing). There were bound to be some outfits that were so casual they didn’t even get a crappy mirror selfie, though those were probably straddling the line of what is and isn’t lolita.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that it’s more than what I had in the first half of the year. I have 29 documented outfits here compared to 24 then, which is noticeable. Whilst to an extent this is more to do with me being better at photographing what I wear, I think there is a grain of truth in that I have worn lolita more. On the one hand, the second half of the year is usually when I wear lolita more. Maybe it’s the cooler weather working with my style, maybe it’s that I do a lot more during that time, or maybe it’s because I suddenly realise that there are only six months of the year left and I barely wore what I own. Probably a combination of all of the above. On the other half, since moving to my own place I definitely have worn lolita out more than I did when living with my parents. My frills aren’t in anyone’s way now, I live in a (way) bigger city where I don’t feel so self-conscious for sticking out like a sore thumb and I can chill in my frills without worrying that they’ll stink of cigarette smoke. An all-round win.

I think there’s also an element here of the more I wear lolita, the less tiring it becomes. Wearing so many layers and generally putting more effort into my look than I would have on an average day will never cease to be tiring. However, both physically and emotionally I am more used to that sensation and it wears me out less. Lolita fashion is becoming my go-to look for most activities I do, from work to cinema trips, and my confidence and comfort level in it are only growing.

Now, speaking purely of the clothes that I wore in the last six months, the reds have finally had their time. My challenge to wear the Winter Spices skirt to work five times has significantly skewed this and I’m not mad at that. A whopping 11 coordinates from the second half of the year feature a main piece in some shade of red, while a further 3 have a prominent red coloured accent. Blues were relegated down to 6, whites/creams were at 9 and other colours at 3, with black, grey and green being worn once each. It’s a nice flip compared to the first half of the year. Whilst it certainly looks to be seasonally driven, as reds are great for both Christmas and for Halloween, I don’t think the season has much to do with my colour choices because whites and creams are a popular choice for me all year round. Have a fancy pie chart to illustrate that and compare it to the first half of the year.

I've added numbers to make this a little clearer.
Click to enlarge.

Though when it comes to substyles, seasons certainly seem to be having an influence there. Whilst in the first half of the year I have had plenty of sweeter coords, the second one feels more classic even despite all these festive outfits. The difference in actual numbers is much smaller than it was in the first half of the year, as boundaries between substyles (particularly sweet and classic) are sometimes quite blurred and outfits can feel more classic or more classic even when objectively they aren't. For the sake of clarity, I didn’t go into any further substyle breakdowns - wa lolita may be a substyle, but my wa looks are definitely more classic than sweet, so why complicate things? And I didn’t feel like making a whole ‘other’ category just for one ouji look, so I again shoved it into the wider style (since it was a classic ouji rather than a gothic or sweet one).

It's an interesting switch between the two halves of 2019.

 

Now, like I said, seasons likely play a part in this. Cooler months fit in with my outfit comfort zone as I like the look of outer layers like cardigans, boleros, jackets and, as I’ve now discovered, haori. Having said this, a lot of my sweeter looks in the first half of the year were worn in winter, in January and February. So weather probably isn’t as big a factor as colour and fabric choices may be. My red pieces are made out of heavier materials compared to the whites and the blues. And reds and darker colours are generally better suited to the latter half of the year when days become shorter.

Having said this, I’d like to break some of my pieces out of their seasonal rut. The good thing with my ‘last worn’ spreadsheet is that I can ensure that everything gets an outing. The downside to that is that, for example, if a piece is worn in January, it often won’t come back to the top of the spreadsheet until the following January. So unless something happens which calls for that specific piece at another time, it will get stuck in that season. This is something that I’d like to tackle a bit more consciously in the coming year. It can be good sometimes, for example, I’m quite glad that I was able to wear Diner Doll both in summer (DMC) and in winter (Stitch’n’Bitch), but I wouldn’t want it to be perpetually stuck to winter now. So I’ll have a look into how I could use my spreadsheet to tackle that.

Overall this year I managed to wear all of my main pieces bar two at least once. Whilst I expected myself to wear some of them more than once, like the skirts which I wear casually a lot, some pieces surprised me. Well, I say some pieces - the Meta Classical Sister OP in particular. When I was buying it, I knew that it would be comfortable and easy to wear, but I did not expect to wear it basically three times now (because despite taking the AYWi30C coord off pretty quickly, I actually managed to go out to the shop whilst still in it, so that counts as being worn, right?). For a collection of 42 pieces, to wear 40 in one year, with some getting several outings, is very good! It’d be great if in 2020 this could be a full circle, everything worn at least once, which doesn’t seem like so much of a stretch right now. Especially as the reasons why the last two dresses (Mary Magdalene’s Paulina JSK and Resailan’s Jewelry Box JSK) didn’t get worn are down to occasion - if I can simply create the occasion for them, the problem should be sorted. Although I realise that I’m throwing that out very lightly and no doubt reality will hit me in the face come next year.

There will be an official 2020 goals post coming in the New Year, so I won’t make any more resolutions now. What I said about wanting to break some dresses out of season-bound spots and to wear everything at least once during the year are more like things to aim for. If I can accomplish them, that’s great. If not - that’s alright too. Based on how things have been going so far, I am confident that next year I’ll do at least as well as I have this year. And as I’m toying with the idea of selling one or two more pieces, if it comes to that, the overall goal might become more manageable. So we’ll see how that goes.

In other words: 2019 was a great year for wearing lolita and many fab outfits were worn. Three of these have been absolute winners in my eyes, so I will leave you with my personal top 3 favourite coords from this year. Were they predictable or has any of these surprised you?

They're ordered like this for aesthetic reasons, although they may just about actually reflect the ranking, if there was one.

Stay tuned for one more reassessment post this year, as well as all the usual New Year’s extravaganza of posts.